Wednesday, May 28, 2025

California Lawmakers Halt Hundreds Of Bills With New Spending As Deficits Loom

By Lynn La, CALMATTERS

Assemblymembers meet during a suspense file hearing at the Capitol Annex Swing Space in Sacramento on May 23, 2025. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters

State legislators on Friday halted hundreds of bills with new spending attached from advancing. Why? The Legislature again underwent its relatively opaque process known as the “suspense file.” Hanging over lawmakers’ heads is the expected $12 billion state budget deficit that is projected to worsen due to federal tariffs and increased state health care spending.

The Assembly and Senate’s appropriations committees hold these proceedings twice a year. As CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang and Yue Stella Yu explain, 32% of 1,098 measures were held in the committees on Friday — meaning those proposals are essentially dead or shelved for the year.

• Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat and chairperson of the Assembly appropriations committee: “Many good bills are going to fall by the wayside today. We are not in a year where we can be expanding programs, developing new offices, new agencies, new departments and expanding our footprints.”

The Assembly trimmed about the same number of bills compared to last May, while the Senate squashed a slightly higher percentage of bills (29% compared to 25.5% in 2024), according to longtime lobbyist Chris Micheli.

Some notable bills that didn’t advance included ones that would have expanded health care services, such as a proposal to seek federal approval to cover some housing services under Medi-Cal, an insurance program for low-income residents, and another to allow more Medi-Cal patients to receive home-based care.

Two crime bills, both introduced by Republicans, were also spiked. One would have barred some prisoners from being released early through the state’s elderly parole program, and the other would have increased penalties for giving fentanyl to minors.

But the committees did pass 742 other bills, including a proposal by Assemblymember Rick Zbur and backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to expand tax credits for the state’s film industry. Though language to increase the state’s film tax credit to $750 million annually was struck from the bill, the specific amount is expected to be ironed out during budget negotiations, said Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat.

The bills that survived on Friday will face another hurdle next week, when they must advance out of the chamber — Assembly or Senate — where they were introduced.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.