California Jobs First Veto Watch

With California’s unemployment crisis continuing to escalate, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton (Rancho Cucamonga) is urging Governor Jerry Brown to veto all legislation that adds more Californians to the unemployment line and to immediately call a special legislative session on jobs.

“California’s unemployment rate increased for the third straight month to 12.1 percent in August.  That’s 2.1 million people looking for work in this state. That’s an outrage,” said Dutton.  “The governor must take two actions immediately; veto all job-killer bills and call the Legislature back to Sacramento for a special session to craft a comprehensive, bipartisan jobs plan.”

In a September 8 letter, Dutton urged the governor to call a special session on jobs. The governor has yet to respond.

Following is a sampling of job-killer bills awaiting the governor’s signature or veto:

Assembly Bill 22 (Mendoza-D) makes it illegal for most employers to run a credit check on current or prospective employees, unless the information in the report is “substantially job-related,” and for a managerial position.  By unreasonably restricting the ability of employers to utilize consumer credit reports when making employment-related decisions, AB 22 will be an added impediment to hiring in California.

Assembly Bill 183 (Ma-D) would prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages through self-service checkout systems. The bill is touted as an effort to reduce the under-age consumption of alcoholic beverages, but it’s a needless intrusion by state government attempting to dictate business practices.

Assembly Bill 514 (Hernandez-D) will force schools and local governments to pay the prevailing wage to contractors hauling recyclable debris – including dirt, concrete and asphalt – away from construction projects and other job sites. This bill will change the pay rates for waste hauling that have not been factored into existing contracts schools and local governments entered into for waste hauling, costing these public agencies additional, unbudgeted money.

Assembly Bill 559 (Swanson-D) exempts many civil actions brought pursuant to any provision of the Fair Employment and Housing Act from the statute that provides discretion to judges to determine costs, if the prevailing party recovers a judgment that could have been rendered in a limited civil case, where recovered damages were under $25,000.

Assembly Bill 1319 (Butler-D) will ban the manufacture, distribution and sale of an entire class of products designed to feed infants and young children.   Specifically, the bill outlaws food and beverage bottles and cups containing bisphenol A (BPA), a compound that’s used to soften otherwise brittle plastic products.

Assembly Bill 1086 (Wieckowski-D) would allow the Legislature to authorize Alameda County to put a tax increase on the 2012 ballot which would bring the local sales and use tax over the statutory limit of two percent, bringing the total to over 10 percent for taxpayers in that region. The taxpayer advocacy group CalTax states that if this bill is signed into law, California will have the highest combined tax rate in the nation.

Senate Bill 508 (Wolk-D, Davis), would automatically eliminate state tax credits, regardless of whether they create jobs or stimulate the economy, in order to measure their effectiveness. SB 508 will impose a 10-year sunset on all new personal and corporate tax credits that are signed into law after January 1, 2012. A similar bill was vetoed last year.

“If the governor is serious about putting California jobs first, he will veto these bad bills and call a special session.  Actions speak louder than words,” said Dutton.

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