The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce and its membership support policies that facilitate a business friendly environment and support Anaheim's businesses. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce Legislative Policy Goals details the adopted policy stances of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce on areas of interest to the Anaheim business community as we actively advocate for the support of stated positions. These policy positions will help guide the Chamber through the 2023-24 legislative session.
Working with our members and partners in various industry sectors, we continue to focus on 6 distinct areas of public policy that are most critical to our members and their growth. These are:
- Tourism
- Transportation
- Enterprise Zones
- Taxation
- Business/Regulatory Reform
- Workforce Development
Below you will find our positions on various pieces of legislation pending in the California State Assembly and California State Senate. We look forward to working with our members to continuously update and focus this policy agenda based on the feedback and concerns expressed. Updates will be published throughout the year.
We hope you find the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce Legislative Policy Goals to be a valuable resource.
Chamber Positions
The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce has taken a position on the following bills in 2023:
| Bill | Author | Title/Topic | Position | Date | Status | |||||
| AB 68 | Chris Ward (D-San Diego) |
Land use: streamlined housing approvals: density, subdivision, and utility approvals. | Oppose | 4/28/2023 | Failed in Assembly Housing and Community Development. | |||||
| Worsens California’s existing housing crisis by preventing local governments from permitting new housing units in most of their jurisdictions. | ||||||||||
| AB 231Â | Philip Chen (R-Yorba Linda/Anaheim) |
Shareholders' meetings: remote communication. | Support | 7/27/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Allows fully remote non-emergency member meetings for nonprofit public benefit, mutual benefit and religious organizations and cooperative corporations. (This allows these entities to use the same option already available to for-profit corporations in California.) | ||||||||||
| AB 524 | Buffy Wicks (D-San Oakland) |
Discrimination: family caregiver status. | Oppose | 10/8/2023 | Vetoed by the Governor. | |||||
| Exposes employers to costly litigation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act by asserting that any adverse employment action was in relation to the employee's family caregiver status, which is broadly defined to include any employee who provides direct care of any person of their choosing and creates a de facto accommodation requirement that will burden small businesses. | ||||||||||
| AB 647 | Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) |
Grocery workers. | Oppose | 10/8/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Significantly expands statute related to successor grocery employers, including disrupting the ability for independent small stores to join together and creating a significant new private right of action. | ||||||||||
| AB 1000 | Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) |
Qualifying logistics use projects. | Oppose | 4/17/2023 | Failed in Assembly Local Government. | |||||
| Mandates a statewide setback of 1,000 feet from sensitive receptors for all new or expanded logistics use facilities, regardless of environmental impacts, establishing a de facto ban of warehouses. Also creates a new private right of action in California. | ||||||||||
| AB 1012 | Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton/Anaheim) |
State Air Resources Board: mobile source regulations: lifecycle analysis. | Support | 5/18/2023 | Held on Suspense in Assembly Appropriations. | |||||
| Requires the State Air Resources Board to perform a lifecycle analysis that considers all of the environmental impacts of a required technology before adopting a regulation that requires a mobile source to use that technology. | ||||||||||
| AB 1156 | Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) |
Workers' compensation: hospital employees. | Oppose | 4/28/2023 | Held in Assembly Insurance. | |||||
| Significantly increases workers' compensation costs for public and private hospitals by presuming certain diseases and injuries are caused by the workplace and establishes an extremely concerning precedent for expanding presumptions into the private sector. | ||||||||||
| AB 1228 | Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) |
Fast food restaurant franchisors and franchisees: joint liability. | Oppose | 9/11/2023 | Objectionable provisions amended out. Position switch to NEUTRAL. | |||||
| Destroys the franchise model in California by creating joint civil liability between franchisee and franchisor. | ||||||||||
| AB 1355 | Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) |
Employment: benefits: electronic notice and documents. | Support | 9/30/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Allow employers, until January 1, 2029, to provide electronic notifications, statements, and materials related to the California Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and unemployment benefit claims if the employee has opted into electronic notification. | ||||||||||
| AB 1578 | Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim) |
Insurance licensees. | Support | 9/30/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Clarifies the requirement that the license number of an organizational insurance licensee appear adjacent to or on the line below the organization’s name in emails about insurance activities only when an email is sent by the organization and not an individual. | ||||||||||
| AB 1669 | Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton/Anaheim) |
California Historically Significant Commercial District Act. | Support | 5/18/2023 | Held on Suspense in Assembly Appropriations. | |||||
| Establishes the California Historically Significant District Program to revitalize and maintain historically and culturally significant commercial corridors and authorizes 1:1 matching funds from the State that must be used within 3 years. | ||||||||||
| ACA 6 | Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) |
University of California: basic state labor standards. | Oppose | 9/11/2023 | Failed in Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments. | |||||
| Restricts University of California competitiveness by requiring the UC to comply with a host of labor law provisions and contracting restrictions, raising costs for students and harming competitiveness. The contracting restrictions would harm the ability of businesses to contract with the UC. | ||||||||||
| ACA 13 | Chris Ward (D-San Diego) |
Voting thresholds. | Oppose | 9/14/2023 | Sent to the voters. | |||||
| Aims to amend the California Constitution as to require a higher voter approval requirement for citizen-proposed ballot initiatives that seek to increase protections for adoption of new taxes but does not impose that same voting threshold burden for tax increases placed on the ballot by the Legislature or local governments. | ||||||||||
| SB 220 | Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee | Income taxes: credits: corporate tax rate: minimum franchise tax: critical needs fund. | Oppose | 5/25/2023 | Held in Senate Budget & Fiscal Review. | |||||
| Increases the corporate tax rate to 10.99% for many California employers which will drive them out of the state and decrease the revenue they contribute to the General Fund. | ||||||||||
| SB 330 | Roger Niello (R-Sacramento County) |
Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004. | Support | 4/19/2023 | Failed in Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement. | |||||
| Expanding information required to be disclosed to an employer being targeted in a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) action regarding the alleged Labor Code violations. | ||||||||||
| SB 365 | Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) |
Civil procedure: arbitration. | Oppose | 10/10/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Discriminates against use of arbitration agreements by requiring trial courts to continue trial proceedings during any appeal regarding the denial of a motion to compel, undermining arbitration and divesting courts of their inherent right to stay proceedings. | ||||||||||
| SB 444 | Josh Newman (D-Fullerton/Anaheim) |
Community colleges: Mathematics, Engineering, Science, Achievement (MESA) programs. | Support | 10/13/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Encourages community colleges to develop Mathematics, Engineering, Science, Achievement (MESA) programs for socially, economically, and educationally disadvantaged students, including increasing student transfers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors at four-year colleges and universities. | ||||||||||
| SB 592 | Josh Newman (D-Fullerton/Anaheim) |
Labor standards information and enforcement. | Support | 4/19/2023 | Failed in Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement. | |||||
| Protects businesses that act in good faith in relying upon an opinion letter or enforcement policy of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) and requires DLSE to translate its materials into non-English languages to assist business owners and employees who do not speak English. | ||||||||||
| SB 616 | Lena Gonzales (D-Long Beach) |
Sick days: paid sick days accrual and use. | Oppose | 10/4/2023 | Signed into law by the Governor. | |||||
| Imposes new costs and leave requirements on employers of all sizes, by increasing existing sick leave mandate from 3 days to 5 days, which is in addition to all other enacted leave mandates that small employers throughout the state are already struggling with to implement and comply. | ||||||||||
| SB 627 | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) |
Displaced workers: notice: opportunity to transfer. | Oppose | 10/8/2023 | Vetoed by the Governor. | |||||
| Imposes an onerous and stringent process to hire employees based on seniority alone for nearly every industry, including hospitals, retail, restaurants, and movie theaters, which will delay hiring and eliminates contracts for at-will employment. | ||||||||||
| SB 703 | Roger Niello (R-Sacramento County) |
Employment: work hours: flexible work schedules. | Support | 4/26/2023 | Failed in Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement. | |||||
| Allows non-exempt employees to elect a 4/10 workweek without their employers incurring overtime expenses and relieves employers of the administrative cost and burden of adopting an alternative workweek schedule per division, which accommodates employees, helps retain employees, and allows the employer to invest these savings into growing its workforce. | ||||||||||
| SB 799 | Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank) |
Unemployment insurance: trade disputes: eligibility for benefits. | Oppose | 9/30/2023 | Vetoed by the Governor. | |||||
| Allows striking workers to claim unemployment insurance benefits when they choose to strike. Because the Unemployment Insurance Fund is paid for entirely by employers, SB 799 effectively adds more debt onto California employers. Effectively forces employers to subsidize strikes at completely un-related businesses because the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s debt adds taxes for all employers, regardless of whether they’ve had a strike. | ||||||||||
| SB 809 | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) |
California Fair Employment and Housing Act: Fair Chance Act: conviction history. | Oppose | 5/18/2023 | Held on Suspense in Senate Appropriations. | |||||
| Prohibits nearly every employer from considering conviction history of an applicant or existing employee in employment decisions and imposes cumbersome process on employers that are legally not allowed to hire individuals with certain convictions. | ||||||||||
| SCA 7 | Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana/Anaheim) |
Employment: workers’ rights. | Oppose | 6/22/2023 | Held in Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments. | |||||
| Enshrines in the California Constitution unnecessary and unprecedented special benefits that will damage government operations and performance, destabilize the California economy, and is rife with unintended consequences. | ||||||||||