Wireless lobbyists will keep swinging in the California legislature

Senate bill 649 is dead, following a late night veto by California governor Jerry Brown. In his veto message, he was sympathetic to the needs of mobile carriers and other wireless providers, but called for a better balance with the interests local governments have in managing the public right of way.

Translation: try again next year, with something that’s not quite so one-sided.

It’s a sure bet that wireless carriers and their lobbying fronts will be back, along with cable companies, wireline telcos and their lobbyists looking for their slice of the bacon. It won’t be hard to find a biddable legislator – several come to mind – who will simply regurgitate whatever nonsense he’s given. Or she, but so far it’s been the guys who have carried the major local preemption bills at the behest of wireless carriers.

This year it was Ben Hueso (D – San Diego), the chair of the senate energy, utilities and communication committee, who “authored” SB 649, and vigorously, if not always coherently, defended it.

Last year it was assemblyman Mike Gatto (D – Los Angeles), likewise chair of a key committee – what was then the assembly utilities and commerce committee. He waited until the middle of the session to gut and amend an unrelated bill – AB 2788 – and turn it into something that looked a lot like what SB 649 became. Gatto didn’t have the mojo to get it passed; AB 2788 withered away in the senate without a vote.

In 2015, assemblyman Bill Quirk carried AB 57, which rolled back local discretion over wireless siting, and put deemed approved teeth into federal “shot clocks”. It was signed into law by Brown, and now cities and counties have three to five months to approve wireless site applications, with some allowance for brief pauses. Otherwise, those applications are automatically granted. Quirk was also a principal co-author of SB 649 and successfully carried AB 1145 this year. That bill gave cable companies access to public money usually reserved for public utilities, but without the corresponding obligations.

Gatto left the legislature last year, but is considered likely to be running for something next year, perhaps a statewide office. Hueso and Quirk will be back, though.