Capitol Corner | June 2024
May was another in a long line of busy months in the State Capitol, with the key themes being bill deadlines and the budget.
Regarding the budget, the Governor on May 14 revealed his “May Revise” budget which reflects economic factors of the past three months and what ended up being a sizable reduction in tax revenues collected by their state during that period and therefore a larger budget deficit than was expected. As a result, the second half of the month consisted of Budget Committees and subcommittees in both the Assembly and Senate trying to make sense of the numbers and position themselves for spending negotiations with the Governor which are ongoing and will continue to the June 15 budget deadline and beyond. It is virtually guaranteed that a budget framework deal will be finalized by that date if for no other reason than because current state law mandates that legislators are not paid if a budget is not approved by that date. So expect a long line of budget trailer bills in the next few weeks and months implementing whatever agreements are made between the Newsom Administration and legislative leadership negotiators on spending.
On the topic of deadlines, May 17 was the deadline for fiscal committees to pass house of origin bills and to decide how many measures will go to the floor and how many will be “held” on the Appropriations Committees’ suspense files. The Senate ended up sending 70% of their bills to the floor and held 30%, while the Assembly sent 65% to the floor and held 35%. The other deadline of significance was on May 24 when bills had to be approved in their house of origin and sent to the other body. This resulted in long floor sessions during the week before Memorial Day while legislators fought to have their bills move across the Capitol. Additionally, on the last day of May, the Governor signed into law SB 828 (Durazo), a bill to delay implementation of the $25 health care minimum wage implementation by one month to July 1. All this being said, expect the month of June to be another frenzied legislative experience with the June 14 budget deadline looming.