CRA Winter Newsletter III
March 19, 2021 | CRA Winter Newsletter III: Political, Legislative, Regulatory and CRA Updates
Message from the President
Just when we thought we were moving past an unpredictable 2020, 2021 came roaring in. As Californians are fighting exhaustion at the one year mark of the COVID pandemic, this week supporters of the Recall Governor Newsom campaign submitted enough signatures, over 2 million, to call a special election to recall the Governor. Now Governor Newsom and the state of California is in full campaign mode which will last for several months. How this effects legislative and executive action is hard to say right now, but the CRA team is engaged to ensure our members have the most up to date intel on what is going on in the state and developments related to the recall.
 
NEWSOM STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS
 
You could get a sense of how the next few months play out if you watched the Governor’s State of the State address last week. Per the California constitution, the Governor is required to provide an annual State of the State address. Typically, this is done from the Assembly Chambers and these speeches, in the past, outline the ambitious goals of the Administration and tout the Administration's policy achievements in the past year. Governor Newsom was able to give a “typical” state of the state in 2020 and focused his entire speech on combatting homelessness.
 
But this is 2021, all bets are off and with a recall looming, Newsom used the traditional state of the state address as the kickoff to fighting the recall. The State Capitol is out, Dodger Stadium is in. From the pitcher’s mound of Dodger Stadium, with screens of “zoom” squares, Newsom used this opportunity to tout what he accomplished over the past year, admit to some mistakes and vowed we are “seeing light at the end of the tunnel.”

Legislative and Political Updates
Gubernatorial Recall Update

Supporters of the recall targeting California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday they submitted 2,117,730 signatures by the day's deadline, a number that appears to comfortably exceed the required threshold even if some are invalid.

The final submissions will keep 58 county elections officials busy verifying the signatures. Already, proponents have registered a validity rate approaching 84 percent, higher than normal for voter-driven campaigns. County registrars have until April 29 to verify that proponents have obtained nearly 1.5 million required signatures across the state.

The following constitutes key deadlines for the recall process moving forward.
  • April 19: final report from counties of the number of verified submitted
  • April 29: last day for counties to certify the number of valid signatures submitted
  • within 10 days of the number of certified signatures reaches 1,495,709, Secretary of State notifies all counties that a recall has been initiated,
  • which begins a 30 business day period to allow any voter who signed the recall position to withdraw the signature, and then
  • counties have 10 business days to report to the Secretary of State an updated valid signature total, and then
  • the Secretary of State, if there are still sufficient signatures, notifies the Department of Finance to request a fiscal estimate in consultation with county elections officials of the cost of the recall election. DOF then submits the estimate to the Chairperson of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, Governor, Lieutenant Governor and the Secretary of State
  • the Joint Legislative Budget Committee has 30 days to review and comment on the fiscal estimate
  • the Secretary of State then notifies the Governor and Lieutenant Governor that the petition to recall has significant valid signatures and an election shall be called
  • the Lieutenant calls an election not less than 60 nor more than 80 days following the notification of qualification.

The recall election could be held in early November of this year, approximately one year out from when Newsom is up for re-election.
Regulatory Updates
CRA News and Activities
CRA and NACDS to Launch Campaign Regarding "Hero" Pay in California

While the issue of Hero/Hazard Pay has not affected everyone, it has affected several CRA members. The CRA team is working on a collaboration with the National Association of Chain Drug stores on a statewide campaign to counter the narrative regarding, what we are calling "premium pay". While this may not affect you as of today, we are trying to get a head of the curve in case other retailers are included in the future as these local ordinances move forward. We are also organizing this effort to keep local governments from extending the pay increase mandates past the sunset outlined in the original ordinances. 

We are excited to announce that very soon (by this week's end) the statewide campaign will officially launch. Our campaign is being spearheaded by Swing Strategies (who ran the successful NO on Prop 15 campaign). We are calling it "Californians for a Safe and Rapid Recovery" and our website will be PaychecksnotPolitics
CRA Announces New Partnership with California Organized Retail Crimes Association

The California Retailers Association (CRA) and the California Organized Retail Crimes Association (Cal-ORCA) announced today a new joint partnership to combat Organized Retail Crime (ORC) throughout California.

“ORC is a growing problem not only for businesses, but our communities,” said Rachel Michelin, CRA President and CEO. “ORC fosters a host of illegal activity, including the recruitment of youth, homeless and others into theft crimes. These networks frequently use their proceeds to finance other illegal activity including drug smuggling and human trafficking.”
CRA President and CEO Rachel Michelin Speaks with KTVU Channel 2 in Bay Area "One year later: How COVID killed small businesses"

“At one point we were looking at 30% of particularly small business retailers not coming back. Asking for relief or modifications given California’s overwhelming number of rules, regulations, and fees, has proved and continues to prove to be an impossible task. There were opportunities, I think, that we advocated on, on how these stores could safely operate throughout the entire pandemic and that just didn’t happen."
CRA President and CEO Rachel Michelin Responds to COVID-19 Cases in the Workplace

CRA President and CEO Rachel Michelin spoke with the Sacramento Business Journal in response to COVID-19 cases in the workplace.

"While retailers have been “on the forefront of safety including face covering protocols, retailers have faced challenges like other industries when it comes to transmission outside of the workplace. Without good contact tracing abilities, it’s difficult to know if people were exposed inside the workplace, or elsewhere. Just like in any industry, you can only do so much, and some of it comes down to personal responsibility."
CRA’s VP of Government and Regulatory Affairs Steve McCarthy Responds to
Santa Ana and Costa Mesa Mandating Hazard Pay for Grocery Clerks
Critics, like the California Grocers Association, say it unfairly singles out grocery stores while leaving out other businesses who employ essential workers. 
Others say the wage increases will raise prices in stores. 
“A mandated pay increase beyond what retail employers can tolerate without raising prices or cutting workforce hours will hurt both consumers and our hardworking employees,” wrote California Retailers Association Vice President Steve McCarthy, in a previous letter to the Santa Ana City Council.
CRA Holds First Retail Roundtable of 2021
Thank you to the CRA members who were able to attend our first Retail Roundtable with Senator Andres Borgeas. The CRA team appreciates the Senator's time to listen to our members' concerns and engage in thoughtful discussion regarding past, current and future legislative actions that can support California's retail industry, especially as we reach one full year of the pandemic. 
 
We plan on hosting more of these forums. Please email cra@calretailers.com for any requests on future retail roundtables including legislative representatives you and your company wish to meet with in a smaller, more intimate group setting. 
 
These virtual forums are similar to the in-person meetings with individual state legislators CRA held prior to the pandemic as part of CRA's first-ever retail advocacy day. 
 
CRA President and CEO Rachel Michelin Joins Los Angeles County and Central Valley Business Federations' First Sacramento Week forum on Pandemic Economic Relief

Rachel Michelin, President & CEO of the California Retailers Association and Executive Committee Member of LA BizFed led an incredibly substantive and open conversation with Senator Andreas Borgeas, Senator Anna Cabellero, and Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris around the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, the importance of assisting and protecting the economy and the need for a reliable and statewide vaccination plan.
CRA 2021 Policy Calls 

The remainder of CRA's 2021 monthly policy calls covering this year's legislative session is listed below (dates are subject to change). For CRA members' designated contacts who are not regularly receiving these policy call reminders and calendar invites, please email cra@calretailers.com to be added moving forward. Policy calls are held on Fridays at 10:00am PT.

  • March 12 (held this morning)
  • April 16
  • May 21
  • June 18
  • July 9
  • August 20
  • September 10
CRA Member Highlights
To celebrate Women's History Month the CRA team is sharing highlights of our members' commitment to gender parity and supporting women in the retail industry. CRA's President and CEO Rachel Michelin also authored an op-ed published in Capitol Weekly that addressed the 'Shecession', a term that encapsulates how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted women.
COVID-19 Resources and Updates
The CRA team continues to send updates to our members with the latest information and resources related to COVID-19 including city, county and statewide executive orders and guidance, status of color-coded county tier system, latest sector updates and more. This information is also compiled on CRA's COVID-19 Resources and Updates web page. To receive this proprietary information, members can send an email to cra@calretailers.com.
CRA Member Portal
CRA members get access to CRA's exclusive online member portal, which contains coalition letters, floor alerts, regulatory comments and testimony that California Retailers Association authored or signed on to during previous Legislative sessions as well as the latest updates on the 2021-2022 legislative session. The portal also contains newsletter, news alert archives and important association governance documents for your reference. If you have not yet received your login credentials and access instructions please email cra@calretailers.com. We are also available to answer any questions you may have regarding portal navigation.