From your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento
Welcome to the June 10-14 NFIB California Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.
Is Your Workplace Violence Prevention Plan Written?
- The next few Main Street Minutes will lead off with a reminder to our members and all small-business owners that their state-mandated Workplace Violence Prevention Plan is to have been written and readable to anyone who requests to see it by July 1.
- More information can be found in this news release NFIB California sent out last Monday (June 3). If you haven’t published one, please don’t wait another day. This is a very time-consuming compliance headache. NFIB California invited an employment law expert with Fisher Phillips to give small-business owners an informative overview of what lies ahead for them, if they haven’t already produced their plans. The 49-minute webinar can be heard through this web story.
- NFIB and its coalition partners lobbied vigorously against the bill mandating the plan. For a quick reminder why, check out the first three paragraphs of our letter of opposition.
The Legislature
- Last week’s Main Street Minute, which highlighted eight of 26 bad-for-small-business bills, promised this week to highlight a few good ones for Main Street enterprises.
- Among the 10 bills good for Main Street business are four dealing with retail theft that NFIB is lobbying strenuously for:
- AB 1794 (McCarty/Friedman) — Under existing law, if the value of all property taken over the course of distinct but related acts motivated by one intention, general impulse, and plan exceeds $950, those values may be aggregated into a single charge of grand theft. This bill would clarify that those values may be aggregated even though the thefts occurred in different places or from different victims.
- AB 1960 (Soria) — This bill would create sentencing enhancements for taking, damaging, or destroying property in the commission or attempted commission of a felony.
- AB 2943 (Zbur/Rivas) — Existing law authorizes a person to be charged with grand theft if the property taken exceeds $950 over the course of distinct but related acts. This bill would clarify that those related acts include acts committed against multiple victims or in counties other than the county of the current offense.
- AB 3209 (Berman/Rivas) — This bill would authorize a court, when sentencing a person for an offense involving theft from a retail establishment, vandalism of a retail establishment, or battery of an employee of a retail establishment, to issue a criminal protective order prohibiting a person from entering the retail establishment, including any parking lots and including other franchise or chain locations of the retail establishment, as specified.
- All four Assembly bills are now in the Senate and all are coming up for consideration tomorrow (June 11) in the Senate Public Safety Committee, beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Room 2200 at 1021 O St.
CARB Meets with NFIB Members
- NFIB California’s Leadership Council was invited to sit in on a special presentation from the California Air Resources Board last Wednesday (June 5) about resources CARB has available for businesses, which are hyperlinked below.
Virtual Small Business Day Set, Mark Your Calendar
- Please join us on Thursday, June 27, from 11 a.m. to Noon, for a Virtual Small Business Day from Sacramento.
- Now, more than ever, legislators need to hear your voice about the policies affecting your business. Special guests include State Sen. Republican Leader Brian Jones (San Diego) and State Assemblymember Juan Alanis (Modesto). Topics to be discussed include:
- Minimum wage
- Retail theft
- Unemployment benefits for striking workers
- Taxes
- the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA)
- State budget
- Single-Payer Health Care
- State of California’s insurance market.
- The event is free, but advanced registration is required. Register today. Register here.
NFIB-Member Business Honored
- Congratulations to NFIB member Craig Cooper for having his enterprise, Menifee Bicycles in Menifee (Riverside County), named small business of the month by Assemblymember Bill Essayli.
On Second Thought
- Perhaps an apology from the editorial team of the Main Street Minute is in order. We collectively rolled our eyes when former Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced that, for his swan song year, he was forming an Assembly Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes.
- Maybe the committee is producing the desired effect after all, making Californians happier. At least it is for one Californian … Anthony Rendon.
- Reports The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert, “’It’s about raising consciousness,’ he said, noting that some colleagues ‘take it seriously and some people don’t think it’s as relevant.’ As for his own happiness, Rendon rated it a seven out of ten — a marked improvement since the committee’s first hearing in March, when he said it was a two.”
- So, there you have it, small-business owners. Unhappy with the way things are? Raise your consciousness. Consciousness about what? We only know it’s not about things like retail theft, which Rendon maintained a blissful, but willful, ignorance about. Something his successor, Robert Rivas, has had to shift into over-drive to help stamp out.
NFIB California in the News
- State Director John Kabateck shared his thoughts on Rubio’s closing 48 of its franchises with The Center Square for a story that ran in media across the nation, including in the New York Post and MSN Money.
- “We need to start calling out our state’s role more often as a contributing reason ‘underperforming’ fast-food franchises are being closed by their parent companies. We now have a crazy quilt of minimum-wage laws that make it impossible to hire with any certainty sales will match expenses, paid leave proposals making the retention of employees more and more difficult, and higher unemployment insurance taxes, all of which make throwing in the towel more appealing than trying to stay open for business.”
The Big Dates
- June 15, midnight, constitutional deadline to pass 2024-2025 state budget
- June 27 deadline for ballot measure to qualify for November. Last day for proponents of a qualified ballot initiative to withdraw it.
- August 31 deadline for bills to have passed Legislature and sent to governor
- September 30 deadline for governor to sign bills into law
- November 5, General Election Day
National
Highlights from NFIB Legislative Program Manager Caitlin Lanzara’s weekly report
This week is NFIB’s annual Washington, D.C. Fly-In. Over 100 NFIB members from across the country will meet with their legislators to advocate:
- Fly-In Issue #1:Making the 20% Small Business Deduction
- Fly-In Issue #2: Repealing the Big Brother Overreach Act, which stops the beneficial ownership information reporting rule.
— NFIB has long advocated to stop the beneficial ownership reporting that took effect January 1, 2024.
— Corporations, LLCs, or similar entities with 20 or fewer employees and $5 million or less in sales are required to register with FinCEN, failure to comply could result in civil penalties of up to $10,000 and criminal penalties of up to 2 years in prison.
— If a larger business has multiple LLC’s, and some of the LLC’s have fewer than 20 employees (many of them likely have zero employees) those LLC’s will have to register with FinCEN.
— For example, if you own a business with 150 employees and the main business is incorporated under 1 LLC then you don’t have to file for the one LLC. But, if you have the real estate under a separate LLC then that LLC has to file. The act applies individually to every LLC with 20 or fewer employees.
— NFIB has sued Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over the beneficial ownership information reporting rule. You can read our complaint here.
— NFIB members can contact their legislator here.
Next Main Street Minute June 17.
