Governor Newsom just put a figurative gun to the head of the state assembly: he told 120 elected officials to pass bills that would make it easier to build housing—or no funding for police & fire departments, and no paychecks for anyone.
This was unprecedented. And it worked.
Newsom’s dramatic reform of the 54 year-old CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) will help unlock a wave of desperately needed new housing. According to recent polling, the cost of housing is the #1 concern for Californians. With 44% of Californians as renters, and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the state due to high housing costs, Newsom is fighting for the Californians who can barely afford to live here.
The law initially functioned as a necessary protection for fragile species and ecosystems, but it has become weaponized by opponents of new housing, who can easily impose lengthy, costly delays on new projects. Just see this compilation of proposals that were threatened with CEQA lawsuits to extract increased benefits for the construction workers. Now that’s ending – and it’s high time.
As it stands, the CEQA process favors residents with time on their hands and comfort with technical jargon. The law asks a city or builder to write a series of lengthy technical reports on the potential impacts of a proposal. Then, these reports need to be posted publicly, with a 45-day comment period, before they can be adopted by City Council. A proposal for 60 homes near transit in Palo Alto (660 University) had to produce 10 technical reports as part of their Environmental Impact Report (EIR). This cost years and tens of thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, the Ren Fu Villa proposal in Gilroy, which was 54 homes on 37 acres of open space wetlands, had to do just 6 technical reports and no EIR. This inconsistency makes no sense.
Newsom is doing the work of returning CEQA to its true environmental intent. It is meant to protect the environment from emissions, not halt proposals to build transit (which is more environmentally friendly than cars) or block new homes so effectively that people have to spend hours in a car commuting or move to Texas altogether.
Senator Scott Wiener, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, and the YIMBY movement have been trying to reform environmental laws for years, and every bill got watered down. Newsom knew he couldn’t get the reform he wanted unless he played all of his cards, which included threatening a total government shutdown if the legislature didn’t make it easier to build homes.
Of course, some people hated this. The Sierra Club sent an email that compared him to Trump, fashioning him as a dictator who was wielding his power inappropriately. But this kind of leadership was the most democratic move Newsom could’ve made. Newsom’s reforms will benefit people who are too busy or too poor to have representation in the decision-making room.
When asked about his structural budget decisions, he said, “Our housing shortage is too urgent, too important to let this process play out in the traditional way.”
This wasn’t empire-building or sabre-rattling—it was leverage used on behalf of the underrepresented and vulnerable. Newsom’s actions pose a question for future governors: do we wield power to entrench privilege, or to erect platforms for those left behind?
Newsom threatened to remove our social safety net if reforms weren’t delivered. He won. And in doing so, he made real progress for low-income Californians, not through a performative bill, but through structural design.
It has yet to be seen exactly how many new homes this will unlock, but YIMBY Law estimates it will be in the tens of thousands. In a world of high interest rates, a shortage of immigrant workers (thanks to President Trump), steel and lumber tariffs (again, thanks 47), recalcitrant local governments, and a vocal minority of folks wedded to the status quo, this move couldn’t have been more welcome for the anyone looking to lower the cost of living.
And let the record show – Newsom’s got that dawg in him. Not just for battling Trump, but for fighting for the future of California.
Leora Tanjuatco Ross is the California director of YIMBY Law