The California Legislature is in its (sometimes) frantic final week, racing to pass bills by the Saturday deadline.
Monday, lawmakers pulled some last-minute maneuvering to extend the time allowed for floor amendments (the deadline was last Friday) to five bills, including ones on paid family leave, mental competency of defendants and environmental reviews of hydrogen production facilities.
While there will be some late nights due to floor votes, there will also be plenty of “hurry up and wait.”
• Assemblymember Jim Wood, a Ukiah Democrat, reports Politico: “There will be times when we are not doing anything, or it appears we’re not doing anything. We may actually not be doing anything.”
Hundreds of other bills didn’t even get this far. One reason cited by legislators and advocates: Inflated cost estimates calculated by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which can lead to bills dying in the appropriations committees.
As CalMatters Digital Democracy reporter Ryan Sabalow and health reporter Jocelyn Wiener explain, the committees earlier this month killed four health care bills with questionable cost numbers.
For instance, the Department of Managed Health Care said that a bill to require automatic reviews when health insurers deny mental health treatment to young people would cost the state $87 million a year by 2028. The Department of Insurance added a $1.2 million annual price tag. Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and the bill’s author, said these estimates were “outrageous,” and no details were given of how the departments arrived at their numbers.
In an email, a spokesperson for Newsom’s Health and Human Services Agency said its “outrageous and inaccurate” to suggest cost estimates are “artificially inflated.”
But exaggerating costs so that bills can get killed by legislators can be a “tremendous benefit politically for any governor,” said Mike Gatto, a former chairperson of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. That way, the committees “take the arrows (of criticism),” he said.
Learn more about bill cost estimates in Ryan and Jocelyn’s story.
Now on to the bills that are still alive:
• Medical debt: CalMatters health reporter Ana B. Ibarra looks into a bill to remove medical debt from showing up on credit reports. About 4 in 10 Californians report having some type of medical debt, and the proposal would also ban debt collectors from reporting patients’ medical debt information to credit agencies. Sen. Monique Limón’s bill is backed by the California Nurses Association and Attorney General Rob Bonta. A federal proposal is also in the works, but if the Assembly approves the bill by the Santa Barbara Democrat and Newsom signs it, it could take effect in January. Learn more about the medical debt bill in Ana’s story.
• Tracking Newsom’s actions: CalMatters is watching what Newsom does on bills that are on his desk. He announced Monday he had signed 14. The first version of our explainer includes proposals on public safety, elections and transgender care. He has until Sept. 30 to decide on bills passed in the final days. Last year, Newsom vetoed 156 bills and signed 890, or about 15%, a similar ratio as in 2022. Bookmark this page as we update the list as the Legislature approves more noteworthy bills this week.