1127 11TH STREET, SUITE 300, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814 • 916.974.9270 • PUBLICPOLICYGROUP.COM PAGE 1 Date: September 15, 2025
To: Christian Clegg, City Manager
City of Bakersfield
From: Sharon Gonsalves
Managing Director
California Public Policy Group
Re: CPPG 2025 End of Session Report
SUMMARY
At approximately 3 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, September 13, the California State Legislature adjourned year one of its two -year legislative session. In the final days of the legislative session, advocates representing public entities, labor unions, private sector companies, and various trade associations worked around the clock to make final pitches to lawmakers and staff to advance client interests. On September 10, the Legislature announced that procedural rules would be suspended to allow several bills to be amended after the official deadline of September 9 and that Floor session would therefore occur on Saturday to comply with the 72-hour rule.
In June, the Legislature had included in their budget package substantial changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). On September 13, the Legislature passed SB 158, which was tied to budget negotiations and expands exemptions under CEQA . Further revisions to CEQA are expected next year.
All told for this first year of session, the total number of measures that were introduced came in at 2,832, with approximately 890 bills advancing through the Legislature for Governor Gavin Newsom’s consideration. Hundreds of pending bills impacting local government touching on housing and land use and operations advanced this year. Due to a rule waiver, the Governor now has until October 13 to either sign or veto legislation. Unless a bill specifically states otherwise, all laws signed by the Governor will take effect on January 1, 2026. Any bill on which the Governor takes no action by the deadline will automatically become law without his signature.
Below is a high-level summary of some of the most intriguing storylines that played out at the end of the 2025 session. Should you have any questions regarding these, or any other pieces of legislation please contact CPPG staff.
KEY MEASURES OF INTEREST
• SB 423 (Gonzalez) Housing: real property transfer taxes: affordability covenants. o Status: 2-year bill
o On the afternoon of September 9, CPPG learned that SB 423 , which had previously been placed on the inactive file, was expected to be gut and amended. In its unofficial form, the bill would have prohibited all cities and counties from enacting a documentary transfer tax, a proposal with significant statewide implications for local governments. CPPG immediately alerted your agency to this development. While some negative impacts of the bill’s unofficial language were immediately apparent, CPPG stressed to legislators and stakeholders that there was insufficient time to
1127 11TH STREET, SUITE 300, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814 • 916.974.9270 • PUBLICPOLICYGROUP.COM PAGE 2 evaluate the proposal’s full consequences. Accordingly, CPPG emphasized that opposition from local governments was warranted solely because of the rushed process, which raised serious transparency concerns and undermined public trust.
Later that same day, the amended language was published. As a direct result of CPPG’s coordinated advocacy with local government stakeholders and with legislators, the proposal was narrowed to apply only to the City of Los Angeles.
Ultimately, the bill stalled in the Assembly Local Government Committee. This would have been the second consecutive year in which the Legislature advance d a major statewide policy change at the last possible moment, just before the 72 -hour print deadline. Although this effort was successfully halted this year, a version of this bill affecting many cities statewide is likely to resurface next year. • AB 735 (Carrillo) Planning and zoning: logistics use developments: truck routes. • SB 415 (Reyes) Planning and zoning: logistics use developments: truck routes. o Status: Governor’s desk
o AB 735 and SB 415 are cleanup bills to 2024’s AB 98, which prohibited cities and counties from approving new or expanded logistics uses unless they meet specified standards and required cities and counties to update their circulation elements to include truck routes . By the end of session, the language of both bills had been aligned, with SB 415 selected as the vehicle to advance to the Governor’s desk, while AB 735 was placed on the inactive file.
• AB 1207 (Irwin) Climate change: market-based compliance mechanism: extension. • SB 840 (Limón) Greenhouse gases: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: studies. o Status: Governor’s desk
o AB 1207 and SB 840 represent the Legislature’s agreement on California’s cap -and- trade program. AB 1207 reauthorizes the program—now renamed the California Cap- and-Invest Program—extending it through 2045. SB 840 provides the corresponding expenditure plan for the revenues generated. While a cap-and-trade framework had been anticipated since the start of the year, negotiations stretched through most of the legislative session witho ut resolution by late August. Ultimately, lawmakers reached a deal that paired the long -term extension in AB 1207 with detailed appropriations laid out in SB 840.
• AB 253 (Ward) California Residential Private Permitting Review Act: residential building permits.
o Status: Governor’s desk
o AB 253 was a direct result of the devastating Los Angeles fires that took place in early 2025. The bill enacts the California Residential Private Permitting Review Act (Act), which allows an applicant for small residential building permits to contract with or employ a private professional provider to check plans and specifications if specified time periods elapse. These provisions sunset in 2036.
• AB 339 (Ortega) Local public employee organizations: notice requirements. o Status: Governor’s desk
o AB 339 was a reintroduction of a similar bill from last year, AB 2557 (Ortega). The bill requires public agencies to give a recognized employee organization no less than 45 days’ written notice regarding contracts to perform services that are within the scope of work of job classifications represented by the recognized employee organization.
The bill was considerably amended to remove the most troubling provisions.
1127 11TH STREET, SUITE 300, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814 • 916.974.9270 • PUBLICPOLICYGROUP.COM PAGE 3 • AB 650 (Papan) Planning and zoning: housing element: regional housing needs allocation. o Status: Governor’s desk
o AB 650, extends a number of timelines in the process of determining regional housing needs, regional housing needs allocations , and housing element revisions . The bill also requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to provide specific analysis or text to local governments to remedy deficiencies in their draft housing element revisions. The bill is sponsored by CalCities. • SB 79 (Wiener) Housing development: transit-oriented development. o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 79 requires a housing development project within a specified radius of existing or currently proposed major (TOD) stop be an allowable use on a site zoned for residential, mixed, or commercial development, if the housing development meets certain requirements. This bill also allows a transit agency to adopt TOD zoning standards for district-owned land located in a TOD zone. • SB 346 (Durazo) Local agencies: transient occupancy taxes: short-term rental facilitator. o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 346 enacts the Short -Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025, which permits local agencies to enact ordinances to require short -term rental facilitators to provide specified information on their platform’s rentals to the local agency. The bill is sponsored by CalCities.
• SB 499 (Stern) Residential projects: fees and charges. o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 499 authorizes the earlier collection of certain fees and charges. These include fees for parks and recreational facilities when identified in a local agency’s hazard mitigation plan or general plan safety element, as well as fees related to water, wastewater, and sewer services.
• SB 627 (Wiener) Law enforcement: masks.
o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 627 prohibits law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings while performing their duties and requires all law enforcement agencies in California to adopt and publicly post a written policy restricting their use. Although the bill underwent mul tiple rounds of amendments, law enforcement groups remained firmly opposed.
• SB 634 (Pérez) Local government: homelessness.
o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 634, as introduced, prohibited a state agency or local jurisdiction from adopting or enforcing a regulation or ordinance that imposes civil or criminal penalties on a person who is homeless or assists an individual experiencing homelessness. The bill was amended in June to be significantly narrowed, leading many local agencies to go neutral.
• SB 707 (Durazo) Open meetings: meeting and teleconference requirements. o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 707 proposes a series of changes to the Brown Act. Introduced in late February, the bill underwent significant revisions over the following months. By July, it had absorbed several other measures aimed at expanding teleconferencing flexibility.
These were AB 259 (Rubio), AB 409 (Arambula), AB 467 (Fong), and SB 239 (Arreguín).
1127 11TH STREET, SUITE 300, SACRAMENTO, CA 95814 • 916.974.9270 • PUBLICPOLICYGROUP.COM PAGE 4 The bill had also been amended to include an extension of AB 992 (Mullin, 2020). Even with these additions and other amendments —some considered improvements — many local governments and nonprofits remained opposed to SB 707. As of September 10, the bill appeared on track to clear the Assembly Floor, secure concurrence in the Senate, and move to the Governor’s desk. However, on September 11, the author notified stakeholders that SB 707 would become a two - year bill, effectively halting its progress . In a strange turn of events, the bill returned and passed the Assembly Floor in the early hours of September 13. It then passed the Senate Floor on September 13. While presenting the bill on the Senate Floor, Senator Durazo pledged to work on urgency legislation next year to address “language access concerns,” although further details were not provided.
• SB 827 (Gonzalez) Local agency officials: training.
o Status: Governor’s desk
o SB 827 adds any department head or other similar administrative officer to the list of local officials that must complete ethics training at least once every two years . The bill also requires any local agency official who makes decisions or recommendations on the local agency’s financial administration, budgeting, or use of public resources to complete fiscal and financial training at least once every two years.