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CDA Priority Legislation — All Eight Support Bills Clear the Suspense File
The single most consequential day of the back half of session has now passed, and it broke CDA’s way. On August 13 the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees took up their “suspense files” in a vote-only hearing that precedes the August 14 deadline for the fiscal committees to report bills to the floor. Every one of CDA’s eight priority support bills survived. All eight are now on the Senate Floor, one step from the final votes that would send them to the Governor’s desk.
Context for CDA members
The suspense file is where the Appropriations Committees parks any bill with a meaningful cost to the state, then disposes of the entire list in a single fast-moving hearing with no public testimony. Bills the chair calls are sent to the floor; bills the chair leaves on the file get no recorded vote and die when the deadline passes. Second-house appropriations is historically where bills go to die — including measures that cleared their policy committees with broad, bipartisan support and no registered opposition — so clearing suspense, not the earlier policy votes, is the real test. With that hurdle behind them, a favorable floor vote is the likely outcome for each of these bills.
The remaining calendar is short. The Legislature must pass these bills off the floor by the constitutional end of session on August 31, after which the Governor has until September 30 to sign or veto. That closes the books on the 2026 legislative year. Taken together, it has been a strong session for the CDA agenda: a slate of pro-downtown, pro-housing, and public-safety measures moved through both houses largely intact and now sits one or two votes from becoming law. Once the Governor acts, attention across the Capitol — and CDA’s — turns to the November 3 ballot.
Status of CDA priority bills coming out of the August 13 suspense hearing:
● AB 1740 (Zbur D) — Urban, Transit-Rich Coastal Communities. Cleared the suspense file; on the Senate Floor.
● AB 1815 (Wicks D) — Factory-Built Housing. Cleared the suspense file; on the Senate Floor.
● AB 2074 (Haney D) — The Downtown Revitalization Act. Cleared the suspense file; on the Senate Floor.
● AB 1679 (Gonzalez D) — Temporary Commercial Permits. Cleared the suspense file; on the Senate Floor.
● AB 1693 (Zbur D) — Accelerated Retail Building Plan Approval. On the Senate Floor.
● AB 2418 (Gonzalez D) — Nonresidential Permit Streamlining. On the Senate Floor.
● AB 1941 (Gonzalez D) — Metal Theft. On the Senate Floor.
● AB 2663 (Rodgers D) — Alcoholic Beverage Off-Sale Privileges. On the Senate Floor.
Select Committee on Downtown Recovery — August 12 Hearing on Transit and Downtowns
On August 12 the Assembly Select Committee on Downtown Recovery, chaired by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), held an informational hearing on the relationship between public transit and downtown revitalization. Three panels — transit-agency leadership, street-design experts, and transit-oriented housing advocates — built a single argument: thriving downtowns and strong transit systems depend on one another, and neither recovers alone.
Context for CDA Members
A select committee does not pass laws; its job is to build a record and shape the agenda. The value of a hearing like this is that it gives downtown-recovery arguments an official venue and a legislative audience, and it helps frame the transit-funding fight and the housing bills — AB 2074 among them — that do carry legal force.
November Ballot Update: Three Measures to Watch, including CDA-Supported Prop 45 on CEQA Reform
With the legislative year nearly closed, focus shifts to the 14 measures on the November 3 statewide ballot. Three are directly relevant to the association’s priorities.
Proposition 45 is the CEQA reform measure CDA has formally endorsed. It does not exempt projects from environmental review; instead it imposes firm deadlines — a 365-day limit on environmental impact reports and a requirement that courts resolve related lawsuits within 270 days — for essential project categories including housing, water, energy, transportation, and public-safety infrastructure. Sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, it continues to poll well ahead: a Public Policy Institute of California survey in mid-July found likely voters supporting it 73 percent to 24 percent.
Proposition 1, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, is an $11.25 billion general obligation bond — roughly $10 billion for affordable rental and ownership housing and $1.25 billion for veterans’ home loans. It aligns squarely with CDA’s pro-housing priorities and would expand the financing available for the affordable and supportive housing that underpins downtown stability.
Proposition 37, the California Middle-Class Homeownership and Family Home Construction Act, is a voter-placed $25 billion bond that would authorize the California Housing Finance Agency to issue revenue bonds for fixed-rate second mortgages covering up to 17 percent of the purchase price of qualifying newly built homes, repaid through borrowers’ mortgage payments rather than the General Fund. Its focus on financing new for-sale housing for middle-income buyers — the “missing middle” the board flagged — makes it relevant to downtown residential development.
Jason Bryant
CDA’s Legislative Advocate
Principal, Bryant Government Affairs
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