Republicans help SEIU defy Gavin Newsom’s return – Latest News
Gavin Newsom did one thing outstanding final 12 months: He instructed California state staff to return back to work.
His government order directed companies and departments beneath his administration to make at the least 4 days a week within the workplace the default. Newsom mentioned in-person work improves collaboration, innovation and accountability.
On this situation, he was proper.
Remote work has its place. Some jobs could be executed successfully from home, and taxpayers can save on workplace space. But working from home mustn’t turn out to be an entitlement or the default for a authorities workforce.
Anica Walls, president of SEIU Local 1000, heart, raises her fist during a rally protesting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office coverage on the Capitol in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Demonstrators gathered for a group photograph as purple smoke billowed behind them in a show of solidarity. Renee C. Byer/ZUMA / SplashNews.com
My good pal David Bahnsen, creator of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, places the mentorship downside bluntly: “Young talent yearns to observe, interact, and collaborate, and Gen Z, far more so than Gen Y, seeks mentorship. In-office work exponentially improves this prospect!”
Zoom is beneficial. It just isn’t a substitute for an group.
And if anyone ought to determine how usually executive-branch staff show up for work, certainly it’s the chief government.
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Enter Assembly Bill 1729.
Authored by Democratic Assemblyman Alex Lee and coauthored by Republican Assemblyman Josh Hoover, the invoice throws a statutory impediment in Newsom’s method.
Existing law already requires companies to take care of telework plans the place teleworking is “both practical and beneficial.”
Thousands of staff and activists rally and march in direction of downtown Los Angeles in recognition of May Day on Saturday, May 2, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. Organizers of the occasion additionally known as on people to participate in an financial boycott. Los Angeles Times by way of Getty Images
AB 1729 provides one other requirement: When operational wants require staff to report to a office, companies should present a detailed written justification.
Newsom’s coverage begins with workplace work because the default.
AB 1729 pushes the opposite method.
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If managers need staff bodily current, authorities should clarify why.
That is unhealthy coverage and awful management.
The Legislature can set broad employment law. But the place staff report for work is a primary management choice. The governor runs the chief department, and voters can maintain him accountable when state authorities performs poorly.
Samantha Toedter, left, and Kiley Janee Braud, proper, be part of state staff protesting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office coverage during a rally organized by SEIU Local 1000 on the Capitol on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Sacramento, Ca. Renee C. Byer/ZUMA / SplashNews.com
The individual held accountable ought to have the authority to handle.
SEIU Local 1000, of course, loves AB 1729.
The union has fought Newsom’s return-to-office mandate and pushed expanded telework.
Some of the complaints would make Californians who by no means stopped commuting roll their eyes.
On SEIU’s own web site, state staff have complained about visitors, fuel costs, put on and tear on their automobiles, parking prices and childcare as causes to keep working from home.
Those are actual bills. They are additionally bills thousands and thousands of Californians deal with every single day merely to get to work.
California State Senator Roger Niello.
SEIU isn’t combating for its members. It’s combating to keep a pandemic-era privilege that the majority of its members’ neighbors by no means had within the first place.
California’s public-employee unions, with SEIU among the many strongest, spend lots of of thousands and thousands on politics, electing legislators, influencing poll measures and sustaining the political machinery that protects their pursuits.
Everyone in Sacramento understands how this works. Public-employee unions help elect politicians who then vote for union priorities.
The tougher query is why Republicans are serving to them.
AB 1729 is an urgency invoice. It takes impact instantly if enacted and requires two-thirds in each homes.
In the Assembly, it handed 67-7. Eleven Republicans voted yes, a majority of Assembly Republicans, though Democrats had enough votes with out them.
California State Assembly member Josh Hoover. PPIC
Read that again: A majority of Assembly Republicans voted for an SEIU precedence.
Most remarkably, Hoover is a coauthor and was simply elevated to Assembly minority ground chief.
Assembly Republicans who voted for this, along with Hoover, had been Juan Alanis, Phillip Chen, Laurie Davies, Heath Flora, Jeff Gonzalez, Heather Hadwick, Tom Lackey, Joe Patterson, David Tangipa, and Greg Wallis.
Apparently not a lot ground management was needed right here.
The Senate vote is simply as revealing. AB 1729 handed 31-6. Democrats equipped precisely the 27 votes needed for an urgency invoice. Four Republicans — Megan Dahle, Shannon Grove, Roger Niello and Suzette Valladares — joined them anyway.
Niello, whom Senate Republicans chosen to turn out to be their chief after the November election, ought to perceive this higher than most. He spent 25 years serving to run his household’s vehicle dealerships.
Imagine Sacramento telling the Niello Auto Group that working from home must be the default, then requiring a written justification every time management desires staff bodily current on the dealership.
Niello would rightly call that an absurd intrusion into management.
So why is it good coverage when the employer is the state of California?
Now AB 1729 heads to Newsom’s desk. He ought to veto it instantly. Or he can clarify to voters throughout America why state staff shouldn’t need to report to the workplace.
SEIU Local 1000 is doing what its members pay it to do.
California Republicans ought to clarify why they’re serving to.
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.
