April 22, 2025

The Chamber has been busy advocating for San Diego’s binational region at our state’s capitol, submitting over twenty bill positions over the last month. These bills range from support for our military families and veterans and improving the state’s permitting process for housing development, to opposing over-burdensome regulations for technology and new taxes on commercial property owners. A handful of these bills are highlighted below.

Upon the request of Assemblymember Alvarez’s office, the Chamber supported AB 655 which would authorize the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Pro-Tempore to appoint a State Assemblymember and State Senator to serve at the California-Mexico Border Relations Council. The Council coordinates activities of state agencies that are related to cross-border programs, initiatives, projects, and partnerships that exist within state government, to improve the effectiveness of state and local efforts that concern California and Mexico. The Council also establishes policies to coordinate the collection and sharing of data related to cross-border issues, coordinate long-term solutions to address and remediate environmental problems, and identifies and recommends the Legislature changes in law needed to achieve mutual goals.

The Chamber is a proud partner of statewide business organizations and coalitions, including the California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber) and the California Business Properties Association (CBPA). During the last month the Chamber has joined efforts from CalChamber to oppose workforce-related bills that would negatively affect the business community and the overall economy and has joined efforts from CBPA to oppose bills that undermine the operations of commercial property owners and businesses. Additionally, the Chamber joined the California Business Properties Association on a coalition letter that provided amendments and proposed feedback for SB 735 and AB 314, which are “clean-up” bills to address last year’s AB 98.

Coalition letters in opposition of bills led by the California Chamber of Commerce:

• SB 310 (Weiner) – This bill has the potential to undermine last year’s historic PAGA Deal by allowing the trial bar to plead a new private right of action for penalties under the Labor Code. It introduces a new pathway for trial attorneys to exploit penalties as leverage in meritless wage-and-hour cases – precisely the type of conduct that the PAGA reforms were meant to curb. This section of the labor code is one of the most common derivative claims in wage and hour litigation, meaning it can attach to almost every time of claim as a means of leveraging more penalties and higher settlements.
• SB 261 (Wahab) – While we share the goals of increased enforcement and ensuring adjudicated workplace violations are paid to employees, our primary concern is that Section Two of the bill will employers simply for partaking in a hearing on a claim rather than settling it. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner to post every order, decision or award online for public viewing unless it is being appealed, essentially creating a shopping list for private attorneys, rather than supporting the current state process.
• SB 632 (Arreguin) – The bill would impose an astronomical financial burden on employers in the healthcare industry, especially at a time when there is uncertainty about federal funding and general concerns about affordability. It creates a troubling precedent for the workers’ compensation system in general by creating a legal presumption that blood-borne infectious disease, tuberculosis, meningitis, MRSA, COVID-19, cancer, musculoskeletal injury, PTSD, or respiratory disease are presumptively workplace injuries for up to 10 years for all hospital employees that provide direct care. The Legislature has consistently rejected all nine versions of this bill over the last sixteen years.
• SB 7 (McNerney) – The bill broadly targets businesses of all sizes, across every industry, and regulates even low-risk applications of automated decision systems (ADS) or where there is human involvement in a decision in addition to the ADS. Many of the bill’s requirements are onerous and impractical, especially when it comes to the use of ADS in hiring. It would impose significant compliance burdens, and any misstep would lead to costly litigation for even the smallest of employers.
• SB 555 (Caballero) – This bill misidentifies permanent disability as wage replacement when a closer look at the complexities of the Workers’ Compensation system in California clarifies that permanent disability is not intended to replace wages and therefore annual increases as proposed are not appropriate. Further, instead of streamlining incentives in the Workers’ Compensation system, the bill’s mandatory cost of living adjustment for permanent disability would substantially increase frictional costs and would result in delays in the resolution and settlement of claims without any showing that a fix was needed.
• This bill greatly expands an employee’s ability to refuse to work and promotes a messy system of back-and-forth for an employer to explain why the conditions are, in fact, safe. Following the submittal of the coalition letter, the Assemblymember changed this bill to be a 2-year bill, which is a temporary win for the business community. The Chamber will continue to monitor this bill and engage in discussions as it develops over the 2-year bill session.

Coalition letters in opposition of bills led by the California Business Properties Association:

• SB 789 (Menjivar) – This bill seeks to impose a $5-per-square-foot annual tax on vacant commercial property — defined as property that remains unused for 182 consecutive or nonconsecutive days. It would increase costs on property owners already struggling with vacancies, reduce property values, and undermine local property tax revenues that fund critical services.
• SB 709 (Menjivar) – This bill would impose price controls on private commercial property by capping rent increases for self-storage facilities.  It sets a dangerous precedent by inserting government-imposed restrictions into private lease agreements and undermining the fundamentals of a market-based system.