Among California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s worst kept secrets are his 2028 presidential aspirations. His chest thumping over suing the Trump Administration’s tariff policies is yet another tell.
The governor has recently stated: “To our international partners: California is a stable, reliable partner. We want your business.”
But Newsom has made it clear he does not share that same attitude when it comes to businesses that already call California home. Instead of supporting job creators, Newsom and his allies in Sacramento continue to push bad policies that chase businesses out of the state.
A prime example is California’s Private Attorney General Act. PAGA allows employees to sue their employer for any perceived violation of the state’s 1,100-page labor code. This includes going after employers for accidental infractions, such as missing a hyphen on a paystub.
PAGA alone has inspired more representative lawsuits than any other statute in America over the past year. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, plaintiffs filed more than 9,400 PAGA notices in 2024, a nearly 22% increase over 2023, and a whopping 85,936% increase over the eleven PAGA notices filed in 2006.
Last year’s reforms to the law were billed as the key to “make it easier for businesses to operate” under the PAGA regime. In reality, PAGA notices have matched their 2024 pace through the first three months of this year. Litigating one of these PAGA notices can cost an employer hundreds of thousands of dollars — costs so high that labor unions and the state have built in exemptions as a result. And that’s not to mention the settlement fees.
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