YOUR DUES DOLLARS AT WORK CCA PRIORITIZES BUDGET ADVOCACY AHEAD OF POLICY BILL INTRODUCTION DEADLINE by CCA Vice President of Government Affairs Kirk Wilbur
Friday, Feb. 16 was the deadline by which California legislators had to introduce new bills to be considered in the 2024 legislative year. As of press time – three days before the deadline – 1,020 new bills had been introduced in the legislature this year. There is typically a flurry of bill introductions in the final days before the deadline, and this year has been no exception: on just the Tuesday before the deadline, legislators introduced 172 new legislative measures. Given that trend, at press time well over 1,500 new legislative proposals were projected to be introduced in the Legislature in 2024. In addition to new bills, any legislation introduced in 2023 which progressed out of its chamber of origin by the end of January – socalled “two-year bills” – remains viable in the second year of the 2023-24 Legislative Session. Dozens of those measures remain active in the Capitol. CCA staff has monitored every bill introduced in the Legislature this year, and fortunately no major red flags have yet emerged (CCA has nevertheless engaged early on several bills to stave off potential unintended consequences for the livestock industry). CCA will continue vigilantly monitoring this year’s legislative measures. In addition to nearly one-third of this year’s bill load likely being introduced in the days following press time, “spot bills” (non-substantive bills that effectively serve as placeholders for policy amendments to be filed at a later date) can be amended through
March 11 and substantive legislation can be “gutand-amended” to completely change a bill’s intent at virtually any time throughout session. CCA will provide an early overview of our 2024 legislative priorities in the April edition of California Cattleman. In the meantime, below is a brief overview of CCA’s legislative efforts in the first two months of the year. Two-year bills Bills that survived part of the legislative process in 2023 but did not advance to the Governor’s desk for a signature or veto may be taken up this year as two-year bills. However, those bills had to at least advance out of their chamber of origin by the end of January to remain viable. With that house-of origin deadline behind us, below are updates on several two-year bills that CCA lobbied in 2023: • CCA-opposed AB 554 (Gabriel): Died on Assembly Floor This bill would have given radical animal rights groups standing to sue ranchers in civil court alleging violations of anti-animal-abuse statutes. Given that many of these groups believe that routine animal husbandry practices constitute animal abuse, activists could have sought to set new legal precedent in civil courts or to simply file bad-faith suits to force settlements from livestock producers. CCA succeeded in stalling the bill on the Assembly floor last year, where it officially died on Jan. 31. • CCA-opposed AB 429 (Bennett): Died in Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Committee AB 429 would have restricted the approval of groundwater well permits in certain overdrafted groundwater basins. CCA opposed the measure because it undermined the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act’s guarantee of local control and would have increased costs and regulatory burdens for ranchers. A related
10 California Cattleman March 2024
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