We’re advancing legislation (SB 79) to allow more homes by the highest quality, highest frequency transit: rail, subway, rapid bus, ferries.

It’s so straightforward. It shouldn’t be controversial. It means more homes, more transit ridership, less traffic, lower CO2 emissions. 🧵

https://twitter.com/jonlovett/status/1958305808296677847

We’re seeing growing support for SB 79 among local elected officials, cities, environmentalists & housing advocates. They get that this bill helps address various huge problems facing California — housing, transportation, climate.

https://twitter.com/bubbathefish/status/1958306786475192803

Powerful statement by the Reform Movement — the largest Jewish movement in North America, with 850 synagogues — demanding Israel expand food & medical relief in Gaza, end violence at aid sites & bring an end to the war & return of all hostages: 🧵 urj.org/press-room/ref… Reform Movement:

“Blocking food, water, medicine & power—especially for children—is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.”

There’s a huge double standard when it comes to funding public transit vs funding highways. It plays out in various ways in how society looks at the costs of building & operating transit vs highways. The result is massive under-investment in transit. 🧵: Both highways & transit are way too expensive to build in the U.S. (a subject for another post) but only transit gets torn apart for cost overruns & is thus deemed unworthy of getting built. Very few say “don’t build highways b/c they cost too much.” The highways just get built.

We’ve received valuable feedback from AI developers, startups, and academics on SB 1047. Based on these conversations—& in addition prior big amendments—we’ve made new amendments to help improve the bill as it heads to a full vote in the Assembly. Here are the key changes:🧵

1️⃣ Eliminates the FMD

The FMD has been removed. Its top duties – evolving the compute threshold, issuing safety guidance,m & regulations for auditors – have moved to the Government Operations Agency.

This streamlines the compliance process, while preserving safety standards.

In recent weeks, there's been a flurry of discussion online about SB 1047, my bill on responsible development of the largest & most powerful AI frontier models. We’ve heard some incredibly thoughtful feedback, & some misconceptions. Today, I’m releasing an open letter to respond.



Link to the full letter is here:

TLDR: I'm determined to get this right. If you have ideas to improve the bill, I want to hear them.safesecureai.org/open-letter

I introduced new housing legislation, w/ Attorney General @RobBonta, to create financial incentives for cities to follow state housing law.

Under SB 1037, if a city violates housing law & the AG sues & wins, the city is liable for penalties dating to the start of the violation🧵 Under existing law, if the Attorney General sues a city for violation of state housing law & wins, the city faces no financial consequences if it simply follows the court order. Only if it violates that order for an extended period can penalties sometimes ensue.

Since the Hamas terror invasion of Israel, we’ve seen tweets & rallies in the U.S. glorifying what Hamas did as “resistance” & even making fun of Israelis who were murdered, raped or kidnapped.

All while Israelis are still missing, held hostage or not yet buried.

Truly vile.🧵 In New York, protesters glorified Hamas’s terror offensive against Israeli civilians & made fun of the 260 “hipsters” who were massacred at a music festival, with others raped & kidnapped.

🧵Bringing back downtown San Francisco isn’t rocket science. We need the will to:

✅ Transform the financial district into a mixed use neighborhood. It never made sense for it to be just office. It should be office, housing, nightlife, restaurants, markets, entertainment, etc
⬇️ ✅ Fix SF’s broken business tax structure, which was broken before COVID — eg, it drove out payments companies — & truly isn’t matched to current conditions. The business tax is important but needs to be fixed. We must never again take for granted businesses wanting to be in SF.

The situation at Silicon Valley Bank has left many on edge

SVB had $175B in deposits, a large % coming from SF small businesses, nonprofits & tech startups that are locked up due to the collapse.

There are big ramifications if the Fed & US Treasury don’t take fast action:🧵 The Bay Area is the heartbeat of innovation for our entire country. The failure of the largest regional bank in the tech sector risks severe damage, not only to our local economy & its workers, but to the entire banking system.

PG&E often takes a huge amount of time to turn on the lights for new homes. As a result, homes sit empty during a housing crisis.

Today, we’re rolling out new legislation (SB 83) to cap the amount of time utilities can take to connect new construction to the electric grid.🧵 SB 83 requires PG&E & other utilities to interconnect new construction in 8 weeks max. If they go beyond that time limit, they’ll have to compensate the owner for the delay. sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…

Some law enforcement & right wing media are falsely & opportunistically claiming a law I wrote, SB 357, is to blame for human trafficking. This piece by @eqca (largest CA LGBTQ civil rights org) & @CASTLA (largest CA anti-trafficking org) debunks the claim sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo… SB 357 repealed a discriminatory loitering law—known as the “Walking While Trans” law—allowing arrest solely based on how someone looks, not what they’re doing — i.e., profiling.

Arresting sex workers & trafficking victims doesn’t help them. It just gives them a criminal record.

BIG HOUSING NEWS: I introduced SB 423 to extend/improve our groundbreaking housing streamlining law SB 35, which I authored in 2017.

SB 35 makes infill housing ministerial—no CEQA, no discretionary permits—in cities that don’t meet their housing goals.

It’s been a big success⬇️ SB 35 has streamlined ~12k homes statewide & ~3k homes in SF alone. ~75% are below market rate.

Use of SB 35 is accelerating, with 6k more homes in pipeline.

These #s are an undercount, since we only have statewide data through 2021 & our housing data collection bill was vetoed

New data: California has 12% of the US population but 30% of its homeless & 50% of unsheltered homeless.

Why? CA doesn’t have more mental health issues than other states.

Rather, it’s about housing. We have fewer homes per capita than other states. We must prioritize new homes. In recent years, California has recognized that our system of essentially pure local control crushed housing production & spiked homelessness. We’ve worked hard to rebalance the system & set stronger state requirements for housing production. I’ve authored several of these laws.

🧵Notwithstanding the endless obituaries written on San Francisco, our city is coming back. That’s why @MichaelShvo is investing $400M:

“While there are those that’ll have you believe this is a city in despair, the facts on the ground are very different.” sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo… Shvo: “My confidence in SF’s recovery isn’t just anecdotal. Economic data shows that SF is at the beginning of a great American comeback story. In 2021, SF grew its contribution to the GDP at the fastest rate of any county in the nation—posting a 14% year-over-year growth rate.”

I introduced Senate Bill 4, allowing churches/religious institutions & nonprofit colleges to build 100% affordable housing on their land.

SB 4 sets the zoning & approves the housing by right, avoiding lawsuits, appeals, etc.

SB 4 is a game changer for affordable housing. According to the Terner Center, in the highest cost counties, the approach in SB 4 will unlock tens of thousand of acres of land for affordable housing development, mostly in high opportunity areas. ternercenter.berkeley.edu/blog/faith-bas…

🧵Let’s talk about “groomer,” a word totally co-opted by the homo/transphobic MAGA right to slander LGBTQ people & their allies.

Ex A: The reply below to an @HRC tweet about a murdered trans bartender at Club Q: “And yet, he supported the grooming of children. Hard to feel bad.” Let’s dig into that. How did this young trans man who was simply living his life & doing his job “support the grooming of children”? The answer: He didn’t. But MAGA (taken over by QAnon) uses “groomer” to describe LGBTQ people & allies. We offend them & they want us to disappear.

On housing policy, I’m perhaps best known for my work on zoning (eg SB 827, 50, 10, 478) & streamlining (SB 35, 886)

But those aren’t the most impactful bills I’ve authored.

In 2018, I authored a law that went under the radar but is now hugely impacting housing in CA: SB 828.🧵 SB 828 revamped how CA sets state mandated housing allocations (RHNA), thus increasing those housing numbers dramatically. That’s why cities are seeing much higher RHNA numbers for the 8 yr housing cycle we’re entering.

Before SB 828, cities’ housing goals were way low. No more.

🧵 We’re announcing legislation to protect & grant refuge to trans kids & their parents who flee to CA from Texas, etc., in the event states try to separate these kids from their parents, criminalize the parents, or criminalize people coming to CA to receive gender-affirming care Texas, Idaho, Louisiana, Arizona & Alabama are proposing to jail parents for allowing their trans kids to receive gender-affirming care &/or physicians for providing it. TX is proposing to remove trans children from their parents and place them in foster care.

Our legislation:

🧵 I introduced new legislation (#SB866) to lower the vaccine age of consent from 18 to 12.

Unvaccinated teens are at risk, put others at risk & make schools less safe. They often can’t work, participate in sports, or go to friends’ homes.

Let’s let teens protect their health. ~1M 12-17 year olds in CA aren’t vaccinated for COVID. Many want to get vaccinated but parents won’t let them or aren’t making the time to take them. Teens shouldn’t have to rely on parents’ views & availability to protect themselves from a deadly virus. latimes.com/california/sto…

Today, I announced my support for the recall of three members of the San Francisco Board of Education: Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez, & Faauuga Moliga.

These commissioners have failed our students and families. It's time for new, responsible leadership. Not only did these commissioners fail to do their jobs adequately, they engaged in abusive and disruptive behavior, interfered with the Superintendent’s ability to do his job, & caused the school district to deteriorate during the pandemic.

Thread: This week, I’ve been the target of violent, homophobic, antisemitic attacks from the QAnon/anti-vax right, including death threats (screenshots below). All b/c I’m authoring SB 145 to end discrimination against LGBTQ youth on sex offender registry. motherjones.com/politics/2020/… Currently LGBTQ young people are forced onto the sex offender registry in situations where straight youth are not. This discrimination is a relic of times when gay sex was illegal. The bill is supported by major LGBTQ, civil rights, law enforcement groups. sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…