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6.G. - Page 11 of 23 2020: Year in Review Page I 1 The beginning of 2020 held incredible promise for Governor Newsom and his team. The State faced an historic budget surplus. Newsom proposed billions in new spending—striking the balance of new programs while attacking head on the State's rapidly growing pension liabilities. In February, during his State of the State, Newsom laid out a game plan for the year that began with high hopes of passing monumental environmental and housing legislation. In furtherance of his 2019 housing "Marshall Plan," the Governor spent nearly the entirety of his annual address to the Legislature outlining an aggressive agenda that would boost affordable housing and help address the homelessness crisis. However, only mere weeks after his State of the State address, Governor Newsom, the legislature, along with every local government faced a once -in -a -generation crisis—a global pandemic. In an instant the State went from a thriving economy to shuttered businesses, mandated lockdowns and a projected 54 -billion -dollar state budget deficit. This brought upon an unprecedented legislative session with even the most seasoned political professionals working to navigate the unknown. In March of 2020, the legislative session was abruptly adjourned under a statewide mandatory stay-at-home in order. With the closure of most businesses that were deemed non- essential, the State, as well as the Nation, began to the see unemployment numbers rise. California led the nation with over 8 million new claims filed in 2020 according to the Department of Labor statistics. All told, the impact COVID-19 had on the legislative process was profound. The Legislature halted work for two additional months versus a traditional legislative session. This resulted in a major culling of legislative proposals as lawmakers were forced to park a majority of their priority measures. For context, during a normal legislative session over 2,500 measures are introduced. On average, over 1,200 bills are approved by the Legislature in the last year of a two-year session. By stark contrast, in 2020, 432 bills were approved by the California Legislature and 372 bills were signed by the Governor, the smallest number in decades. Despite the profound impacts that COVID-19 had on the legislative process, lawmakers still made the most out of their time in Sacramento, advancing critical measures such as AB 3088 (Chiu) that allows for a temporary moratorium on residential evictions, a variety of police reform, housing, and homelessness measures. 313