California lawmakers have agreed on a budget. Will Gov. Gavin Newsom follow suit?

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LEGISLATIVE LEADERS AGREE ON A BUDGET

Via Lindsey Holden...

California legislative leaders announced a state budget agreement Monday that would restore some transit, climate change and child care funding that Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed cutting.

Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, said the Legislature is expected to pass budget bills on Thursday, that lawmakers’ deadline for approving a spending plan.

Legislators do not get paid if they fail to approve at least a placeholder budget by June 15. However, negotiations with Newsom’s administration will continue through June 30. The governor must sign a budget by July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Newsom’s revised May budget anticipated an estimated spending gap of $31.5 billion and proposed a series of “solutions,” or a combination of revenue and spending delays, shifts and cuts to close the shortfall.

Lawmakers’ agreement proposes $30.9 billion in budget “solutions.”

The difference between the two amounts is tied to spending strategies. One major factor: Lawmakers have opted not to use $450 million in state Safety Net Reserve dollars as part of their budget plan, unlike the Newsom administration.

The legislative agreement suggests restoring a number of cuts Newsom’s administration proposed in May.

Lawmakers’ plan rejects the governor’s $2 billion in cuts to the Transportation Infrastructure Package. Bay Area. Los Angeles leaders, in particular, lobbied hard for the transit funds, saying BART and other transportation agencies could face a fiscal cliff without the money.

Their proposal also restores some climate change funding and shifts dollars to lower copays and deductibles for Covered California plans. It rejects a Newsom administration plan to delay funding for 20,000 subsidized child care slots for low income families and proposes releasing them on July 1, 2024.

In addition, lawmakers committed $1 billion for another round of Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grants. Newsom’s budget set aside funds for round five of HHAP grants, but the legislative budget contains money for another allocation.

Continuing negotiations with Newsom’s administration mean the budget lawmakers pass will likely see future amendments. And advocacy groups continue to lobby for more funds to address homelessness and pay child care providers.

ASSEMBLY REPUBLICANS CALL OUT DEMOCRATS OVER BLOCKED GUN CRIME BILLS

Early Monday morning, the California Highway Patrol responded to reports of a shooting victim on the west steps of the Capitol.

Hours later, Assembly Republicans staged a press conference — amid mock tombstones — to rail against their Democratic colleagues for blocking their bills to add stiffer penalties to gun-related crimes.

“Despite what Gavin Newsom may say, we have not solved gun violence here in California. In fact, we have a very serious problem with gun crimes,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City.

Gallagher was referring to Newsom’s frequent talking point that California has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the country, which is backed up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Republican leader accused Democrats of sending a message that “guns are bad, unless you’re a criminal,” and complained that Democrats are going after concealed carry permit holders — a reference to Sen. Anthony Portantino’s SB 2.

“Clearly, Democrats are attacking the wrong people. Legal gun owners are not the problem,” Gallagher said.

One lawmaker — former prosecutor Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Riverside — went even further during the press conference, saying that Democrats are directly responsible for gun violence occurring in the Golden State.

“They not only have blood on their hands, but we literally now have blood on the steps of the Capitol as a result of their failed policies,” Essayli said.

Given their super-minority status, Assembly Republicans had little recourse Monday but to urge the public to contact their lawmakers and demand that they vote for tougher penalties for gun crimes.

WILL CALIFORNIA VOTERS GET A MULLIGAN ON PROP. 8?

More than a decade after Californians voted to enact Proposition 8 — banning same-sex marriage in the state — voters in the Golden State may get a re-do on that decision.

On Tuesday, the Assembly Judiciary Committee will consider ACA 5, which would change the California Constitution’s definition of marriage as between one man and one woman to “instead provide that the right to marry is a fundamental right,” according to the legislative counsel’s digest.

Though the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States, overriding Prop. 8, many LGBTQ advocates are worried that SCOTUS may reverse that decision, much as it did last year in reversing 50 years of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade.

“The recent passage of the federal Respect for Marriage Act was an important step forward... However, it does not require states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples nor does it remove Proposition 8 from California’s constitution,” according to a statement from Equality California, a co-sponsor of ACA 5.

Religious conservatives are opposed to the proposed constitutional language change, saying that the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

“The debate about marriage is not about love or hate. It is about truth. Man cannot redefine what God has already defined. For the reasons above, we have decided to align ourselves with truth and oppose ACA 5,” according to the California Capitol Connection, an alliance of independent Baptist church leaders.

Same-sex marriage isn’t just legal, it’s popular. As Newsom noted on Twitter Monday, 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage being legal.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Public budgets are a statement of values. Every dollar we spend penalizing poverty is a dollar we could better spend alleviating it. The best investment we can ever make is in people.”

- Assemblyman Isaac G. Bryan, D-Los Angeles, via Twitter.

Best of The Bee:

• Even after building a new $10 million facility, Sacramento County will still have a whopping shortage of nearly 200 psychiatric beds, a new civil grand jury report found. That is just one of the findings in the report, released Friday, that serves as a sweeping indictment of the county’s handling of the homelessness crisis, particularly those suffering from severe mental health crises, via Theresa Clift.

• Former Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan is running for mayor of Sacramento, via Theresa Clift.

• The Sacramento region is at a tipping point. And the next few years will determine what shape we leave it in for the next generation, via Ryan Lillis.

• California Republicans have found an issue to use as their cudgel against the Democratic majority. For the past month, they have wielded it in nearly every policy debate in the Capitol, via Lindsey Holden.