(August 4, 2008) To help California Chamber of Commerce members assess their legislators’ vote record, CalChamber has released a report focusing on California’s legislators’ floor votes on job creator and “job killer” bills.

With just four weeks remaining before the scheduled end of the legislative year, numerous bills of priority are still moving through the legislative process.

The vote record is published in response to numerous requests by member firms and local chambers of commerce that would like a gauge by which to measure their legislator's performance.

To help readers assess legislators' vote records, the charts group bills in five areas: employment law, environmental regulation, excessive litigation, health care and taxes.

The following are descriptions of the bills in the CalChamber’s tally of how legislators have voted on job creator bills and “job killers” so far this year.

Former “job killers” shown in the vote record still contained “job killer” provisions at the time of the vote.

View the vote record.

Job Creators

• AB 1394 (Krekorian; D-Burbank) Trademark Protections. Improves protections of trademark owner rights and consumer health and safety by strengthening California laws against trafficking of fake products such as auto parts, prescription drugs and children’s toys. Passed Assembly, January 28, 75-0.
• AB 2987 (Benoit; R-Bermuda Dunes) Supplemental Job Displacement Benefits. Harmonizes provisions in current law to ease administration of return-to-work provisions in workers’ compensation law. Passed Assembly, May 8, 75-0.
• SB 1608 (Corbett; D-San Leandro) Advancing Disability Access. Comprehensive reform that increases public access for individuals with disabilities while reducing unwarranted litigation, including by encouraging use of state-certified disability access specialists and establishing court procedure for early judicial review of lawsuit claims. Passed Senate, May 29, 40-0.

Job Killers

Barriers To Affordable Housing

• AB 1065 (Lieber; D-Mountain View) Construction Costs Increase. Substantially increases the cost of housing and development in California by implementing significant energy efficiency measures for all new residential and commercial buildings without regard for the additional costs that will be passed on to consumers. Passed Assembly, January 29, 42-32.
• AB 2046 (Jones; D-Sacramento) Construction Jobs Loss. Before amendments, would have halted construction of housing, cost construction jobs and provided a disincentive to clean up groundwater by inappropriately denying use of some groundwater resources as a stable water supply. As amended, requires water agencies to specify remediation and financial plans for groundwater that will be used as a water supply in the future, so no longer considered a “job killer.” CalChamber still opposes because the bill exposes residential and commercial development projects to more litigation by requiring a level of specificity and certainty in urban water management plans that may not be possible. Passed Assembly as “job killer,” May 29, 43-31.
• AB 2112 (Saldaña; D-San Diego) Construction Costs Increase. Substantially increases the cost of housing, interferes with the utilities’ ability to meet the AB 32 carbon cap mandates and drives up the cost of AB 32 compliance through increased utility bills by mandating on-site energy generation and efficiency standards for all new residential buildings. Passed Assembly, May 28, 42-34.
• AB 2153 (Krekorian; D-Burbank) Construction Jobs Loss. Imposes an unconstitutional developer fee on new residential and commercial development that will be used to finance water conservation strategies in existing communities by requiring that all new development be water-demand neutral. Failed passage in Assembly. Failed passage in Assembly, May 29, 30-37.
• AB 2705 (Jones; D-Sacramento) Construction Jobs Loss. Makes new housing less affordable, risks the loss of construction jobs and squeezes support for maintenance costs for parks and schools by expanding Mello Roos Fees to include financial support of transit services. Passed Assembly, May 15, 41-33.

Costly Workplace Mandates

• AB 2279 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Employee Safety Risk. Hurts employee safety and employers’ right to maintain drug-free workplace policies and exposes employers to potential litigation by prohibiting employers from refusing to hire applicants or fire current workers who use medical marijuana. Passed Assembly, May 28, 41-35.
• AB 2716 (Ma; D-San Francisco) Employer Benefit Mandate. Unreasonably expands employer’s costs and liability by mandating a specific paid sick leave policy. Passed Assembly, May 28, 45-33.
• SB 1115 (Migden; D-San Francisco) Workers’ Compensation Reform Roll Back. Increases workers’ compensation costs and rolls back the workers’ compensation reforms from 2004 by making apportionment very difficult to prove. Passed Senate, March 10, 23-13.
• SB 1717 (Perata; D-Oakland) Workers’ Compensation Reform Roll Back. Increases workers’ compensation costs and rolls back the workers’ compensation reforms from 2004 by arbitrarily doubling permanent disability benefits and altering the 15 percent bump up/down provision in current law. Passed Senate, May 27, 23-14.

Economic Development Barriers

• AB 1840 (C. Calderon; D-Montebello) Internet Tax. Encourages companies that provide services via the Internet and which operate and provide jobs in California to move their operations out of California. Failed passage in Assembly, May 27, 18-37.
• AB 2447 (Jones; D-Sacramento) Construction Job Loss. Severely limits residential and commercial development to a degree that it could virtually shut down any suburban development in certain areas of California by prohibiting the approval of development in fire-risk areas without a mitigating finding by the city or county. Passed Assembly, May 29, 43-34.
• AB 2514 (Eng; D-Monterey Park) Costly Construction Delays. Delays construction of commercial and residential projects and obstructs normal agricultural practices by requiring an unworkable resolution to disposition of human remains that are not Native American. Passed Assembly, May 27, 42-31.
•  AB 2678 (Núñez; D-Los Angeles) Building Energy Audits. Before amendments, would have threatened already-beleaguered existing housing and commercial real estate markets by establishing a process to adopt mandatory time-of-sale energy efficiency audits without any specificity on what would ultimately be required by the audits. Former “job killer” now requires the California Energy Commission to develop a regulatory strategy to help address energy efficiency of existing residential and commercial buildings. Passed Assembly as “job killer,” May 28, 44-33.
• SB 1165 (Kuehl; D-Santa Monica) Infrastructure and Construction Jobs Loss. Jeopardizes economic growth by restricting environmental impact statements to a five-year lifetime which will delay permitting of the project and open the door for frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to block the project. Failed passage in Senate, May 29, 17-18.

Expensive, Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens

• AB 2546 (De La Torre; D-South Gate) Interference of Goods Movement. Increases the cost of moving goods and jeopardizes rail yards by setting up an unreasonable requirement to regulate the emissions from mobile emitters that visit their facility even if they have no control over the mobile sources. Passed Assembly, May 28, 44-32.

Fuel Price Increases

• AB 2558 (Feuer; D-Los Angeles) Climate Change Tax. Assesses an unconstitutional tax on businesses and consumers in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area by imposing a tax by a majority vote on either motor vehicles or vehicle fuel. Passed Assembly, May 27, 42-33.
• ABX3 9 (Núñez; D-Los Angeles) Gas Price Increase. Imposes a billion plus- dollar tax increase on California oil companies which would result in higher gas prices for consumers, increased dependence on foreign oil, and further damage to our already-suffering economy. Failed passage in Assembly, March 12, 45-30.
• SB 1240 (Kehoe; D-San Diego) Restrictive Fuel Standard. Interferes with the development of a competitive alternative fuels market and threatens job creation in California by creating a costly Low Carbon Fuel Standard that conflicts with the existing standard created by Governor’s Executive Order S-7-04. Passed Senate, May 27, 23-15.

Inflated Liability Costs

• SB 1113 (Migden; D-San Francisco) Incentive to Sue. Expands reward to plaintiffs for costs of litigation stemming from private attorney general actions while providing no cost recovery for those who must defend themselves against such actions, even if those actions are found to be baseless. Passed Senate, May 15, 23-14.

View the vote record.