(June 21, 2010) Numerous California Chamber of Commerce-opposed “job killer” bills remain alive and will be considered by legislative policy committees in the coming weeks.

Below is a listing of those bills and scheduled hearing dates.

“Job killer” bills marked with an asterisk (*) are tax proposals or urgency measures that have yet to win approval from the fiscal committee in the house where they were introduced. These bills are unlikely to move, but the concepts in the legislation probably will be considered as part of the larger budget discussion in the coming weeks.

Costly Workplace Mandates

• AB 482 (Mendoza; D-Norwalk) Expanded Employer Liability. Increases potential liability exposure for hiring decisions by unduly restricting the ability of businesses to use consumer credit reports as part of the background check process. Hearing June 29 in Senate Judiciary Committee.
• AB 2187 (Arambula; I-Fresno) Expanded Employer Liability. Creates a significant disincentive to locate jobs and operations in California by potentially criminalizing almost any legitimate wage dispute with a terminated employee that takes longer than 90 days to resolve. Hearing June 23 in Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.
• SB 810 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Government-Run Health Care. Creates a new government-run, multibillion-dollar socialized health care system based on a yet-to-be specified “premium structure”—in essence, a tax on all employers. Hearing June 29 in Assembly Health Committee.
• SB 1121 (Florez; D-Shafter) Harms California Farms and Farm Workers. Places farms at a competitive disadvantage, increases cost of doing business for California farmers, and reduces available resources to invest in workers and farms by removing overtime exemption for agricultural employees. Hearing June 23 in Assembly Labor and Employment Committee.
• SB 1474 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Increased Agricultural Costs. Undermines the process that now guarantees through secret-ballot elections, a fair vote and the expression of agricultural employees’ true sentiments on the selection of a collective bargaining representative. This act will hurt California’s businesses by driving up costs, making employers less competitive in a global market. Hearing June 23 in Assembly Labor and Employment Committee.

Economic Development Barriers

• AB 656 (Torrico; D-Fremont)/AB 1604 (Nava; D-Santa Barbara)/ABX6 1 (Nava; D-Santa Barbara) Gas Price Increase. Increases gas prices and dependence on foreign oil by targeting the oil industry for a tax on only oil extracted in California, in addition to other taxes not levied in other states. AB 656: Hearing June 23 in Senate Education Committee. AB 1604: In Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee. ABX6 1: In Assembly.
• AB 846 (Torrico; D-Fremont) Anti-Business Cost Increases. Significantly increases the cost of doing business in California by placing an automatic increase on fines and penalties without legislative review and encourages state agencies to levy the highest fine and penalty allowed. Hearing June 22 in Senate Governmental Organization Committee.
• AB 1405 (De León; D-Los Angeles) Climate Change Tax Increase. Increases costs and discourages job growth by granting the Air Resources Board broad authority to implement unlimited fees and taxes with little or no oversight. In Senate.
• AB 1836* (Furutani; D-South Los Angeles County) Increased Tax Burden. Harms small businesses, many of whom pay taxes under the personal income tax system, by imposing another temporary personal income tax increase on top of the existing personal income tax increase that was passed in last year’s budget. Held in Assembly Revenue and Taxation.
• AB 1935* (De León; D-Los Angeles)/ SBX6 18* (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Discourages Business Growth in California. Raises taxes for many companies with significant investments of property and payroll in California by making the single sales factor apportionment method mandatory. AB 1935 held on Assembly Appropriations Suspense File. SBX6 18: Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee.
• AB 1936* (De León; D-Los Angeles) Creates Inequity in the Tax Structure. Harms struggling small businesses and start-ups by repealing the Net Operating Loss (NOL) carry back deduction, a lifeline that helps employers stay afloat, retain employees, and continue investing in their businesses in an economic downturn. Held on Assembly Appropriations Suspense File.
• AB 2100* (Coto; D-San Jose)/ SB 1210* (Florez; D-Shafter) Targeted Tax Increase/Flawed Budget Philosophy. Threatens jobs in beverage, retail and restaurant industries by arbitrarily and unfairly targeting certain beverages for a new tax in order to fund obesity-prevention programs and services. AB 2100: Assembly Revenue and Taxation. SB 1210: Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Suspense File.
• AB 2492 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Higher Employer Property Taxes. Undermines Proposition 13 protections and could result in higher property taxes for small businesses by creating an arbitrary and unfair standard for determining that a business property has changed ownership and needs to be reassessed. Assembly Floor.
• ACA 6 (C. Calderon; D-Montebello) Discourages Investments. Discourages investments in jobs and operations by imposing an automatic sunset of seven years on any new or extended tax credit, exemption or deduction. Assembly Floor.
• ACA 22* (Torlakson; D-Contra Costa) Targeted Tax Increase/Flawed Budget Philosophy. Exacerbates state budget problems and harms tobacco industry by unfairly targeting it for a new cigarette tax, a declining revenue source, to fund new government spending programs. Assembly Governmental Organization Committee and Assembly Revenue and Taxation.
• SB 967 (Correa; D-Santa Ana) Restricts Business Options. Limits choice and drives up prices for consumers and for state and local government by providing a preference to bidders who commit that 90 percent of the work will be performed by California employees. Hearing June 29 in Assembly Business, Professions and Consumer Protection.
• SB 974 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Undermines Economic Development. Threatens California’s economy and economic recovery by effectively gutting the California Enterprise Zone (EZ) program hiring tax credit and in turn increasing employer taxes in order to fund a new education tax credit. Assembly Jobs, Economic Development and the Economy.
• SB 1272 (Wolk; D-Davis) Discourages Investment. Creates uncertainty for California employers making long-term investment decisions by requiring all future-enacted investment incentives to sunset after seven years. Hearing June 28 in Assembly Revenue and Taxation.
• SB 1275 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Delays Residential Construction Industry Recovery. Hinders recovery of the residential construction industry by reducing the availability of credit due to delays in resolving delinquent loans by requiring lenders to determine a borrower’s eligibility for a loan modification prior to the filing of a
  notice of default. Hearing June 21 in Assembly Banking and Finance Committee.
• SB 1316 (Romero; D-East Los Angeles) Employer Tax Increase. Places California out of step with federal law and creates a disincentive for multi-state companies to invest in California by making it the only state to impose a tax liability when a company needs flexibility to exchange a California property with one owned in another state. Hearing June 23 in Senate Revenue and Taxation.
• SB 1391 (Yee; D-San Francisco) Creates Employer Tax Credit Uncertainty. Eliminates the incentive effect of future-enacted tax credits by requiring employers to repay the state for credits claimed in years where their businesses experience a net loss of employees, whether or not the reduction of employees was connected to the effectiveness of the credit. Hearing June 28 in Assembly Revenue and Taxation.

Expensive, Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens

• AB 479 (Chesbro; D-North Coast) Expanded Waste Bureaucracy. Exposes employers to new requirements that may be unworkable or not cost effective by giving government broad new authority to impose programs that achieve a statewide solid waste diversion rate of 75 percent by 2020. Senate Appropriations Suspense File.
• AB 2578 (Jones; D-Sacramento) Inappropriate Price Control. Reduces health care choices, access and quality by creating additional bureaucracy to impose price controls on health insurance policies while failing to address the major cost drivers of rising medical costs. Hearing June 23 in Senate Health Committee.

Inflated Liability Costs

• AB 1680 (Saldaña; D-San Diego) Interferes with Contractual Agreements. Burdens businesses with unnecessary litigation costs and slows resolution of disputes by prohibiting enforcement of voluntary arbitration agreements if someone is being sued for a hate crime. Hearing June 29 in Senate Judiciary Committee.
• AB 2773 (Swanson; D-Alameda) Undermines Judicial Discretion. Unreasonably increases business litigation costs by removing judicial discretion to reduce or eliminate exorbitant legal fees in fair employment and housing cases. Hearing June 29 in Senate Judiciary Committee.