SB 51: the California politics thread

Elephant in the room: There is a MASSIVE shift in demand for housing in SF (seriously, on my morning run I saw literal rows of moving trucks & vans today/yesterday, definitely more than I've seen in the last 5 months and perhaps more than I've ever seen here in 23+ years).

My sister-in-law and husband (SF native) who were priced out of SF were doing Trulia searches on 2BRs in central SF under $3k and seeing 250+ units available and are seriously excited about coming back to their former neighborhood.

I can only imagine with most sectors' flexibility in WFH being projected out to even like end of 2021 in some cases that there will be a long-overdue market correction and hopefully a return to community and neighborhood pride, instead of SF housing being used as dorms for the people that work 60-90 minutes away in shitty NIMBY valley suburbs while their employers merely subsidize everything to keep them from actually "living" in SF.

I hope you're right. I would love it if people who don't really want to live in SF didn't live here!

one data point but an engineer i work with left SF and moved to santa cruz when covid kicked off. (now on fire lol california)

Even assuming remote work is broadly accepted forever though, I don't know how big the effect will be long term. Ambitious types will still want to show up to HQ in person, small startups will still want in-person war rooms ...

also the weather is nice, the scenery is conventionally attractive, and there are dope ass restaurants, cultural sites, nightlife, plus the infrastructure for conventions/conferences etc. ... once things "get back to normal"

Omg, just now seeing that opposition editorial to prop 15.

Rather, we should create a new system that taxes all properties in direct proportion to their values. Proposition 15 fails to do that. Voters should reject it.

How about we achieve something winnable?

Now, rather than in the next election-cycle or two?

100% certain that article is written by someone who likes proposition 13 and is intentionally trying to confuse people.

BREAKING: The #AB5 35-submissions-a-year cap for freelancers is on the way out.@GavinNewsom has signed followup legislation, #AB2257, that offers exemptions for freelance journos, musicians and other professionals

— Jeremy B. White (@JeremyBWhite) September 4, 2020

And that's great!

yeah, I don't think anyone was all that opposed tbh? granted, plenty of workers who are now, thanks to AB2257, only subject to Borello (as opposed to ABC/Dynamex) are still employed by companies and organizations that don't even meet the Borello standards and will still pay them as independent contractors because it is cheaper and less responsibility for the payor, and the worker will owe taxes that the employer should be paying, but the worker will write off a bunch of semi-unrelated expenses that look legit on paper and save money on taxes -- potentially more than they would have paid as employees -- so basically, back to the old standard of dishonesty and passing the buck all around, but hey.

In light of the Covid changes to unemployment, this might not be as exploitative as in the past ... if they continue to potentially give unemployment benefits to self-employed workers after the pandemic ends. ... That was one of the main upsides to the original AB5 rules -- there was that safety net, especially for people in professions that are often low-paying and high-risk in terms of not having regular paying gigs.

Column: Uber and Lyft just made their campaign to pay workers less the costliest in history https://t.co/89JBoow1Xr

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 8, 2020

Good job to both for making my decision to continue to boycott them an incredibly easy one.

Not feeling good about the state of California rn

same

I'm trying not to overreact* but if this is going to happen most years, I'm not sure California is for me. And that really bums me out.

*please tell me I'm overreacting

and by "this" I mean 2+ months a year where the air makes being outdoors uncomfortable

the fact that people in many other cities have adjusted to that reality year-round is sort of the opposite of comforting

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think we'll figure it out. I think previous seasons, the blame went too much to PG&E (who did fuck up, but also the state is a tinderbox). This time, I don't see a scapegoat emerging...

xp

https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen

fire causing smoke that stops you going outside 20+ days per year, climate change that stops you going outside another 20+ days per year (and both those numbers going up), political cowardice preventing housing being built within 100 minute commute of jobs, fiscal collapse at the city budget level leading to collapse in services (even the rich cities!), suicidal electorate that refuses to pay for things (e.g. we spend half as much per pupil while having the highest cost of living in the nation, and apparently this is fine), and a lot of infrastructure nearing end of life. etc., etc.

also the federal government is not interested in anything west of the rockies when it's a republican presidency, which is going to happen from time to time.

(this is not true for even deep blue states on the east coast btw.)

i'm looking for a bright spot ... no hurricanes?

sky is blue-ish today!

yes today in Berkeley it's not bad at all, despite the air quality apparently still being unhealthy.

I guess I should say "it doesn't look as bad as it has" not that it's 'not bad at all'.

the south bay was way worse yesterday than SF/Oak/Berk ... sorry to south bay ppl

also, I want to read this book -- anyone else familiar?

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781943859399?aff=NetGalley

xp It was weakly sunny in SF today too, but the air quality all over the bay area is still really bad from what I'm seeing. Looking right now the air quality index is at 181, 'unhealthy'.

I went for a 4+ mile walk yesterday to a friend's house. I don't have respiratory issues and maybe the mask was protective - I didn't find myself coughing, but I woke up in the middle of the night and my eyes were burning and watering

just started this, might be of interest to some here. fair warning not sure if it's good yet though. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46183582-golden-gates

unrelated to housing but on topic for thread: this was a wild ride, absolutely deranged last hundred pages or so, highly recommended. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17978092-the-crusades-of-cesar-chavez

golden gates was pretty good. it's very bay area focused, which i don't think is a blind spot of the book, but rather reflects a blind spot in the yimby movement.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11839164/poll-voters-cool-to-measure-backed-by-uber-and-lyft

A new poll finds that voters are closely divided on a November ballot measure that would allow companies like Uber, Lyft and Doordash to continue treating their workers as contractors rather than employees, with the measure currently far short of the majority support it will need to pass.

The Berkeley IGS Poll finds that Proposition 22 is favored by 39% of likely voters, while 36% oppose it and 25% are undecided.

The poll also found Proposition 15, which would raise taxes on commercial and industrial property worth $3 million or more, ahead by 49% to 34% with 17% undecided.

I really get sick of these special-interest ballot measures, funded by corporations with narrow interests. Remember the one a couple years ago about ambulance drivers getting paid for lunch breaks or not? Why the hell were Californians asked to weigh in on that?
This is why we have a state legislature... we should not hold referendums on every little arcane dispute.

turns out the california state constitution is bad!

a ballot measure can only be overturned by another ballot measure. so there's a ratchet effect until you can't do anything without a ballot measure.

also good luck *ever* regulating the service economy if 22 passes

Prop 22 establishes a batshit, completely unprecedented 7/8ths voting threshold that legislators would have to meet in order to pass any labor law related to this industry.

This fucks over ALL Californians.

(11/n)

— Sasha Perigo (@sashaperigo) September 15, 2020

I've been wondering about the details of prop 22 after seeing a sudden surge of pro-22 ads lately ("I'm just a simple uber driver who wants to be able to continue providing for my family, why won't you let me do that?"). I'm inclined to oppose it, but I realized I'm not entirely sure why. Something about I support organized labor. I guess it's time I read the whole thing on ballotpedia.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based_Drivers_as_Contractors_and_Labor_Policies_Initiative_(2020)

I think there are gig economy people who are happy with the make-your-own-schedule part of the job. Seems like national healthcare (or forcing gig companies to provide healthcare, sure) would make this less of a scary choice.

well possibly (not really) but in any case national healthcare isn't one of the choices on the ballot.

what *current* drivers want is pretty complicated (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3488009), but it's also not the only thing that matters fwiw. fracturing of the future workforce into people who earn above minimum wage and people who earn below it (and have no benefits) is not good for anyone.

also the specifics of proposition 22 are unbelievably undemocratic (see above, plus take a look at how much money is being spent) and if it passes it will cause long term damage to *governance* in california. if you don't like AB5 then work on changing AB5 rather than fucking up how the state is run.

cannot stress this enough: fuck prop 22.

right, the inclusion of the 7/8ths thing is very concerning. I don't like that this is simultaneously a referendum on a new category of labor law and a referendum on ballot referendums themselves.

I think there are gig economy people who are happy with the make-your-own-schedule part of the job.

and they can still have that and be employees. ... I read something recently from a pro-22 person that was like, "they're not going to like being employees because they will be unable to write off their mileage and car expenses" which really struck me with its myopia ... if the drivers were employees, they could be reimbursed for the mileage and expenses AND get paid a legal wage.

I'm convinced pro-22 people simply think employers shouldn't be obligated to provide benefits to full-time employees in the first place. They're more concerned with their right to flexibility than they are with another driver's right to benefits if that driver wants to drive full-time.

yup

Lot's of deceiving propositions on this year's ballot. I'm afraid that one of 19, 22, or 24 is going to pass based on misinformation and laziness.

um, 24 should pass and 19 is complicated but i wouldn't call it deceptive

Now the Guv has banned all new gasoline powered cars & trucks.. well, in 15 years.