What's at stake?
In light of critical state legislature meetings this week, a group of local Republican elected officials criticized the California Governor Gavin Newsom and a pair of Fresno-based Sacramento lawmakers for attempting to approve a bill that would supersede the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
Bredefeld went so far as to threaten litigation if Newsom passed AB1923 on Thursday. Newsom did later that day.
A coalition of Republican Fresno leaders held a news conference on Thursday morning to oppose a Democrat-led effort allowing the state legislature to overrule the county’s board of supervisors and place a countywide tax proposal on the November general election ballot on their behalf, going so far as to threaten litigation against the state.
Garry Bredefeld, chair of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, said that he will introduce a motion to sue the State of California after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB1923 — a healthcare bill that was recently amended by Central Valley Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria to instead guarantee the Better Roads, Safe Streets transportation tax measure a spot on the November general election ballot.
“I don’t give a shit what they do in Sacramento,” Bredefeld said. “The fight has just begun for me.”
Bredefeld said that if Newsom signs the legislation, which he would go on to do later that day, he will bring the matter to a board vote at their next meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 11. He added at Thursday’s presser that the county has already contacted an elections law specialist to help them better understand the legal remedies available to them, though he did not specify who that was.
The lawsuit, which Bredefeld told Fresnoland would be against the state, would be “to contest the law’s constitutionality and its violation of state election law.”
The board only needs a simple majority to initiate the lawsuit.
When asked what the potential financial cost of a lawsuit against the state would total, Bredefeld said that he did not yet know. His comments, however, seemed to imply that cost, and potentially even legal standing, are not the biggest considerations.
“I can tell you this, though, I’m all for it,” Bredefeld said of pursuing a case against the state. “Regardless, there’s a principle here that we have to fight for, in addition to fighting for our residents, from this corruption that’s taking place in Sacramento right before our eyes.”
Thursday morning, Luis Chavez, vice chair of the board, shared a statement with local media to endorse AB1923.
Last month, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors controversially ordered through a split 3-2 vote a study of the Better Roads’ ballot measure. The study will not come back before Friday’s deadline to place a measure on the November ballot, meaning voters likely wouldn’t get to vote on the measure until the 2028 election cycle.
The study is being conducted by VRPA Technologies Inc., a group that also co-authored a once-thought-to-be-real rival initiative that would have opposed the Better Roads tax plan.
That also means that the county will not have a replacement for Measure C, the 40-year-old countywide transportation tax that funds many of Fresno’s transportation and road infrastructure projects. Local leaders have said the absence of Measure C would lead to hundreds of job losses, and an annual budget shortfall in the tens of millions.
But on Monday, Soria, alongside co-author Sen. Anna Caballero, introduced a gut-and-amended version of AB1923 that, in short, would circumvent the board and allow the state legislature to place the measure on the ballot.
The bill was approved by the state legislature this week, and signed into law Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
At the heart of the matter for local leaders is fear that AB1923’s passage sets a dangerous precedent for the state’s local governments. Some county and city leaders have argued that Newsom and the legislature approving the bill shows to local governments that the state can override their actions at any given moment.
“The bill undermines local control, turning Fresno County into a ward of the state unable to control its own destiny,” Bredefeld said, “and it sets a terrible precedent for similar actions from the state whenever they don’t agree with the county’s decision.
The state has consistently dictated what local governments can do, from how to spend money and regulate their own residents. However, Bredefeld and others are specifically criticizing AB1923 as an example of extremely targeted overreach that effectively meddles with local elections.
The California State Association of Counties earlier this week echoed these concerns to the state legislature, though they did not formally oppose the bill.
“What do we need city councils or boards of supervisors for? If every time some well-funded group can just run to their friends in Sacramento to scrap our local decisions and force their way?,” said Clovis Mayor Pro Tempore Diane Pearce at Thursday’s news conference.
Pearce added that Clovis in particular has found themselves “exasperated quite regularly” at scrutiny from state lawmakers.
This year will be the first time in the city’s history that Clovis will hold district-based instead of at-large elections. The change did not happen willingly, as only after litigation did the city comply with state law on the matter.
Still, Pearce levied criticism toward Clovis Mayor Vong Mouanoutoua for being part of a group of elected officials that signed a letter to Soria and Caballero last month, asking them for help placing the Better Roads initiative on the November ballot.
Mouanoutoua and Pearce plan to compete to succeed Nathan Magsig for his county supervisor seat next year.
Bredefeld also levied criticism toward Soria and Caballero for gutting AB1923 of its original intent. The bill was part of a package of policies that came following areas like Madera having their only hospital closed down over financial concerns.
Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes, who will retire at the end of the year, and Reedley Mayor Mathew Tuttle were also at the news conference Thursday.
Mendes said that the Better Roads coalition, which he pejoratively described as “left-leaning,” despite including several Republicans and 11 of the county’s 15 mayors, sabotaged both the previous Measure C ballot renewal effort in 2022, and the orthodox measure crafting process last year, leading them to introduce a citizen-led initiative.
The Better Roads initiative is endorsed by a group of local advocates and nonprofits, as well as a majority of Fresno County elected officials across both party lines.
Bredefeld and other local elected officials who do not support the Better Roads tax plan have also criticized these elected officials as forming a “cabal” that has been “bending the knee” to Ashley Swearengin, former Mayor of Fresno, for months throughout the Measure C renewal process.
Swearengin is now the executive director of the Central Valley Community Foundation, a local nonprofit philanthropy group that also serves as a fiscal sponsor for the California Partners Project, a nonprofit run by the governor’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
The California Partners Project has made headlines in recent weeks after the Justice Department launched an investigation that Newsom called ‘politically motivated.”
This year alone, the foundation has collected about $230,000 in funding at the direction of the governor from Omidyar Network Services LLC., the Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Fund, and Vanguard Charitable.
Behested payments are legal in California. Both Democrat and Republican politicians engage in the practice, and the totals can amount to millions of dollars given that there are no limits to these payments, as opposed to gifts and charitable donations.
However, political watchdogs have long criticized the practice. For many, there’s no way around the fact that these payments can often lead to favors once a payment has been made. And for years, state lawmakers have tried to rein in the practice.
For Bredefeld and others, they’ve accused Newsom of signing AB1923, and by extension the Better Roads coalition, as a favor to the Central Valley Community Foundation for fiscally sponsoring the California Partners Project.
Fiscal sponsorship is considered a common practice for nonprofits as a means to generate revenue.
The Central Valley Community Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mendes also criticized the measure’s authors and supporters as having a “no growth” agenda, framing it as legislation that does not allow the county to increase its size.
“It’s about no growth,” Mendes said. “They want people to live in multi-high apartments closer to the middle of town, that’s what it is.”
Cities like Fresno had begun to prepare for a world where there is no replacement for Measure C on the ballot this year. The City of Fresno voted last week to potentially place their own general tax on the ballot in November that, if approved by voters, will slide in to replace the current Measure C tax rate.
Unlike Measure C, it would not collect money specifically for transportation. Bredefeld criticized the legislation as another tax he’s skeptical of, echoing concerns brought forward last week by councilmember Annalisa Perea and others, who felt it’s unfair to guarantee to voters that the money would go toward transportation.
The matter is now a moot point, as the City of Fresno shared a press release Thursday afternoon confirming they would no longer place their measure on the ballot after AB1923’s passage.
Bredefeld said that the county would look toward any option to stop the Better Roads initiative. On top of litigation, the supervisor said that, if the measure cannot be stopped from making it on the ballot, he’d pursue avenues to campaign against the measure’s approval in November.
“If we lose and we have to go to the ballot, we’re going to make sure we defeat this piece of shit because it is not right for the people,” Bredefeld said.
After Newsom signed the bill on Thursday afternoon, Bredefeld shared a statement to Fresnoland reaffirming his stance.
“As I predicted this morning, Governor Newsom signed AB 1923 — a corrupt, unconstitutional bill that overrides the will of Fresno County’s locally elected representatives to benefit his political allies and Ashley Swearengin’s organization that has been funneling money to his wife’s charity. I will be calling on my colleagues Tuesday to authorize litigation. Fresno County will not bend the knee to Sacramento corruption. This fight has just begun.”
The Central Valley Community Foundation is a donor to Fresnoland.
