About 100 California Bills Have Been Vetoed by Gavin Newsom. Take a Look at Some of These Bills!

The California legislature has recently passed over a hundred bills in the week.

Governor Gavin Newsom had a total of 700 bills to look into this weekend. October 14 was the set deadline to either veto those bills or sign them. The Governor's call was to decide on more than half of the number in the two days. Approximately 150 were dealt with on Saturday, and around 320 were considered on Sunday, as reported by CalMatters.

On one side there are discussions about the future plans of Newsom for higher office, and on the other side, a huge and rather abnormal number of bills got vetoed by the Gov. The veto rate thus was around 30 percent for the weekend. It has been reported that Newsom vetoed approximately 169 bills in all last year signed 997 bills and converted them into laws.

Have a glance at some of the notable bills that got vetoed by Newsom this weekend!

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As per Newsom, the caste discrimination ban seems redundant

• Senate Bill 403

The bill has been authored by a Democrat from Hayward, state Sen. Aisha Wahab. The bill, when passed, would have made California the very first state in the US to ban caste discrimination. The bill by Wahab was an attempt to add caste as a subset to existing state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of ancestry.

Newsom, in his veto message, expressed that anti-discrimination laws actually made this bill nothing but redundant.  However, Equality Labs, which is an Oakland-based group expressed that this moment still signified a victory. “This is the first state bill caste-oppressed people organized and built amazing power and awareness on this issue,” expressed the group through a statement.

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Social housing appears to be highly unlikely

• Assembly Bill 309

the bill sought to establish a state agency with the vision to build and manage housing that is affordable for the people and is constructed on owned or leased land by the state. The bill, if passed, would have enabled people hailing from all socioeconomic backgrounds to appear to own or rent the properties. Alex Lee, an Assembly member stated that the target was actually to mortgage payments or cap rent to not more than 30 percent of the monthly income of a person. However, the bill was vetoed by Newsom.

The veto message by Newsom highlighted the fact that the bill would be too costly to implement. The statement said that the bill would lead to an expense of "several hundred million dollars in capital expenditures" on the state.   

A bill for offering hearing aid to children could not make it this time

• Senate Bill 635

The bill would have led to the development of health plans to cater to the cost of hearing aids, an expense of up to $3,000 per individual hearing aid, for people falling under the age of 21. It was Anthony Portantino of Burbank and the state Sens. Caroline Menjivir of Los Angeles who authored the bill. The bill comes as a revamped version of an earlier bill which also got vetoed.

According to Newsom, the bill got vetoed once again due to the fact that the cost incurred by the new law might lead to a disturbing precedent. A pattern of new coverage mandate bills like this could open the state to millions to billions of dollars in new costs to cover services relating to other health conditions,” expressed Newsom in his veto message.

A big no to cannabis cafes

It won't be possible for pot smokers to purchase coffee or any other edible items from the cannabis lounges in California post the veto by Newsom to the proposed "cannabis cafe" bill. The bill would have permitted pot lounges to sell coffee and other food items along with hosting ticketed events in the consumption spaces.

Interestingly, the bill got the overwhelming assent of both the Senate and the Assembly. Supporters of the bill are of the view that the bill will offer a financial lifeline to the pot shops in California that have been struggling so far.

However, the destiny of the bill was something else. Newsom, in his veto, expressed that he was actually “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.”

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