Legislative Highlights

Assembly and Senate Daily File Books

CLCA is very proud of our advocacy work on behalf of California’s landscape contractors.

We have defeated countless hostile proposals and led many successful efforts to pass beneficial laws that protect the C-27 license and create new tools to combat unlicensed contracting. Expanding the scope and value of the C-27 license is an area where CLCA lobbying has had particular success:

  • In 2011 CLCA successfully fought to include the design and installation of commercial and residential rainwater capture systems used for landscape irrigation, fountains, ponds, and decorative water features as work authorized by the C-27 license.
  • CLCA sponsored legislation in 2007 that allows landscape contractors to sign prime contracts for the construction of outdoor kitchens and fireplaces if they are part of a landscaping project.
  • CLCA sponsored and passed a 2003 bill allowing landscape contractors to execute prime contracts for landscaping projects that include a swimming pool, spa, or hot tub.
  • Against very long odds, CLCA led a coalition to pass 1997 legislation reversing a court decision allowing general contractors to execute direct contracts for single trade specialty work, including landscaping.

 

Fighting the Underground Economy

CLCA continuously advocates to the Legislature, the Contractors State License Board (CSLB), and other state agencies to more aggressively combat unfair competition by increasing penalties for unlicensed contracting (aka the underground economy) and improving enforcement of current licensing laws. Unlicensed contractors hurt everyone: consumers, the economy and even the people who work on their crews.

  • CLCA helped pass 2012 legislation requiring persons who oversee bids or set up work schedules for contractors or subcontractors involving construction projects to be duly licensed.
  • CLCA backed successful legislation in 2010 to increase the maximum criminal fines for unlicensed contracting, require a mandatory jail sentence for a third or subsequent conviction for unlicensed contracting, and clarify that enhanced criminal penalties apply to bidding or offering to perform work as well as actually performing the work that requires a license.
  • CLCA has supported budget augmentations to give the CSLB additional sworn peace officers to enforce unlicensed contracting laws as well as expand the number of stings and sweeps targeting unlicensed landscape contracting activity.
  • CLCA has worked with the CSLB and other state agencies to report specific illegal activity and to provide properties for unlicensed contractor sting operations.
  • CLCA helps licensed contractors report unlicensed individuals.

 

Protecting Landscape Contractors

CLCA has led numerous coalitions to kill harmful legislation.

In 2017, CLCA defeated a legislative proposal that would increase the minimum value of a project requiring a licensed landscape contractor from the current threshold of $500 to a new threshold of $25,000.

CLCA has opposed extending the sales tax to services, shifting the burden of the personal property tax on heavy construction equipment from owners to renters, and imposing liens on the owners of real property if employees of a landscaping, janitorial, or security service business who had done work on the property subsequently alleged that they were unpaid or underpaid.

 

Advocating for Our Natural Resources

Shaping water conservation laws and regulations has also been a top CLCA priority. CLCA worked closely with the Department of Water Resources, the California Urban Water Conservation Council, and other entities in updating the Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance.

CLCA has actively supported bills to expand the use of recycled water, promote better landscape water management through water budgeting and conservation pricing, and provide that rebates received by property owners for replacing turf with more water efficient landscaping plants are not taxed as income by the state.

Seal-of-California

Want to see the legislative bills that CLCA is working on?

Check out our most recent legislative report.