County GOP dissent shows how Prop. 45's CEQA reform challenges political lines

Updated October 12, 2026 12:29 PM

It is hard to imagine a longer standing or clearer cut political cause for Republicans than battling bureaucratic red tape in California.

For decades, leaders of California’s long-suffering minority party have campaigned against the myriad rules and regulations that slow construction and increase its costs.

And yet this election cycle, a handful of county-level Republican parties have split from the state central committee over perhaps the most significant opportunity to speed building in decades: Proposition 45, a ballot measure proposing to streamline approval under the California Environmental Quality Act for a range of construction projects.

Six county central committees — Sonoma, San Luis Obispo, Solano, Marin, Fresno and Del Norte – voted to recommend a “No” vote on Prop. 45.

Twenty-nine county Republican parties recommended a “Yes” vote, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis, either making the decision themselves or aligning with the state central committee and Reform California, the weighty conservative political organization of Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-Valley Center. Both those groups have endorsed Prop. 45.

The small but notable splinter group of county-level Republicans is indicative of a ballot measure that has not generated a clean ideological fight. While the state Democrat party opposes Prop. 45, many party leaders have not taken a position on it.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara recently criticized the Yes campaign for funding the GOP and Reform California, as both groups campaign for a ballot measure to impose voter identification restrictions. But notably, neither legislative leader has taken a position on Prop. 45 itself.

September polling from the Public Policy Institute of California showed both party’s voters were equally split on the measure. Among Republicans, 51% of likely voters said they’d vote yes, while 47% said no.

That sentiment could shift as Reform California and the state party broadcast their positions in the run up to Nov. 3.

County officials ask who benefits?

Distrust of state government and the powerful tech industry drove the dissenting county party officials to say no, county leaders told The Sacramento Bee in interviews. Fresno and Sonoma counties’ party representatives did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“This is a wolf in sheep’s clothing or a Trojan horse,” said Republican Party of San Luis Obispo County Chairman Randall Jordan.

Jordan, who has worked in construction for over four decades, said he was familiar with the hurdles and delays CEQA appeals and litigation can bring. But he did not believe smaller building companies would get the benefits of the law.

“We’re going to see them exercise this CEQA (rule) lighting fast for favored projects,” he said.

Prop. 45 would impose deadlines on agencies to complete CEQA reviews and on courts to resolve lawsuits for eight categories of building projects — housing and public health developments, such as hospitals; clean energy; water infrastructure; schools including higher education facilities; public safety projects, including wildfire mitigation work like vegetation management; transportation; and broadband and digital access.

Proponents say these are projects California communities are dying to build, hampered by cost increases and delays from CEQA litigation. Opponents say it goes too far and too heavily tilts the judicial and regulatory scales toward approving projects. It also gives developers a route to sue the government over project denials.

The measure does not, however, leave any great mystery about how a project qualifies for the new permitting route. The decision would be made by the regulatory agency it seeks approval from, which could be at the local or state government level.

Jordan cited data centers and battery storage centers as the type of projects backed by deep-pocketed donors he feared would get through under the measure.

He was the only chairman of the four interviewed who cited data centers, a political bogeyman raised by the No on Prop 45 campaign — a coalition of environmental and public health advocacy organizations and labor unions — who have said such unpopular projects could be eligible for the measure’s CEQA’s streamlining.

Prop. 45’s architects have strongly objected to the suggestion that data centers are included, but have had to repeatedly defend themselves as the attack takes root among its opponents. Kurt Oneto, the Sacramento-based attorney listed as Prop. 45’s official proponents, wrote in an Oct. 2 column for the National Law Review that if the measure passed and data center companies tried to build the facilities using the new law, he would argue in court that it wasn’t the measures intent to include them.

Data centers aside, the San Luis Obispo party chair’s distrust of who might benefit from the reforms was echoed elsewhere.

“If it was for everybody, then maybe we’d be for it,” said Marin County Republican Party Chairman John Turnacliff. “That’s the first thing that pops in our minds is ‘OK, who’s getting the inside track on this deal.”

For committee members in Del Norte County, the Republican-leaning county along the Oregon border, “it was not a tough decision,” Chairman Michael Greer said. “We knew we were going against the (state party) and we knew we were going against Carl DeMaio. We just felt that we don’t trust the state and the regulators.”

Reform California endorsed Prop. 45 largely as a way to spur housing growth. CEQA has “been weaponized to block and delay housing, adding years and millions of dollars to every project,” DeMaio’s group wrote in its voter guide. “Prop. 45 is the first time voters have ever been handed the chance to reform CEQA at the ballot box.”

That was the sentiment for Republican officials in Tulare County, where local economic boosters hope to see housing growth as people leave the state’s more expensive coast.

“Prop. 45 is the key to affordability and in a state that needs so many more units of housing, we think it unlocks that California dream,” Matthew Casarez, the county party’s executive director, told The Bee.

For his county committee, endorsing Prop. 45 was a quick decision.

“We’re probably as in support of Prop. 45 as we are for 39 (the DeMaio-backed voter ID measure), which is a big thing for Republicans,” he said. “And 45 is at the same level of support.”

In Solano County, a local political grudge match drove Republicans’ choice on the measure. Local residents of both parties have been locked in opposition for years against California Forever, a Silicon Valley billionaire backed effort to develop a new city, or at least a high-tech shipyard coupled with worker housing, on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay.

“Anything that weakens CEQA right now helps them,” said Solano County Republicans Chairman Marc Reed. “And we are desperately trying to keep together the fabric of our county and not double the size of it with that monstrosity.”

For the same reason, Solano County Republicans chose not to endorse Steve Hilton, Reed said. They are likely the only county committee not backing the party’s gubernatorial candidate. Hilton has called the project a good idea, and said he wants to build 10 new cities in California.

Some of Prop. 45’s backers overlay with California Forever’s, though indirectly. Billionaires such as Michael Moritz and Patrick Collison are reportedly investors in the Solano County project and have also been big donors to the political action committee Building a More Affordable California. The ultra-wealthy have flooded that PAC with hundreds of millions of dollars to combat Proposition 40, the proposed billionaires tax.

But the PAC has chipped into the Prop. 45 campaign as well, giving it $10 million according to the most recent filings with the California Secretary of State.

Messy political lines

Almost 60 years ago, it was California’s most preeminent Republican, former Gov. Ronald Reagan, who signed CEQA into law. But as lawsuits proliferated and California judges expanded the law’s reach, Republican lawmakers began seeking to try and reign CEQA in.

Last year, the state Legislature passed its most significant reform to the environmental law in decades, under immense pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom. He threatened to reject the state budget if lawmakers didn’t approve measures to streamline infill housing projects under CEQA. At the time, then-Assemblymember James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, described such reforms as a longheld Republican cause.

“When I started off as a freshman legislator in 2015, the Republican caucus introduced several CEQA reform bills,” he said. “And back in those days, those bills didn’t even make it out of committee … The philosophy was that CEQA was sacrosanct, and you don’t change anything about it. Those bills died. They got nowhere.”

But in more recent years, as state and national politics grew consumed by concerns over the cost of living, California Democrats have divided over whether and how much CEQA must be reformed.

Prop. 45 has proven too broad in its reach for some other CEQA reform advocates. California YIMBY, a prominent pro-housing group that helped Newsom push through last year’s reforms, also chose not to endorse it, though in a statement online the group described the decision as difficult.

“Whether this is a good idea depends on how you weigh the tradeoffs,” they wrote in a message to their members. “Is permitting new wind and solar energy infrastructure faster worth making it easier to build freeways? Should we make it easier to build transmission lines to carry that clean energy to consumers, even if it means potentially impacting wildlife habitat?”

Critics of Prop. 45 argue that while last year’s bills created CEQA exemption for housing built within existing towns and cities, the ballot measure does not contain those restrictions and would instead open the door to more suburban sprawl.

One of the lawmakers who carried last year’s housing reform bill, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, has endorsed Prop. 45. But the other champion, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, has stayed quiet on it.

Newsom on Friday issued his positions on 10 more ballot measures. He has now taken a side on all but two of the 14 on the ballot. On Friday, a spokesperson for the governor told The Bee he was still reviewing Prop. 45.