A deadline has come and gone for bills introduced in the California legislature last year. They had to pass the house they were introduced in today, to keep going through the rest of the two-year session.
The state Senate approved a bill that would allow local governments to keep more than one-billion dollars in redevelopment funds set aside for affordable housing projects. It’s an effort to preserve that money as redevelopment agencies shut down. However, the bill did not get the necessary two-thirds vote for it to take effect immediately. Instead, if it becomes law, it wouldn’t kick in until next year—which may be too late to save the funds.
In the Assembly, lawmakers approved a bill that would ask voters whether to change California’s three-strikes law-- to require that only a serious or violent felony qualifies as a third strike. Lawmakers in that house rejected a campaign disclosure bill to require that top donors be identified in political ads. That measure fell two votes short of the two-thirds supermajority required.
