California Politics 360 Full Episode | Capitol Annex project, enhanced ACA subsidies expiring
Lawmakers overseeing the construction of California’s controversial Capitol Annex project are breaking their years-long silence and promising to be more transparent.
Uncertainty on the cost of the capital annex. The leaders behind the project give taxpayers the first update in years. There have been changes and there have been challenges. We believe it’s also important for us to be transparent. The question still unanswered. What will this have cost us when it’s all done? Health insurance premiums set to rise in the new year if no action is taken by Congress, where the bipartisan proposal from two California representatives stands. California owes $20 billion to the federal government, the spending decisions by the governor and state lawmakers that have placed the burden of paying it back on businesses. Thank you for joining us for California Politics 360. I’m Edie Lambert in for Ashley Zavala, and this week we’re hearing from the leaders of the Capitol Annex Project. Construction is well underway on the new offices for the governor, legislature, and state officials, but it’s been years since project leaders updated taxpayers on the estimated. Cost of the project in 2022, it was expected to cost about $1.1 billion. This week, Ashley sat down with the leaders of the state legislature’s Joint Rules Committee, Assembly Member Blanca Pacheco and State Senator John Laird. We were hoping for an updated cost of the project, but we really didn’t get one. Pacheco and Laird said $1.1 billion has been earmarked for the project, which we knew. They said they have spent about half so far, $518 million but that doesn’t indicate whether it’s over budget, and they would not answer questions about the current estimated price tag for the completed project. There has been *** lot of secrecy surrounding the capital annex project. Here’s part of Ashley’s interview with the leaders of that committee. I want to ask about the handling of public records by your committee, the Joint Rules Committee, again overseeing this project, but I do want to start with the 2000 nondisclosure agreements that are in place on this project which both of you have signed, agreeing to keep broad information about this project *** secret. Will those remain in place as this building is being built? So I just wanna start off with explaining why we have NDAs with respect. To this project, uh, this project, uh, also contains some security measures that could not be shared with the public. Uh, this is the people’s, uh, building, uh, this is where the legislature is housed. This is where the governor will be housed, and this is where we’ll have many visitors come and sometimes this, uh, security information. Needs to be confidential to keep everyone safe and secure. This is *** unique building and so because of that, anybody that is involved with the project and receives this confidential information, the security information, these are the individuals that signed the NDAs. I have *** copy. Secondly, let me, let me just finish and add to that. Secondly, the major contractor does subcontracts all the way through this process. And those subcontracts are subject to bidding, and there’s *** real desire. That there be *** way that information that doesn’t influence those bids or put the thumb on the scales is not fed to people that might be submitting bids, and that’s the second half of the reason for those. OK, so you both have mentioned security and bids, but I have *** copy of the nondisclosure agreement right here, and nowhere does it actually say either. Of those words, in fact, it says, you know, the signee would warrant that I shall maintain in strict confidence any documents, diagrams, information, information storage media, and data made available to me in connection with any services I may perform in connection with this MOU, which is the NDA. Why, why not change this NDA to say what the two of you are saying right now about security and bids? So, uh, these are drafted by *** legal counsel, and so I cannot say why legal counsel were drafted in such *** manner. Sometimes legal counsel prefers to have broad language, but we’re explaining to you the rationale behind why these NDAs were signed. And it covers those subjects even though they might not be named specifically, and your question said, why don’t we talk about broad things? We’re here to talk about the broad things. We are talking about the broad amount *** month, broad expenditure of money and other things, but we are not talking about the specifics of what the security measures were. We’re not talking about something that might influence. *** subcontracting bid, right? If you’re able to talk about the broad things, then, then why does this NDA cover in strict confidence any documents, diagrams, information, information storage, media, and data? I mean, it doesn’t say related to security or related to bids. It says broadly. And and Senator Laird, why should taxpayers and the public trust either one of you when you have signed these? Legally agreeing and legally essentially threatening anyone who does share any information, storage media, documents, diagrams related to this project. But if you read that, go ahead, if you read that, that’s really specific, and that is really specific to the drawings and those kinds of issues. We are. As elected officials entitled and obligated to speak to the higher level of the policy measures that are involved in this, and that is why we are here today telling you exactly how much has been spent and exactly what the budget is and talk about the broad issues about how the construction has been and the other questions that you’re asking. Watch Ashley’s full conversation with the two leaders of the Capitol annex Project on Calpolitics 360.com. We are also hearing reaction from opponents of the project. Ashley sat down with Dick Cowan, who led the now defunct historic State Capitol Commission. Dick, I just wanted to get your reaction to the snippets that you’ve been able to see of my conversation with Assembly Member Blanca Pacheco and State Senator John Laird, who lead the Joint Rules Committee. I am *** little disappointed, as I imagine you are, with how little specific information they were willing to give. I know certainly they would never be satisfied if the team said, oh, our budget is $1.1 billion and we’ve spent $518 million and full stop that’s no financial analysis. They wouldn’t accept it and I’m really hoping they will finally give us what the professional project managers call *** proposed. Cost at completion, what will this have cost us when it’s all done? That’s the question that you want answered and the public wants answered, and I believe they’ve been getting an answer to that question every month from their professional management team. Why passing that along isn’t sufficient, I don’t know. After this interview, uh, I did obtain *** copy of *** legislative memo that they sent out, and some of the information in there they did not include or share in this interview, including the fact that they’re cutting ties with MCA, the project management company that’s been *** part of the annex since the start. Your reaction to MCA no longer being *** part of this project? Well, it’s highly unusual to change the project management consulting firm in the middle of *** project. It has occurred in the past. There are kind of two scenarios that are more common than others. One is that MCA was telling the legislators all along, please don’t add scope until we have hard numbers on what this will do to our costs against our budget. And now perhaps it’s embarrassing to have them in the room because what they were recommending turned out to be really important, or the second possibility is that they failed to manage and predict this final cost at completion well, and now that *** much bigger number is surfacing, confidence is lost in MCCA. We don’t know. Ashley’s full conversation with Dick Cowan is on calpolitics 360.com. Health insurance premiums are set to increase for millions of Californians in the new year. The enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies will likely expire in *** couple of weeks. We look at the impact on all Californians and whether the ongoing debate at the US Capitol will lead to action. Health insurance premiums are set to increase pretty dramatically for 20 million people on January 1st as the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. Democratic Congressman Sam Loccardo joins us now on California Politics 360. Thank you so much for being here. Great to be with you, Edie. So Representative Ricardo, you introduced *** proposal teaming up with *** Republican Representative Kevin Kiely called the Fix It Act. Just very briefly, what does your bill do and what’s the status? Well, we drafted this and launched it during the shutdown, hoping to break this impasse, uh, essentially it would extend the tax credits, uh, that 22 million Americans depend on to help pay for their, Insurance premiums, extend them 2 years. It pays for the cost of those extensions by reforming reimbursement formulas with insurance companies essentially going after excess insurance payments and also contains *** lot of anti-fraud provisions that many Republicans wanted. So we thought we had *** good compromise. Many Republicans joined us. In *** bipartisan effort and as we know, the momentum of the House has changed in different ways. So it looks like we have *** straight 3 year extension going to the Senate. I would expect after the House approves it in January, I expect the Senate is going to come back and look at compromises like this before they get anything passed. So let’s talk about some of the proposals that are floating around. Republicans, including the president, have been proposing an alternative where the government would put money into health savings accounts. People can decide how to use that money. Do you feel like that’s an acceptable replacement for these subsidies that are expiring? Well, HSAs can be very helpful, that is health savings accounts can be very helpful, but there are no replacement. The reality is that if someone is hit. With *** very substantial bill, perhaps they’ve got *** cancer diagnosis or *** chronic illness of some kind, that $1000 or $1500 is going to go pretty fast. What they need is insurance, and they need access to insurance, and that’s why the ACA, I think, created, was created essentially to enable more folks to join the pool and hopefully if you get enough younger, healthy people in that insurance pool, it reduced the cost for everybody. So I think that’s one of the problems we’re looking at right now, right, because monthly premiums are expected to more than double. Many Californians are expected to just give up their insurance because they can’t afford it. So this does impact everyone, not just those who get their insurance through Covered California. If you can talk about the broader impact and the costs. Sure, I mean, the most acute impacts will be to those 22 million Americans who will see their, uh, who are seeing their premiums double starting in January, uh, *** little more than double. Probably 2 to 3 million of those folks are going to choose not to sign up simply because the costs are too high. Uh, those are gonna be younger, healthier people that will, would have reduced the cost burden for all of us. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that means all of our premiums will be 5% higher on average because we no longer have as healthy an insurance pool. So all of us bear the cost for the failure to bring more people into the ACA insurance pool. That’s why we need to extend the tax credits and we need to find an affordable way to do it, that is without worsening our deficit. That was the point of our bill. Let’s talk quickly about the political impact because healthcare is so personal. There may be *** lot of scared, angry people as these subsidies end in 2 weeks. In fact, we saw 4 Republicans vote with Democrats to force that vote that you were talking about to extend subsidies. Are they worried politically? Well, there’s *** lot of worry. I’m hearing it from many Republican colleagues in particular. one, Mike Lawler, said publicly that what the Speaker was doing is political malpractice. I think he’s right. Uh, the truth is Americans of all parties are being hurt. In *** severe way here and we need to step up with *** solution. Whether it’s my solution that I worked on with Kevin or *** different one, probably matters less than that we have *** real solution rather than *** health savings account, which is no solution. We have just *** short time left, but you mentioned that you will be voting next month, likely on the 3 year extension. By then, subsidies will have expired, so what do you want people to know? Yes, well, I expect that this will pass the House. It will stall in the Senate, and the Senate is going to have to come up with *** compromise. So I’m working hard with colleagues in the Senate to see if we can get to *** space where we can include some cost savings with extensions so we can actually help folks, but it means everyone’s going to feel the pain in January, OK, and we’re going to need to find ways to extend. The period in which people can actually sign up for insurance on the ACA exchanges to be able to incorporate what we hope will be lower rates once we can get *** tax credit extended. All of that depends on whether or not we can get action in the Senate. OK, still so fluid. Congressman Ricardo, thank you so much for joining us on California Politics 360. Spending. Thank you. Spending decisions by the state are now an additional tax burden for businesses. We’ll look at the federal loan that California business owners are paying back. Businesses across California are paying even more for their federal payroll taxes because of spending decisions by California lawmakers and the governor. California is the only state in the nation that has not repaid its $20 billion loan from the federal government that helped with unemployment costs during the pandemic. California leaders haven’t used state money to repay the loan, and federal law requires businesses to take on the debt. To talk about the statewide impact, Ashley spoke with the leader of the California Business Roundtable. Joining us now to unpack the situation is Rob Lapsley, the president of the California Business Roundtable, which lobbies on behalf of some of the state’s largest employers at the state Capitol. Rob, thank you so much for making time for us. It’s *** pleasure. Thank you. So Rob, another year of California employers shouldering this federal debt. I mean from your perspective, what does this mean for the business community in the state? Well, it creates another disincentive to be able to scale and grow jobs here. We are in such *** competitive environment. Remember we have the highest unemployment rate in the nation, now at 5.9%. And so when you couple that with what employers have to pay that nobody else has to pay in this country, they’ve all paid off their debt except for California, and that debt is increasing annually and now it’s become *** real problem for both large and small companies. The governor last year told me he would try to make the case to the legislature to put billions toward the principal of this loan. The legislative analysts had suggested they refinance this so that businesses and essentially state taxpayers are, are. Putting money toward the principal together, shouldering this together, but nothing ever happened so what is your response to that? You know, so when you look at the history of this, and I, and this is where it becomes very important for everyone to understand, number one, coming out of COVID. We had *** $20 billion deficit. Unemployment insurance is one of the most important programs that employers pay into because when we have employees laid off, when we have recessions, this is our lifeline for employees so that we can take care of people. So when we saw COVID, it worked the way it should, but we had to borrow money from the federal government in order to be able to cover our costs. That’s OK. In 2021. The Biden administration, to their credit, said you can take the money that we are giving you for these programs and you can use them to pay off the debt from the loans that we gave you, one of the greatest benefits during COVID that we had. Every other state paid off their loan except for California. We asked for the governor, for the business community to at least use $10 billion of that money to pay off, and then we said if it’s $20 billion they pay $10 we’ll ultimately probably have to pay half. Well, it didn’t happen. They have paid virtually nothing. To the governor’s credit, the one thing he has done is he hasn’t expanded unemployment insurance for what the legislature wanted, which was for striking workers. That would have blown *** much bigger deficit into the program, but we’re still stuck with $21 billion and now the prices are quickly or the costs are quickly going up that employers have to pay. Ashley’s full interview is on Calpolitics 360.com. Next, *** look back at the history of the San Francisco Muni. Next week marks 113 years since the San Francisco Municipal Railway began operating. December 28th, 1912, Muni ran its very first streetcar. Car number 1 of Gary Street with Mayor Rolfe at the controls and 50,000 people turned out to inaugurate this first publicly owned transit system. Well, guess what? They still own that very same streetcar. It still runs. Our nonprofit helped them get it restored, completely restored. Uh, for Muy’s 1000th anniversary, and it still comes out *** few times *** year, uh, you know, for special service where the public can ride the same vehicle on the same places that their great grandparents rode. Thank you for joining us for California Politics 360. We’ll see you next Sunday.
California Politics 360 Full Episode | Capitol Annex project, enhanced ACA subsidies expiring
Lawmakers overseeing the construction of California’s controversial Capitol Annex project are breaking their years-long silence and promising to be more transparent.
Updated: 8:25 AM PST Dec 21, 2025
Lawmakers overseeing the construction of California’s controversial Capitol Annex project are breaking their years-long silence and promising to be more transparent. The leaders of the legislature’s Joint Rules Committee joined California Politics 360 to give an updated cost on the project. Ashley Zavala gets reaction from Dick Cowan, the former leader of the Historic State Capitol Commission. Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire in the new year. San Jose Democrat Rep. Sam Liccardo joins California Politics 360 to talk about the status of his bipartisan legislation with Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley. California businesses are paying more on their payroll taxes to the federal government because of spending decisions the state’s legislature and the governor made within the last couple of years. The state failed to repay on time its $20 billion loan from the federal government that helped with California’s unemployment costs during the pandemic. The president of the California Business Roundtable explains the impact on businesses across the state.California Politics 360 reports in-depth coverage of top California politics and policy issues. Get informed each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on KCRA 3.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
Lawmakers overseeing the construction of California’s controversial Capitol Annex project are breaking their years-long silence and promising to be more transparent.
The leaders of the legislature’s Joint Rules Committee joined California Politics 360 to give an updated cost on the project.
Ashley Zavala gets reaction from Dick Cowan, the former leader of the Historic State Capitol Commission.
Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to expire in the new year. San Jose Democrat Rep. Sam Liccardo joins California Politics 360 to talk about the status of his bipartisan legislation with Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley.
California businesses are paying more on their payroll taxes to the federal government because of spending decisions the state’s legislature and the governor made within the last couple of years. The state failed to repay on time its $20 billion loan from the federal government that helped with California’s unemployment costs during the pandemic. The president of the California Business Roundtable explains the impact on businesses across the state.
California Politics 360 reports in-depth coverage of top California politics and policy issues. Get informed each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on KCRA 3.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel