We’re Past the Policy Committee Deadline – Several Bills Have Stalled

This article is provided by Kate Bell of Kate Bell Strategies

Political Update

Since my last update, two new state Legislators have been sworn into office.  Assemblymember Matt Haney has filled Assemblymember David Chiu’s San Francisco seat and Assemblymember Lori Wilson has filled Assemblymember Jim Frazier’s seat.

The runoff of the two special elections to fill the vacancies left by Autumn Burke and Lorena Gonzalez will take place in conjunction with the primary election on June 7^th.  The top two to replace Autumn Burke are her former staffers, Tina Mc Kinnor and Robert Pullen-Miles.  The runoff to fill Lorena Gonzalez’ seat is between David Alvarez and Georgette Gomez.  This promises to be a very busy election year.  Be sure to exercise your right to vote on June 7^th!

Legislative Update

We are nearly halfway through the legislative year, having just passed the policy committee deadline for bills to be heard within their house of origin.  There are several bills of note that the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles was opposing that failed to get a hearing, and will not be moving forward, in part, to our strong advocacy efforts.  These are definite “wins” so far for the year and they include:

• Assembly Bill 1710 (Lee) – Light Pollution – Would have circumvented the Building Standards Commission and legislated installation of residential and light emitting diodes (LED) that create “light pollution” at night.
• Assembly Bill 1771 (Ward) – Transfer Tax – This bill would have, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2023, imposed an additional 25% tax on a net capital gain from the sale of a qualified asset and would reduce those taxes depending on how many years has passed since a taxpayer’s initial purchase.
• Assembly Bill 1791 (Nazarian) – Costa Hawkins – This bill would have prevented the use of certain exemptions prescribed by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act on local rent control measures where the property is owned by an applicable large business, defined as a business entity that owns 10 or more single-family residential properties and has annual gross receipts of $1 billion or more.
• Assembly Bill 2289 (Lee) – Wealth Tax – This bill would have, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2023, and before January 1, 2025, imposed an annual tax at a rate of 1.5% of a resident of this state’s worldwide net worth in excess of $1,000,000,000, or in excess of $500,000,000 in the case of a married taxpayer filing separately. The bill would have, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, imposed an annual tax at a rate of 1% of a resident’s worldwide net worth more than $50,000,000, or in excess of $25,000,000 in the case of a married taxpayer filing separately. The bill would also have imposed, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, an additional tax at a rate of 0.5% of a resident’s worldwide net worth more than $1,000,000,000, or in excess of $500,000,000 in the case of a married taxpayer filing separately.
• Assembly Bill 2290 (Carillo) – Unlawful Detainers – This bill would have prohibited a court clerk from allowing access to the records of certain unlawful detainer actions and would have required the owner of rental property to identify the type of unlawful detainer action in the caption of the owner’s complaint.
• Assembly Bill 2297 (Wicks) – Security Deposits – Tenancy in Lieu of Security Deposit – Would have required a landlord who offers a tenant or prospective tenant the option of paying a fee in lieu of a security deposit to take certain actions, including offer the tenant or prospective tenant the option to instead pay a security deposit.
• Assembly Bill 2434 (Santiago) – Homelessness Action Authority (County of Los Angeles) – This bill would have authorized the creation of the Homelessness Action Authority, a joint powers authority, by the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles, and any other city within the jurisdiction of the County of Los Angeles to exercise land use authority over the property it owns, oversee the administration of social service programs administered by the County of Los Angeles, issue bonds, acquire land through eminent domain, and fund the planning and construction of housing for the homeless population.
• Assembly Bill 2469 (Wicks) – Rent Registry – Would have imposed a statewide a rent registry to collect information from landlords including, the address and owners of a rental property, the number and type of rooms in the rental property, and information related to the payments collected and the duration of tenancies when a lease is initiated, altered, or terminated.
• Assembly Bill 2710 (Kalra) – Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (T.O.P.A.) – This bill would have, among other things, required a landlord to notify each tenant and qualified entity the intent to sell the property and would provide the qualified entity with 10 days to notify the property owner of their interest in purchasing the property and further provide an entity with either 60 days or 40 days, depending on the number of units of the property, to submit an offer to purchase the property.

For the remainder of May, fiscal bills will need to be passed by the Appropriations Committee on or before May 20, 2022, and all bills will need to pass on an Assembly floor vote by May 27, 2022.  We have many remaining “priority” bills on our list that we are either opposing or supporting, including our sponsored bill, Assembly Bill 916 (Salas), which will streamline construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and is being referred to the Senate Housing Committee in the coming weeks.  Additionally, there are several high priority bills that we are opposing: Assembly Bill 2050 (Lee) – “Ellis Act” that would impose restrictions on owners who seek to remove properties from the rental market, and Assembly Bill 2713 (Wicks) – “Just Cause Evictions” which would replace restrictions on evictions for “owner occupancy.”

Rent Assistance Update

As previously announced by the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, the rent assistance application portal, “Housing is Key,” is now closed and approximately $3.1 billion has been paid out in rental assistance throughout the state.  For more information on the rental assistance program, please visit https://housing.ca.gov/.

Kate Bell, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kate Bell Strategies was most recently a Partner of Capitol Advocacy, which is ranked among California’s top lobbying firms. Ms. Bell’s firm specializes in lobbying, strategic planning, coalition building, budget advocacy, procurement, and political involvement.  Kate Bell Strategies and Capitol Advocacy represent the interests of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles through its affiliation with the California Rental Housing Association.  Both firms are based in Sacramento.  For more information, please visit www.katebellstrategies.com.