I wanted to walk you through something I read about Governor Newsom's recent decisions on some pretty significant bills. According to CalMatters Housing, the Governor just vetoed three pieces of legislation over the weekend, and they're worth understanding if you're paying attention to what's happening in Sacramento. It's interesting timing as he wraps up his final stint reviewing bills from the Legislature.
The biggest one is Assembly Bill 1383, which would have rolled back some pension reforms that Jerry Brown put in place years ago. That earlier reform, called PEPRA, was designed to help local governments manage their retirement system costs by reducing benefits for new employees and having workers pay more into the system. This new bill had strong union backing and came close to undoing that work, but Newsom said no because of the cost. He basically explained that he doesn't want to go back to the days when pension obligations were squeezing out money for basic services.
Newsom also rejected a bill that would have made it easier for state employees to work from home. Even though the state embraced remote work during the pandemic, the Governor has since moved in the opposite direction, requiring state workers to be in the office most days. According to the reporting, he vetoed the measure because he believes in-person work is more effective, and he didn't want departments defaulting to telework arrangements.
The third veto involved environmental regulations. The Governor and Legislature had streamlined some California Environmental Quality Act rules last year to speed up housing and development, and this new bill would have put some of those protections back. Newsom rejected it, saying the streamlining was necessary to get California building again and that any problems should be fixed through targeted changes, not by backing away from what they'd already done.
What strikes me about this locally is that Newsom seems to be balancing his progressive reputation with more moderate positions, particularly around costs and business-friendly policies. For those of us in real estate, especially around the Bay Area and East Bay, the part about environmental regulations matters most because anything that speeds development without adding new bureaucratic hurdles could help with our ongoing housing shortage. That said, these vetoes show the Governor prioritizing fiscal responsibility and practical governance over pure ideology, which honestly affects how projects move forward in our region.
