When Everything Feels Broken, California Just Got Something Right
At a time when cruelty, authoritarianism, and oligarchy dominate Washington, Sacramento stepped up with pragmatic, empathetic leadership.
While carrying immense anger and grief over the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” and ICE raids in LA, I want to focus on genuinely good news: California Democrats listened to voters demanding action on our affordability crisis and actually delivered.
Just days before the GOP-led Congress voted to rip food and healthcare from tens of millions and dramatically expand ICE, California passed reforms to make housing easier, faster, and fairer to build.
Governor Gavin Newsom wasn’t exaggerating when he said, “I just enacted the most game-changing housing reforms in recent California history. We’re urgently embracing an abundance agenda by tearing down the barriers that have delayed new affordable housing and infrastructure for decades.”
Folded into the new state budget signed on June 30, bills by Senator Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks will exempt most urban infill housing, childcare centers, medical facilities, and advanced manufacturing projects from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
This is a real turning point for California’s housing future, the Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) movement, and a model for other expensive blue states to follow.
For years, virtually anyone with money for a lawyer could use CEQA to stall or stop desperately needed housing of any kind - market-rate or affordable - under the guise of environmental protection.
Even oil companies sued the City of LA under CEQA over its ban of oil rigs!
In practice, CEQA abuse fueled California’s housing dysfunction. Development pushed further into environmentally-fragile, wildfire-prone exurbs, all while blocking denser, more sustainable growth in job-rich cities.
This abuse also boosted homeless crisis. Despite being the fourth largest economy in the world, we shamefully have 187,000 homeless people, 24% of all Americans experiencing homelessness.
Now, we’ve cleared a key hurdle. CEQA reform won’t instantly deliver the 3 million homes we need (it took decades to dig this hole), but it’s tangible progress.
Despite high interest rates, tariffs, and ICE raid-fueled labor cost increases, ending NIMBY abuse of environmental law opens new pathways to build—meaning more homes in more places for more people.
Think about what more housing could mean for you and your family:
Maybe you can buy a home—period—let alone one near work or relatives.
Maybe your grandkids could live nearby.
Maybe local nurses, firefighters, teachers, and hospitality workers can afford to live in or near the communities they serve.
Maybe you won’t have to drive everywhere, cutting emissions and commute times.
Maybe there’s less gentrification if affluent neighborhoods build their share of housing, as well as far fewer homeless people.
Maybe LGBTQ people, women—anyone under assault from MAGA—can find safe(r), welcoming places to live. Civil rights shouldn’t be cost-prohibitive.
I know this firsthand: we couldn’t afford to live in LA’s Brentwood—15 minutes from where I grew up—if not for the higher-density infill development that made multifamily housing possible.
The sky didn’t fall. In fact, billionaire LA Times owner Patrick Soon Siong lives in a compound barely 1.5 blocks away from us.
If that Trump-appeasing oligarch can tolerate us “apartment people” in such proximity, then so can the legions of single-family homeowners in our midst.
Democrats control two-thirds of the legislature and the governor’s office. The time for excuses—and allowing rampant abusive local obstruction—is over. They took political risk, confronting an issue often held hostage by many of its core stakeholders.
Wealthy homeowners and NIMBY neighborhood councils, much of them part of the party’s donor class, long opposed action. Some environmental groups feared CEQA reform would harm protections. Many “progressive” activists frequently deny that supply-demand economics exists, as well as demonize all real estate developers as if they’re all racist, classist, and corrupt like Trump (never mind the fact that it’s residential developers who…build housing).
While California’s the posterchild, virtually all blue states should heed this lesson.
If you want a deeper dive into how we reached this moment, I highly recommend Derek Thompson’s interview with Wicks and Wiener on Plain English—and his new book coauthored with Ezra Klein, Abundance, is a must-read.
Rent and mortgages being too damn high aren’t the only things denying people access to the American Dream.
Childcare costs more than college in many parts of the country, and that’s even if you can find a spot. Healthcare remains too expensive (and that’s before Medicaid cuts hit). Uncertainty from erratic tariff policies makes home budgeting or running all kinds of businesses a massive headache. Prohibitive local zoning and other red tape still artificially limits supply of housing and essential services.
It’s no wonder voters demand something different—and rewarding leaders who do so. The lesson from the 2024 election and Zohran Mamdani’s strong primary performance is clear: people want elected officials who do something about the cost of living.
Do I agree with Mamdani on everything? No. I’m gobsmacked by his Mamdani’s inability to condemn Israel-related antisemitic rhetoric, even as I share the belief that we must move beyond litmus-test coalition building, as demonstrated by his partnership with NYC Controller Brad Lander. And based on what I’ve seen in San Francisco and LA, I think his rent freeze policy without guaranteed mass construction of market-rate and affordable housing will increase, not decrease, the cost of living.
But Mamdani’s win underscores a bigger shift: people are tired of the same old politics. They’re tired of people playing not to lose, who then don’t do enough to lead to improvement in people’s material wellbeing.
Many voters want politicians who try to solve problems, even if they don’t succeed.
Whether on the campaign trail or governing expensive blue states and cities, these are insights that Democrats across the moderate-progressive divide can learn from.
Nationally, things will get worse before they get better. But at least here in California, we’re beginning to find our footing again in this fight to save our democracy by delivering for people—and not a moment too soon.
Stay engaged! Follow/support YIMBY Action, Housing Action Coalition, CA YIMBY, Abundant Housing LA, Sen. Scott Wiener, and Asm. Buffy Wicks.
Food for Thought
This System Doesn't Work for Any of Us, Charlotte Clymer
My advice to centrist and center-left and center-right pundits who are trying their best to fear-monger over democratic socialism: come up with a more attractive alternative for working class families and quickly.”
“You need to read the room.”
“Most of us, even in our late 30s, don't dwell too much on dreams of owning a nice home in the future. Most of us are just hoping we'll plan appropriately for long- term costs-of-living and avoid significant health problems, to say nothing of childcare costs. This is not a system that works for any of us. Why would we give a shit about its long-term health?”
"Almost forgot that this is the whole point", Amanda Litman
“Not as much attention has been paid to that second half of [Mamdani’s] campaign theme that hung behind on him during his victory speech: Afford to live & afford to dream.”
“‘Afford to dream’ - phew, what a phrase! The time, space, and freedom to dream, to want, to aspire for more — said another way: The capacity to be ambitious.”
A congressman on how Democrats can regain the initiative on the economy, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA)
“When Austin, Texas adopted land-use reforms of this sort, apartment construction boomed and rents plunged. Cambridge, Massachusetts has followed suit. Those who doubt that Democrats can think differently on regulations, take note of Cambridge: a city where Kamala Harris won 86% of the vote adopted a new zoning law in which three-quarters of the text was to do with deleting old rules.”
We invested in mass transit. We should let Californians live near it, Reps. Laura Friedman and Scott Peters (both D-CA)
“Make no mistake — sky-high housing costs are the leading reason tens of thousands of hard-working Californians are leaving our state. It’s a crisis draining our workforce, hollowing out communities, and threatening our future.”
“The sad truth is that, even as we continue to ramp up public investments in expanded and improved bus, train, and light rail services, most of the new housing built in our state over the past two decades has been far from our public transit stations.”
Trump’s Deportation Program Is About Control. Even if You Are a U.S. Citizen., Chandran Kukathas
“You cannot control outsiders (immigrants or would-be immigrants) without controlling insiders (citizens). The more vigorously you try to control immigration, the more you end up limiting the freedom of your citizens and violating equality and the rule of law.”
“To overpower citizens, governments will have to spend more money — on courts, judges, lawyers, prisons, the police and compensation payments — or find ways around their laws (or both). [For example, in] 2016 Denmark criminalized any act that could be viewed as helping asylum seekers, leading to hundreds of Danes being prosecuted for giving strangers a lift or buying them a cup of coffee.”
What $100 Billion in New ICE Funding Would Look Like, Inae Oh
‘Here are some ways to process the scale of $100 billion in ICE funding:
2.1 times what it would cost to hire enough teachers and nurses to end both national shortages
7 times the 2021 federal child care funding
12 times the 2023 Federal Bureau of Prisons budget
343 times what Elon Musk spent to swing the 2024 elections
568 times the cost to pay all US students’ public school lunch debt
8 times what the US spent to develop and purchase Covid vaccines in 2020”
Why are high school boys drawn to the manosphere?, Naomi Beinart
“It was only when I asked these boys if they were liberal that I got any indication they didn’t actually support the men from the videos. Almost all of these teens told me they were liberal, and yet they could see the manosphere’s appeal.”
“Democrats need to make clear that they welcome the support of people who may not agree with every aspect of the left’s agenda. Relatability is important as well: Leaders should go where young people are and be likable.”
Israel's Real Enemies Are the Violent Jewish Militias Tormenting the Palestinians, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert
“These young men in the West Bank aren't just a vanguard; behind them stands a sizable, sophisticated network linked to Israel's political, military and security leaders.”
Israel's Isn't Creating a 'Humanitarian City' in Gaza. It's Creating Transfer Camps, Haaretz Editorial
“The Chosen People, the only democratic country in the Middle East by way of the world's most moral army, is now planning a ‘humanitarian city’ in the Gaza Strip. It makes no difference what Orwellian cellophane they are wrapping it in. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are openly going ahead with plans to place Gazans in camps in preparation to transfer them out of the enclave.”
“The defense establishment is alarmed…When the chief of staff asked whether the military would be required to control two million civilians, Netanyahu replied: ‘I'm bringing 10 D9s to prepare the humanitarian space.’ The army's reservations were rejected; the decision passed unanimously.”
“That is what dangerous deterioration looks like: From nonstop bombing to a bid to engineer Gaza's future while ignoring international law, destroying the army, neglecting the welfare of the soldiers, and corrupting society and the government.”
The danger of identity politics and cancel culture, Nadav Tamir
“The irony is that, in the populist right, identity politics, extreme rhetoric, and “cancel culture” are not located at the margins but at the very heart of the Republican and Likud parties. In the US, it’s Republicans advocating for people to be deported based on their political opinions, for schools to lose funding if they don’t teach from the MAGA gospel….And in Israel, it’s the extreme right calling to unleash nuclear weapons in Gaza, to force millions from their homeland, and to starve a civilian population.”
“The bottom line is that a marginal phenomenon in the progressive camp is presented as an existential threat, while more powerful and dangerous manifestations of populism are deeply rooted in the centers of power of the right-wing establishments.”
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