California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 1923, which supersedes Fresno County\u2019s authority and places a 30-year transportation tax initiative on the November ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The move tees up Fresno County to initiate litigation next week, which may ultimately delay the measure to the 2028 ballot anyways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: Needing a two-thirds vote in both houses, AB 1923 passed through the Senate Thursday morning on a 27-8 vote and then went to the Assembly to pass 54-16.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asm. Esmeralda Soria (D\u2013Fresno), the bill\u2019s author, then announced Thursday afternoon that Newsom signed the bill into law, placing the 30-year, $7.4 billion tax on the ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: Soria and Sen. Anna Caballero (D\u2013Merced) gutted AB 1923, which was initially a bill to support financially distressed hospitals, to force Fresno County to place the Fresno County Transportation Improvement Act on the ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors had ordered a 30-day study on the measure at its last meeting on July 14. The measure was not set to come back to the board until after the Aug. 7 deadline to place initiatives on the ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soria presented AB 1923 to the Assembly and Senate elections committees on Wednesday, bringing Mendota Mayor Victor Martinez and Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco \u2013 who works for her as a field representative \u2013 as the two main witnesses in support. Paul Yoder, Fresno County\u2019s lobbyist, and former Fresno County Supervisor Henry Perea testified in opposition, warning that local control was being stripped away and that the county could sue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soria celebrates: \u201cThank you Governor Newsom for signing this bill,\u201d Soria said. \u201cThank you for recognizing the voters of Fresno County did everything in their power to qualify this initiative for the ballot \u2013 despite a last-minute procedural maneuver by their own board of supervisors to delay and deny democracy. I am proud to announce the \u2018Fresno County Transportation Improvement Act\u2019 will appear on this November ballot, just as the voters intended.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: While AB 1923 was working its way through the Senate and Assembly floors Thursday morning, Fresno County Supervisors Garry Bredefeld and Buddy Mendes held a press conference alongside Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce and Reedley Mayor Matthew Tuttle to voice their opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bredefeld said he intends to ask the Board of Supervisors at its next meeting on Tuesday to initiate immediate litigation against AB 1923.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bredefeld said the county will have an election law specialist speak to the board on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zoom in: Fresno County Counsel Doug Sloan said Thursday that one of the county\u2019s main legal arguments will examine if AB 1923 qualifies as urgent under Article IV of the California Constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article IV, Section 8 defines urgency statutes as those necessary to immediately preserve the public peace, health or safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bredefeld\u2019s reaction: Bredefeld argued on Thursday that there is no urgency regarding the lost Measure C funding, since the tax will still be collected through June 2027 with funding to be distributed after.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this state were truly concerned, and they are not, they could meet their obligations and fund road repairs just as they did before Measure C was implemented 40 years ago,\u201d Bredefeld said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bredefeld added, \u201cThe bill undermines local control, turning Fresno County into a ward of the state unable to control its own destiny, and it sets a terrible precedent for similar action from the state whenever they don\u2019t agree with a county\u2019s decision. What we\u2019re seeing in Sacramento is a blatant tale of cronyism and corruption \u2013 plain and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 1923, which supersedes Fresno County\u2019s authority and places a 30-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113,7999],"class_list":["post-426115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-highlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}