That’s right, you testify against SB 1120 and SB 902 on Tuesday Aug. 18, calling in to the Assembly Appropriations Committee to tell legislators that the two senate bills will put every home in their own district on the chopping block.
(We explain how you call in to testify. CLICK HERE!)
We promise that your civic action on Aug. 18 will be far more satisfying than anything else you usually do on Tuesdays.
SB 1120 and SB 902, the worst of the Nine Bad Bills opposed by Livable California, both passed the state Assembly Local Government Committee recently in tense 5-to-3 votes.
The bills could profoundly change life in California, but are unknown to the public and most media. Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins of San Diego and her top ally, state Sen. Scott Wiener, have led a rush-job of hurried approvals — under cover of the COVID-19 crisis.
SB 1120 aims to disrupt 21 million Californians of all income levels who live in single-family homes with yards, which Wiener has called immoral.
For months, Atkins promised a “package” of “moderate” housing laws that would address the affordability crisis and pandemic.
But instead, SB 1120 dominates a tense backroom discussion in Sacramento over Atkins demanding a yes vote on SB 1120 from all 40 California state senators. She got 39.
State senators were required to support SB 1120 — after Atkins’ dramatic loss on the state senate floor months ago when Wiener’s hated SB 50 was rejected by state senators.
Video of Atkins shaking her head over the SB 50 vote are emblematic of the drama now unfolding. Few state senators want to take on Wiener or Atkins.
The question now is why the California state Assembly, which doesn’t answer to Atkins or Wiener, has ducked so far, ignoring intense opposition ranging from Black communities in South Los Angeles to suburban Contra Costa County?
SB 1120 gives unprecedented power to market-rate developers and speculators, to buy out stable neighborhoods to erect four unaffordable market-rate houses where one house now stands.
Livable California expects major rental giants to tap into SB 1120, to turn much of the state into costly rental housing, and severely weaken home ownership, a terrible outcome for the state.
Last week, the Assembly Local Government Committee failed to kill SB 1120 in a tense 5-to-3 vote that could have gone the other way.
The Assembly Local Government Committee vote was a blow to all of us who fought Wiener’s absurd claim that overrunning neighborhoods with dense market-rate housing is good for the poor.
We must stop SB 902 and SB 1120 in the Assembly. There is very little time left to kill it there, before the “last chance” day — barely a week from now.
So we ask you to please take a few hours off on Tuesday, Aug. 18, if you possibly can, to testify via phone against SB 1120 and SB 902 at the Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing. (CLICK HERE to take you to a page of instructions on how to call in on Tuesday.)
And thanks to more than 350 of you from across California who attended the Saturday Aug. 15, South LA Town Hall Against SB 1120 and Other Bad Bills.
Many residents of Black working-class and middle-class South L.A. communities testified against SB 1120 and SB 902 on Aug. 11 — and many were cut off while speaking.
While SB 1120 would allow any home to be replaced by four expensive homes without a yard or garage, SB 902 would allow city councils to “upzone” single-family and low-density streets to allow 10-unit luxury buildings.
Notice how Wiener’s bills never get around to helping the poor?
Jamming 10-unit luxury projects almost anywhere, and killing single-family neighborhoods, are Scott Wiener’s longtime obsessions. Both ideas enjoyed starring roles in Wiener’s hated SB 827 and SB 50, and both bills were killed due to public outcry in 2018 and 2019.
The good news is that all of your efforts did pay off in one huge win against Wiener in recent days:
Wiener was forced to strip from SB 902 his sly wording that allowed any city council to override citizen-initiated, voter-approved laws protecting open space, shorelines and treasured lands. (Turns out developers are drooling to pave them over, just like Wiener.)
SB 902 tried to severely weaken California’s 108-year-old right to the initiative.
Livable California and its volunteer lawyers untangled Wiener’s sly wording. Yet we were unable to get any news media coverage about this incredible anti-environmental, anti-constitutional scandal.
So on July 25, we held a big SB 902 teleconference to alert the public.
Here’s how Wiener worded SB 902, that virtually nobody noticed:
“A local government may pass an ordinance, notwithstanding any local restrictions on adopting zoning ordinances enacted by the jurisdiction, including restrictions enacted by a local voter initiative, that limit the legislative body’s ability to adopt zoning ordinances, to zone any parcel for up to 10 units of residential density per parcel.”
Saving the open spaces from Scott Wiener is good.
But his two bills, SB 902 and SB 1120 still badly harm 7.4 to 8 million California homeowners, whether poor, middle-income or rich. Please join us in stopping them.