September 19, 2019

The Legislature adjourned on Friday the 13th after one of the strangest end-of-sessions in recent history. It included accusations of flame-throwing and a lack of decorum among legislators and was briefly halted after a protester threw blood onto the Senate Floor.

Despite all of this, the Legislature completed the people’s business and adjourned the first year of its 2019-20 Legislative Session. This year, legislators saw an opportunity to advance bills that were previously thwarted by Governor Brown and reintroduced numerous pieces of legislation that had drawn a veto in years past. In total, members of the Legislature introduced 3,033 bills and passed 1,341, including many affecting county services. So far, the Governor has signed 563 bills and vetoed six, leaving 772 enrolled bills awaiting his action by October 13.

CSAC staff advocated on behalf of counties on critical issues from emergency disaster response to the homelessness crisis to In-Home Supportive Services. CSAC testified before dozens of policy and budget committees, wrote hundreds of advocacy letters, and had countless meetings with legislators, Capitol staff, and the Administration, including on the following county priorities:

• Homelessness CSAC worked closely with the Administration and the Legislature to address the growing homelessness crisis in California. The budget package ultimately signed into law includes more than $650 million of new funding to assist local governments in addressing homelessness with locally-driven solutions—including a $175 million direct allocation to counties.

• In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) CSAC was instrumental in securing $296.7 million in 2019-20 and $1.86 billion over the next four years by revising the County IHSS Maintenance of Effort, resulting in a far more sustainable IHSS fiscal structure for counties.

• Wildfires Again this session, CSAC worked successfully to prevent changes to inverse condemnation for utility companies. CSAC was also successful in obtaining additional disaster relief funding for counties, including backfills for lost property taxes, direct local assistance, and public safety power shutoff resources.

• Housing CSAC helped secure $750 million in one-time funding to local governments to increase housing production, including $250 million for planning grants to help local jurisdictions work through the Regional Housing Needs Assessment 6th Cycle and $500 million for housing-related infrastructure improvements.

In addition to these big ticket achievements, CSAC actively engaged on many individual measures of note, including a number of bills that CSAC supports that were sent to the Governor. Summaries of bills for which CSAC is requesting a signature or a veto are available by policy area at the following links:

Administration of Justice

Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources

Government Finance and Administration

Health and Human Services

Housing, Land Use and Transportation