A “massive concession” claim emerged Tuesday in the federal dispute over California’s voter rolls after Los Angeles County officials told a court they cannot independently verify voters’ citizenship beyond what voters state on their registration forms.

The post Federal Prosecutor Says L.A. County Made ‘Massive Concession’ on Voter Citizenship Checks appeared first on Breitbart.

SEIU Local 1000, representing nurses and teachers, pushing for higher wages, telework and affordable healthcare

Thousands of California state workers began a sweeping one-day strike on Wednesday, with workers set to rally outside government buildings in several cities, as tensions boiled over lapsed contract negotiations with Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration.

SEIU Local 1000, a union that represents roughly 100,000 public employees, including nurses and teachers, has been pushing for higher wages, flexible telework and affordable healthcare.

A proposed "wealth tax" on California's billionaires could backfire and cost the state tens of billions of dollars in the long run.

If the proposed tax drives wealthier residents out of the state, California could end up losing between $1 billion and $3.5 billion annually in income taxes, according to a working paper published this week. A pair of researchers at Stanford University warn that the state could end up losing an estimated $39 billion because of the consequences of the wealth tax.

"These findings suggest that the Billionaire Tax Act will not fulfill the primary functions for which it was designed," write researchers Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh.

Voters in California will decide next month whether to impose the one-time, 5 percent tax when they vote on Proposition 40. The ballot measure is dividing Democrats—Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes it, while progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.) claims it is the "most important ballot initiative in America and a fight for the soul of our party."

And it's already spurring some billionaires to flee the state—including venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page. Including those two, the seven billionaires who have publicly said they are leaving the state represent more than $539 billion of the nearly $1.9 trillion aggregate net worth of California's billionaires, the researchers note.

With other departures likely happening more quietly, the new study estimates that the tax will generate about $30 billion, a far cry from the $100 billion that the tax's supporters expect. The "behavioral response" from billionaires in California "has eroded most of the projected tax base," write Jaros and Rauh.

That's still a pretty big pot of revenue. In the long run, however, the state is likely to lose out.

After running 100,000 simulations using different assumptions, the two researchers report that "85 percent of plausible outcomes produce a negative" result in state revenue.

Other recent experiments with special taxes on wealth have backfired in similar ways. In response to a new wealth tax in Washington State, Jeff Bezos relocated to Florida, and iconic Seattle brand Starbucks shifted more of its corporate headquarters to Tennessee. Studies have shown that a "millionaires tax" in Massachusetts contributed to wealth moving out of that state.

Capital is always mobile, despite the best efforts of politicians. And if you were a billionaire living in California, why would you stick around?

Polls show voters are narrowly divided over Proposition 40. A Politico poll published earlier this month showed 46 percent of voters plan to vote for the measure, while 43 percent oppose it. Voters were similarly divided when asked if they expected it to pass or not.

The post California's 'Wealth Tax' Could Cost the State $39 Billion appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week, we're going to jump right into it with a philosophical question: What is an accessory dwelling unit anyway? 

It's a question that officials in Somerville, Massachusetts, are realizing they didn't know the answer to after learning that a state law allowing ADUs in single-family neighborhoods could also require them to approve three-story backyard mini-apartments. 

As the Boston Globe reported on Sunday, Somerville's "deep ethos in favor of new housing" is being tested by the extent of the state law. Elected officials are describing the potential for three-story ADUs as a "joke," and the area's state lawmakers, including one who voted for the state law, are demanding reforms to stop them. 

The law in question was a statewide accessory dwelling unit (ADU) legalization tucked inside a major housing package of mostly new spending programs that passed in 2024. 

The bill required municipalities to allow ADUs of either 900 square feet or half the size of the primary dwelling (whichever is smaller) anywhere single-family homes are allowed. A subsequent rule issued by state regulators also forbade localities from imposing height and bulk limits on ADUs that are stricter than the limits imposed on primary dwellings. 

That latter rule is what's causing Somerville's freakout. 

Because the town allows triple-decker apartments (a three-story triplex common in New England) in all its single-family zones, the state rule means that it must also allow ADUs to be three stories tall. 

The Globe story notes that the mini-triple-deckers could still only be 900 square feet, meaning each floor of a mini-triple-decker would have to be pretty small. Thus far, no one has proposed building an ADU tower in Somerville. 

Even so, the town is worried that someone will eventually propose one of these "out-of-scale" units that it'll have to approve. Its officials are now agitating for changes to the state law to prevent this. 

On the one hand, one can perhaps understand why Somerville officials feel blindsided. 

The text of the 2024 ADU law allows localities to set "reasonable" height and bulk limits on accessory units. It was state regulators who decided after the law's passage that requiring ADUs to be shorter than the primary unit was "unreasonable." 

On the other hand, allowing a second home on a lot to be as tall as the first house sounds "reasonable" enough. Can one complain about out-of-scale development when the new unit is the same height as an existing home and a little bit smaller?

Somerville is not the first city where people's own colloquial definition of an accessory unit as "a tiny home that doesn't bother anyone" has clashed with official regulatory definitions that allow ADUs to be a fair bit bigger. 

San Diego's ADU Bonus program once allowed a technically unlimited number of ADUs to be built on single-family parcels near transit stops. (Height and bulk regulations imposed practical limits on how many units could fit on a site.) 

That enabled developers to build what were, in effect, ADU apartment complexes on large single-family lots throughout the city. This year, the city imposed new restrictions to stop these "monster" ADU developments, including a per-lot accessory unit cap. 

The latest dust-up in Somerville, like the San Diego controversy before it, provides several lessons about the realities of housing reform. 

The first is that the definition of "accessory dwelling unit" is completely arbitrary. 

In Massachusetts, an ADU is a 900-square-foot home that can be one story or three stories, depending on the town and zoning district it's being built in. 

In Montana, it's a 1,000-square-foot unit. In California, state law can require localities to allow ADUs as large as 1,200 square feet. Under certain conditions, these ADUs can even be sold separately from the main house. 

At a certain point, an accessory dwelling unit is just a dwelling unit. A house is a house. 

The second lesson is that any ADU reform that is actually intended to produce new housing units is going to cause controversy.  

State and local laws allowing ADUs have been one of the more common forms of housing reforms to pass. 

Supply-boosters see them as a way to get a modest number of new units. Supply skeptics don't see much to object to about allowing someone to install a kitchenette and bathroom in their garage.  

If the ADU regulations don't allow much more than the garage conversion, supply-boosters will be disappointed and push for expansions of the law. California passed dozens of ADU laws before they started enabling actual units to be built. 

If an ADU law actually allows more homes, the ADUs will look like homes, and the supply skeptics will be mad. 

No amount of branding or planning will resolve the inherent conflict of some people wanting more development while others oppose it in their neighborhoods. 

Thus far, Massachusetts' ADU law has been modestly productive. The state's ADU survey reports that 2,048 ADU permits have been issued since the state law went into effect in January 2025. About half of those units are attached ADUs (think the garage with the kitchenette). 

That's a little under 10 percent of Massachusetts total housing production during that time, per the Census Bureau's building permit survey.  

At 50 units permitted, Somerville has actually approved the second most ADUs of any jurisdiction in the state. (Boston has only approved 49.) 

But now that it's facing the prospect of allowing ADUs that look like actual homes, it's starting to get cold feet about the new law. 

Quick Links

• Speaking of Massachusetts, the town of Marblehead (of "are we kind of being pricks?" fame) has at last had its rezoning plan, which allows apartments in more districts, accepted by state officials. 
• While Spain is tightening its tenant protections and rent controls in the face of housing protests, Portugal is trying to remove regulations on its rental housing industry. Either way, housing protesters are clashing with police. 
• Single-family homebuilder confidence continues to drop. 
• The Urban Institute has a new white paper on whether data center development is coming at the expense of housing development. 
• A new report on home construction in Chicago finds that the practice of aldermanic privilege (where individual aldermen can veto projects in their district) is strangling development. 

The post ADU Nihilism appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The Donald Trump administration dubbed it Operation Protect the Vote and on Monday focused its efforts on trying to substantiate the conspiracy theories promoted by the president and members of his administration: that large numbers of undocumented immigrants in California vote illegally for Democrats and that the state’s voter rolls still contain deceased individuals and people who have moved to other states. The charges announced, however, do not prove those claims.

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One of the factors that led Greg Pirio to buy his house in Loudoun County, in northern Virginia, 14 years ago, was the nature surrounding it. A historian specializing in Africa, he loved to take long walks with his dog and listen to the birds. Three years ago, a large data center was installed just a hundred meters from his door. Since it began operating a year and a half ago, the birdsong has been replaced by a constant buzzing together with fumes that cause headaches, conjunctivitis and respiratory problems.

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• Shalini Bonjour is building a 1,100-square-foot ADU in her backyard so her mother can age in place.
• The project is taking longer than she expected and is going over budget.
• Bonjour shared the five biggest lessons she's learned during the process with Business Insider.

After her father died in 2024, real estate agent Shalini Karnani Bonjour moved her mother from Michigan to California to be closer to her and her family.

"My husband and I didn't feel comfortable having her so far away, especially when it came to her day-to-day needs," Bonjour, 50, told Business Insider.

Later that year, the family bought a home with a backyard large enough to build an accessory dwelling unit for her mother. In 2025, they broke ground on a 1,100-square-foot ADU. But what was expected to be a six-week project has dragged on for months and cost the family thousands more than expected.

"The whole process has been difficult because there are so many things to manage," Bonjour said. "You're trying to keep the project affordable, keep your neighbors happy, and stay on track. I can only imagine how overwhelming this would feel for someone without any insight into the process, because it is a huge undertaking."

Here are five hard lessons Bonjour has learned from the project, from choosing the right contractor to budgeting enough money for unexpected challenges.

A bad contractor can make or break a project

At first, Bonjour thought she had found the right architect for the project. They designed the ADU and even promised to guide her through the permitting and construction process. But they didn't follow through.

Bonjour said hiring the wrong person was one of the "biggest mistakes" she's made during the project.

Although she found someone to take over the project after interviewing about 10 builders, mistakes made by the original architect have made construction more difficult.

"Watching my builder try to translate that original designer's plans is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole," she said. "It's basically like he was working off somebody else's recipe."

Understanding local permitting and construction rules is essential

Every city has its own rules for building ADUs, and some are more complicated than others.

In her part of the Coachella Valley, Bonjour had to secure permits for the roof, electrical work, plumbing, HVAC, and solar panel installation.

"The city was pretty tough on solar," Bonjour said. "The first two electrical inspections were fine, and then on the third inspection, they determined we needed solar panels. Getting solar here in the desert is its own job. Researching the proper solar companies and their packages was another."

Building a home can test relationships

While the family waits for the ADU to be finished, Bonjour, her husband, their son, and her mother are all living in the main house. It's been difficult sharing space, especially the kitchen.

"My mom loves to cook, so having her own kitchen will be really important to her," she said. "She was making a recipe and said, "It'll be different when I have my own stuff." I think the whole thing is bittersweet, but once she sees her finished kitchen, she'll feel different."

Construction has caused headaches for the cul-de-sac, too. Because the neighborhood's electrical transformer is outdated and overloaded, the local utility needs to upgrade it before the ADU can be connected. The work has involved digging up Bonjour's driveway and those of two neighbors.

"Our neighbors had to deal with the inconvenience of their driveways being out for a week and a half," she said. "My contractor and I are trying to be as considerate as we can and get the best people to do the work as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the neighbors have been gracious and nice along the way."

You have to be careful with your budget

Bonjour's family budgeted $480,000 for the construction of the ADU. Of that total, they set aside $100,000 as a contingency fund.

"As a realtor, and as someone who's always telling people to ask all the questions, I also hate to be caught by surprise," Bonjour said. "With the contingency budget, you build in extra money that you hope you won't need. It's something everyone should consider, whether they're building a million-dollar home or a small casita in the backyard."

Unfortunately, unexpected costs, like hiring replacement contractors and installing a new electrical panel and solar panels, have exhausted the reserve. Bonjour said the extra expenses have trickled into the family's day-to-day life, making it harder to justify things like family trips and upgrading the main home.

"I wish I had allocated it differently, but again, I think that planning with the right people at the onset would have saved so much headache and time," she said. "We'll have to wait on upgrading the home. That's kind of annoying, but that's where we're at. Lesson learned on that one."

Give yourself grace; it's all a learning process

If she had to do it all over again, Bonjour says she would make different decisions.

"I'm a professional, so I hold myself to a higher standard of asking questions and being informed," she said. "I like to have good relationships with the builders, contractors, and vendors. In some ways, I feel like I should have known or seen what was going wrong, and that becomes really hard to kind of wrestle with."

She still tries to give herself grace. For all its challenges, she believes building the ADU has been the right decision.

"We know that having Mom in proximity is right for our family," she added. "We've learned some lessons along the way as homeowners, as a realtor, as a child, as a mom who's growing old herself."