Newsom's Fateful Choice

Gavin Newsom may or may not realize this, but he’s about to make one of the most consequential decisions of his governorship. He has until October 12 to sign or veto Senate Bill 79, perhaps the most important pro-housing bill to ever come across his desk. One way or the other, his decision will have significant consequences for California’s housing crisis, his own legacy and political ambitions, and even the survival of American democracy.

SB 79 has been referred to as a “holy grail zoning reform,” and with good reason. At the most basic level, the bill upzones the land around certain types of transit stops to allow for the construction of mid-rise apartment buildings. It’s a less expansive version of SB 827 (2018) and its successor SB 50 (2019), either of which, had they passed, might have gotten California most of the way toward fixing the zoning rules that caused the state’s housing shortage.

SB 79 isn’t a silver bullet like either of its predecessors, but it’s a big step in the right direction. It’s not just that the bill would legalize badly needed housing production; it’s that it concentrates this housing production in the metropolitan areas facing the worst housing shortages, along the transit routes where new residents are most likely to rely on public transit instead of driving. This is a housing affordability bill, but it’s also a climate and transportation bill.

And it’s a democracy consolidation bill. As things currently stand, California is expected to lose three electoral votes in the 2030 Census; Texas and Florida respectively stand to gain three votes and two votes. That’s largely because housing is more abundant and affordable in the red states of the Sun Belt; California’s shortage is causing migration patterns to shift in a way that grants red states more representation in Congress and more weight in presidential contests.The Golden State’s restrictive zoning rules are a gift to the MAGA political coalition.¹

In 2018, Newsom ran for governor on a promise to get 3.5 million homes built in California. Since then, he’s been largely AWOL when it comes to housing; instead, he’s been occupied with more important matters like podcasting and dunking on Ron DeSantis. But if Newsom hasn’t exactly been a housing champion, he at least hasn’t gotten in the way; with the exception of Asm. Alex Lee’s social housing bill, I cannot think of a single piece of YIMBY-backed legislation that he has killed once it reached his desk.

This year, perhaps thanks to a dawning realization that he’s running out of time to rack up some housing wins, Newsom did show some actual initiative for once: he incorporated some legislative proposals to reform the California Environmental Quality Act into his suite of budget bills, smoothing the way to their implementation. That was a welcome development, but it wouldn’t come anywhere close to balancing out an SB 79 veto; the net effect would be of one tentative step forward and two very large steps back.

With all of that in mind, you might wonder why an SB 79 veto is even on the table. I didn’t think it was until this week. After all, why would he start actively thwarting YIMBY priorities now, in the twilight of his gubernatorial career? But power brokers in Los Angeles, including Mayor Karen Bass, have been fighting SB 79 tooth and nail. I suspect the governor is also getting a lot of calls from the city’s major Democratic donors asking him to kill the bill. And the scuttlebutt in Sacramento is that he’s wobbling.

It’s not hard to see why. Virtually everything Newsom does is driven by his desire to be president. The last thing he wants to do is alienate the studio executives in the Hollywood Hills who max out to their preferred Democratic candidates every four years and hold lavish fundraisers. Not when his home team advantage with them is one of the more important assets he’s going to bring into the 2028 presidential primary.

But bowing to the donors would be incredibly short-sighted. It would make him the presidential candidate who promised to end California’s housing shortage, watched it get worse for seven years, and then thwarted one of the more serious efforts to actually fulfill his promise. He would be the candidate who helped lock in California’s car dependency in the face of an existential climate crisis. And he would be the candidate who actively helped to widen Republicans’ electoral college advantage, potentially dooming the country to prolonged autocratic rule.

Newsom has one legislative session left, but he’s not going to get another chance like this one. We won’t probably won’t see ambitious legislation like SB 79 in the session leading up to a November midterm. And even if we did, the state’s incoming Senate pro tem would probably do everything in her power to stop it. If the governor wants to actually make a difference for housing, for the climate, and for American democracy, this is his shot. Squandering that shot may help him out with some big money donors, but it won’t be worth the price — for him as a candidate, or for the country as a whole.

Ultimately, I remain cautiously — very cautiously — optimistic that he’ll do the right thing in this case. But we can’t leave that up to chance. So if you’re a Californian, please take a couple minutes to call the governor’s office and urge him to sign SB 79.