dangerous votes on public safety

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Every year the California Chamber of Commerce tracks legislation proposed by legislators and identifies the bills that are bad for doing business in California. Given how many bad bills are authored and passed into law, these are the worst of the very worst pieces of legislation.

Consequently, the Chamber labels these bills “Job-Killers” because of the negative impact they would have on doing business in California and hiring employees for that purpose.

Jacqui Irwin says she is business-friendly, but her record clearly shows she has supported 75% of “Job-Killer” legislation in her last legislative session. 

Overall, Jacqui Irwin has voted against the Chamber of Commerce position on bills a majority of the time.

Next time Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin tries to tell you she supports businesses in California, don’t let her take you for a sucker. Show Jacqui Irwin her own voting record!

AB 356

Potentially shuts down certain in-state oil production operations and related jobs by redefining critical components of the Underground Injection Control program which would, in turn, compromise oil production without providing any additional environmental and groundwater protections beyond those recently proposed by state regulators.  Failed passage, 28-33, 6/4/15, 

AB 359

Requires companies acquiring unionized grocery stores to retain their employees at least temporarily.  Requires large grocery stores to keep workers for at least 90 days after a change in store ownership.  Assembly Vote: 46-27, 5/26/15.  Signed

SB 32

Extends the state’s original greenhouse gas emission reduction law of 2006 (AB 32/Pavley) and sets a new target of reducing statewide emissions to 40% percent below 1990 levels by 2030.  Assembly Vote: 48-31, 8/23/16.  Signed

SB 406 

Expands unpaid family leave policy, letting workers take up to 12 weeks off to care for sick siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, domestic partners and parents-in-law.  Assembly Vote: 41-30, 9/11/15.  Vetoed

SB 1150 

Increases liability risk and the cost of residential loans by allowing a party not on a mortgage loan to interfere with appropriate foreclosures and creates a private right of action for violations of overly complex and burdensome requirements.  Assembly Vote: 49-26, 8/22/16.  Signed 

AB 1209 

Requires employers with 500 or more employees to provide the Secretary of State specific information regarding gender wage differentials for exempt employees and board members.  Assembly Vote: 47-23, 9/11/17.  Vetoed

SB 33

Prompted by the recent Wells Fargo scandal, this bill restricts the use of arbitration agreements in consumer contracts with banks and credit unions, if certain conditions surrounding contract formation are met.  Assembly Vote: 46-23, 9/5/17.  Signed

SB 63 

Requires small businesses employing between 20 and 49 people offer 12 weeks of unpaid maternity and paternity leave to employees.  Assembly Vote: 51-15, 9/12/17.  Signed

AB 196 

Establishes “Costly “Conclusive Presumption” of Injury. Increases workers’ compensation costs for employers by “conclusively” presuming (non-rebuttable) that contraction of COVID-19 by all “essential workers” is a workplace injury.  Assembly Vote: 66-7, 5/23/19; died in Senate Appropriations Committee.

AB 345 

Requires the Department of Conservation to adopt regulations to protect public health and safety near oil and gas extraction facilities by July 1, 2022.  Requires those regulations to include the establishment of a minimum setback distance between oil and gas activities and sensitive locations such as schools, playgrounds, and hospitals.  Requires the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to create an environmental justice program and, contingent upon funding, establish a grant-based reimbursement program to enable environmental justice groups to meaningfully participate in agency regulatory processes.  Assembly Vote: 42-30, 1/27/20; failed in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee.

AB 628 

Provides protected leave for sexual harassment victims similar to what is provided to victims of sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence, even if the sexual harassment did not occur in the workplace. Extends these employment protections to family members of the victim. Allows an employer to require certification, such as a police report, for leave. Requires that an employee provide reasonable advance notice unless providing that notice is not feasible.  Failed passage, 36-15, 5/29/19.

AB 857 

Allows cities and counties to establish public banks.  Assembly Vote: 42-29, 9/13/19.  Signed

AB 1066 

Provides unemployment benefits to striking workers even though they are not looking for work and have a job waiting for them once the labor dispute is resolved.  Assembly Vote: 51-19, 5/22/19; failed on Senate floor.

AB 1080 

Cedes unprecedented authority to CalRecycle to impose new mandates on businesses.  Establishes as a policy goal of the state that manufacturers and retailers of single-use packaging and products achieve a 75% reduction of the waste generated from these items sold or offered for sale in California through source reduction, recycling, or composting.  Assembly Vote: 44-19, 5/30/19; held at Assembly Desk.

AB 2999 

Requires all private and public employers to allow employees to take up to 10 nonconsecutive days of unpaid bereavement leave for up to three months after the death of a family member.  Assembly Vote: 45-13, 6/10/20; died in Senate Judiciary Committee

AB 3075 

Allows local jurisdictions to enforce payment of wage standards that are at least as stringent as those established in the Labor Code.  Applies existing successor liability provisions for janitorial service employers to all employers.  Assembly Vote: 59-11, 8/31/20.  Signed

AB 257 

Enacts unfair and unequal regulatory burdens on independent owners of franchised fast food restaurants.  Assembly Vote: 41-21, 1/31/22 

AB 2840 

Seeks to prohibit local governments from approving any new or expansion of existing warehouses and development projects 100,000 square feet or more if: 1) proposed within 1,000 feet of sensitive receptors, or 2) alternative measures are not imposed on the project that effectively achieve 1,000 foot buffer level protections.  Assembly Vote: 41-25, 5/26/22;

SB 62 

Mandates paying garment workers by the hour unless they collectively bargain for a per-piece rate. Also enacts “brand liability,” extending liability for wage theft from the factories to the brands and retailers, as well as subcontractors in between.  Assembly Vote: 50-19, 9/8/21.  Signed

AB 2223 was an extreme bill recently passed into law that wildly departs from norms regarding abortion in the western world. 

As Calmatters.org described it , AB 2223 is “a bill that would abolish the requirement that coroners investigate stillbirths”.

The article continued "under current law, all fetal deaths at or after 20 weeks, with the exception of abortions, are treated as “unattended deaths” in California, requiring a coroner to investigate." Of course this all changed after the bill was passed. 

After passage of this extreme legislation, a child in the womb could be abused in the 8th or 9th month of pregnancy by use of drugs, alcohol or other unmentionable circumstance and die. This would amount to the extremely and unconscionably late termination of a child well beyond the norms found in the rest of the world regarding abortion - with no legal consequences for ending the life of the child.

Democrat President Bill Clinton once said abortions should be “safe, legal and rare,” a position most Americans agree with today. However, politicians like Jacqui Irwin have moved to extreme distances from Bill Clinton’s rational stance on abortion and are out of touch with today’s societal norms as they insist on legislation that borders on barbaric.

In Europe, for example, almost every country allows abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Only the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Spain allow a wider window (24 weeks, 22, 18, 14, and 14 respectively; source – Statista.com).

Thanks to AB 2223, a child in the last moments of gestation could be terminated in any barbaric fashion in California.

AB 3121

REPARATIONS

Jacqui Irwin voted for thi which established a task force to study the possibility of handing out reparations. The task force has determined reparations should be doled out but has not determined in what way.

California entered the Union as a free state thanks to the Compromise of 1850, but this has not stopped members of the Democratic Party from pursuing reparations in California. It is possibly an attempt to right a wrong created by Democrats in our country’s history who defended the evil institution of slavery to the point of causing a Civil War.

By the end of the Civil War, Republican General William Tecumseh Sherman proposed a form of reparations after meeting with 20 black ministers in Georgia. As summarized by the Washington Post:

“Four days after the meeting, Sherman would issue Special Field Order, No. 15, confiscating Confederate land along the rice coast. Sherman would later order “40 acres and a mule” to thousands of Black families, which historians would later refer to as the first act of reparations to enslaved Black people.

But the order would be short-lived. After Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, the order would be reversed and the land given to Black families would be rescinded and returned to White Confederate landowners. More than 100 years later, “40 acres and a mule” would remain a battle cry for Black people demanding reparations for slavery.”

If the Republican Party had its way, the issue may have been resolved. Instead, Democrats quashed reparations and later passed the Jim Crow laws that repressed so many Americans for so many years in the South.

You decide – should California pay for the wrongs of the Democratic Party in the south? 

AB 1184 is  focused on gender-affirming care (sex changes), minors and elimination of parental consent.

This bill allows minors to hide sex operations / gender affirming care from their parents. Sponsored by Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, AB 1184 prohibits insurance companies from revealing to the policyholder the “sensitive” services of anyone on their policy, even though the policy owner is financially responsible for the services.  These “sensitive” services include abortions, sexual assault treatment, drug abuse and mental health treatment, cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and sex-change operations. 

Once again, the issue is for you to decide: should the state allow children as young as 12 to make life-altering decisions without parental consent or should parents be involved in making important decisions for their children rather than being kept in the dark?

AB 1743

Jacqui Irwin voted for this bill which eliminated numerous restrictions on sale and possession of drug paraphernalia such as syringes and needles used by drug addicts.

According to AmericanAddictionCenters.org “Most research shows that around 1/3 of people who are homeless have problems with alcohol and/or drugs, and around 2/3 of these people have lifetime histories of drug or alcohol use disorders. According to SAMHSA, 38% of homeless people abused alcohol while 26% abused other drugs.”

Homelessness and drug use are therefore linked, and we all know what major problems homelessness and drug abuse are. Is now the time to make it easier to use drugs when we are facing a serious public emergency? You decide.