the same way all other laws do, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor
>>> Why wasn't I, a resident of California, asked to vote on it?
because neither the US nor the State of California is a Direct Democracy, it is a Representative Constitutional Republic
>>> Was the law buried under some legalese and just slipped past the eyes of 39 million Californians? And nobody made any noise about it?
No there have been several thousands of News reports about it, even I as a Midwestern knew about this law months ago (I think I first heard about it mid 2019), if you did not then I would recommend you update your news sources you are in some kind of Bubble or echo chamber
> the same way all other laws do, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor
In CA, there are also a fair number of propositions that are voted on by the general public. It would be interesting if there were some sort of mechanism through which a pending law could be put on hold until after a popular vote, say, if enough voter signatures were gathered within a certain timeframe.
I'm asking for something in the middle — basically pause a new law from coming into effect because enough residents have given signatures for a proposition that would invalidate it. What I think you're describing is invalidating it after it comes into effect. It would seem reasonable to have an avenue for pre-empting a very unpopular law (passed by legislators and signed by the governor) from coming into effect, given that the proposition system already gives residents a way to later overturn it.
The poster didn't claim to be an American and even if they are American, there are lots of different opinions on what things are important to spend time on and not everyone agrees that it's following the news or reading up on various ways places structure their government.
they claim to live in the state of California, and are concerned about voting so that would imply they are at minimum a Naturalized Citizen of the US...
>> there are lots of different opinions on what things are important to spend time on
True, however they are the one acting shocked about a new law being passed, if they do not believe new laws in their state is something important to spend time on, they should then not be shocked when a law passes they were no aware of.
AB5 supposedly just clarifies what the law already said: that workers should be classified as employees except in narrow circumstances when they're clearly independent. As employees, they're entitled to minimum wage, sick leave, etc.
It's a plausible interpretation of some old laws designed for a different world, but it doesn't seem like good policy for today.
If you're US citizen residing in California, you had an option to vote for (or against) people that enacted it. If you didn't, now you learned that elections have consequences regardless of whether you participate or not. If you are, like me, an alien living in California, you can be happy that at least the weather is nice, so far they didn't find the way to mess this up too.
- How did this law get enacted?
- Why wasn't I, a resident of California, asked to vote on it?
- Was the law buried under some legalese and just slipped past the eyes of 39 million Californians? And nobody made any noise about it?