BY LYNN LA MARCH 22, 2024
https://calmatters.org/newsletter/california-legislature-health-tax-housing/
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi speaks during the floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Feb. 20, 2024. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters
Thursday marked the final day for the Legislature before its starts a week-long spring break. So lawmakers were busy proposing and hearing some bills on contentious issues with deadlines coming up in late April and early May for them to advance.
Before leaving Sacramento, legislators also approved two pressing measures and sent them to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
One is a bill to increase the state’s tax on managed care health plans. As part of a strategy to increase tax revenue and reduce the state budget deficit, the state can increase the Managed Care Organization tax on Medi-Cal insurance plans and commercial plans and use that money to request matching federal dollars. The tax contributes about $1.5 billion in general fund revenue a year, according to the California Budget & Policy Center.
Another bill heading to Newsom’s desk extends the state deadline for college financial aid applications to May 2. The measure is in response to a glitch that prevents students with parents without Social Security numbers from applying.
Lawmakers also took on affordable housing. CalMatters housing reporter Ben Christopher writes that Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, both Democrats, rolled out a new bill Wednesday that would put the financial squeeze on cities found by a court to have violated state housing law.
Supporters might call it the “Make NIMBYs Pay” Act.
Sponsored by Bonta’s office and introduced by Wiener, the bill would require courts to slap scofflaw cities with a minimum fine of $10,000 per month. The cities would begin racking up legal debt starting on the day they stop following the law.
Currently courts can only start tacking on monetary penalties after giving cities at least 60 days to come into compliance.
- Wiener, on social media: “Cities thus have no incentive to avoid a lawsuit by following the law. Worst case, they get sued, lose & comply. SB 1037 creates actual incentives to comply with the law.”
Money collected under the bill would go toward “the development of affordable housing located in the affected jurisdiction,” the bill reads.
Since becoming the state’s top prosecutor in 2021, Bonta has enthusiastically assumed the role of California’s housing cop, suing the cities of Coronado and San Bernardino for failing to plan for enough new housing as required by a newly turbocharged state law. His office has also sued the cities of Elk Grove (for rejecting an apartment complex for the unhoused), La Cañada Flintridge (for refusing to streamline a mixed-income project) and Huntington Beach (for refusing to permit new duplexes and accessory dwelling units).
If the bill becomes law, it would only apply to violations made after Jan. 1, 2025.