California Democrats are feeling the weight of the state’s crushing housing crisis in a particularly acute way. Oakland Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener and other Democratic lawmakers have passed a series of bills designed to spur housing construction by cutting through permitting and environmental laws. Their efforts have, so far, failed to put a major dent in the millions of housing units California needs to address a statewide shortage decades in the making.
That reality — and fresh pressures from Republicans and members of their own party to improve affordability — has pushed Wicks and a cohort of her colleagues to produce a new round of bills that would take a bigger sledgehammer to the state’s housing bureaucracy. “The people of California have been crystal clear,” Wicks said during a press conference today. “They want results, and they’re going to hold us accountable to those results with their votes or their feet, moving to other states where it’s easier to build housing because it’s more affordable.”
