Bipartisanship is rare in the California Legislature. Here are the bills breaking the divide

In these hyper-partisan times, Democrats and Republicans can’t seem to agree on much. That includes the members of the California Legislature.

Of the 2,278 bills lawmakers submitted by the deadline last week, only 11 had Republicans and Democrats as joint lead authors, according to a CalMatters analysis of the Digital Democracy database.

Another 41 bills had bipartisan “co-authors” and “principal co-authors,” designations that are more symbolic since a bill’s lead authors and their staffs are expected to marshal the legislation through to the governor’s desk. 

Authors and co-authors can still be added to bills later in the year. But taken together, these  early bipartisan bills represent less than 1% of all the legislation filed so far this session. The figure perhaps isn’t surprising, given ever-rising partisan acrimony and Democrats having a supermajority in the California Legislature.

“You know, at the end of the day, we as Democrats also represent a significant portion of Republicans, as well as no party preference, as well as independents and much more,” said Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive Democrat from Fremont who co-authored a bill this year with Republican Sen. Kelly Seyarto of Murrieta.

Wahab’s Bay Area district is only 15% Republican and she said she and Seyarto don’t agree on many other issues. But she liked his bill, a version of which failed last year, to help police recruitment efforts by giving officers more time to finish new mandatory college requirements.

California’s early bipartisan bills

So what other other issues do California Republicans and Democrats agree on enough this year to work together? 

At least four of the bills with bipartisan joint lead authors were “spot bills,” placeholder legislation that allowed the lawmakers to get their bill in at the filing deadline. The details of those measures on tax penalties, waste management, government ethics and local courthouse funding will be added in coming weeks.

Other bipartisan measures include a health care proposal, Senate Bill 246 by Sens. Anna Caballero, a Democrat, and Shannon Grove, a Republican. The bill would expand Medi-Cal funding for training programs to help address physician shortages including in the San Joaquin Valley, which the two senators represent.

Another public safety measure, Senate Bill 264, by Democratic Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez of Glendale and Republican Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares of Lancaster would allow prosecutors to charge people with felonies if they impersonate police or firefighters in order to gain access to disaster areas. Currently, the maximum penalty is a misdemeanor. The bill comes after several people were arrested for allegedly impersonating firefighters following the Los Angeles County wildfires.

At least two other bills seek to resurrect legislation that stalled in previous sessions.

One was Senate Bill 458 by Sacramento County Republican Sen. Roger Niello and Democratic Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana that would require the Legislative Analyst’s Office to write ballot initiative titles and summaries instead of the partisan Attorney General’s Office. 

Various efforts over the years to make the change have fizzled out. 

The issue took on new life last year after Republicans, including Donald Trump, sought to portray Kamala Harris as a soft-on-crime liberal who supported 2014’s Proposition 47, an initiative that reduced sentences for some offenses (and that voters partially overturned with Proposition 36 in November). Harris was attorney general in 2014 when her office wrote the summary that appears in the state’s Official Voter Information Guide, but she stayed neutral and didn’t officially endorse the measure. 

Niello carried a similar bill in 2023 without any Democratic coauthors. He said he was thrilled when the bill passed the Senate Elections Committee with unanimous support, but he was disappointed when it died without another hearing.

“It was most certainly a leadership move, but the fact is, I got it out of the election committee with a unanimous vote, so I thought, ‘Hey, I’m making progress here,’ ” he said. 

He said he approached Umberg to join him as lead author of this year’s measure in the hopes the bipartisanship would help move it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

For his part, Umberg said he knows Niello well and trusts and respects him. Plus, he said the proposed change is “good public policy.”

Can bipartisanship reform ADA “shakedown” suits?

A pro-business measure, Senate Bill 84, is another example of how Niello’s relationships with his Democratic colleagues led to bipartisan legislation that seeks to resurrect a dead bill.

For decades, California businesses have complained that they’ve been shaken down by aggressive law firms that demand payment when they identify violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Such violations could be a mirror, countertop or handrail being a fraction of an inch too low or too high.

Niello last year carried a bill to give businesses with fewer than 50 employees 120 days to comply with ADA rules before they have to pay the law firms that identify the problems.

Niello’s previous bill made it through the Senate, but it died in the Assembly. This year, he hopes having two Democratic senators, Caballero and Angelique Ashby of Sacramento, as lead authors from the beginning will help to persuade their colleagues.

“This has been affecting a lot of businesses in disadvantaged areas in Democrats’ districts,” Niello said.

Like Umberg, Ashby said that when it came to working with Niello, it didn’t take much convincing. 

For one thing, she said she’s had “microbusinesses” including a popular burger joint in her district struggle over ADA-compliance claims.

Ashby said she also knows Niello personally from her time as a member of the Sacramento City Council. Niello is a former Sacramento County supervisor and a former chamber of commerce leader whose family owns a number of car dealerships in their districts.

“He’s a wonderful human,” Ashby said. “We don’t have to agree on every policy issue to like each other, and we do.” 

Two moderate former Democratic lawmakers who left office last year say those sorts of relationships can be critical to advance tough bills. Plus, they argue that when Republicans support Democratic proposals, it can add credibility in the eyes of the public.

“It can make your proposed policy change stronger and more enduring,” said Steve Glazer, a former Democratic state senator from Orinda who didn’t seek reelection last year. 

Steven Bradford, a Democratic state senator from Inglewood who termed out last year, recounted how he needed Republican support on a bill that expanded powers for the police that patrol Los Angeles airports since he didn’t have enough Democratic votes.

“Had I not had the relationships with those guys, that bill would have died,” he said. 

Digital Democracy’s data analysis intern, Luke Fanguna, contributed to this story.