California Gov. Gavin Newsom stays famously tight-lipped about bills making their way through the state Legislature. So it was a surprise this week when he not only endorsed two bills to slash local restrictions that can hold up housing construction — he said he would leapfrog lawmakers altogether and implement them through the budget.

Newsom was not subtle about where he believes the fault for the housing crisis lies: “It is not the state of California that remains the biggest impediment. The obstacle remains at the local level.”

His comments incensed the California League of Cities, which argued, “California cities are not the obstacle.”

But just hours later, a city on the California coast set out to prove Newsom right.

Cheered on by constituents, the City Council of Encinitas, just north of San Diego, voted on Wednesday to support a prospective ballot measure that would amend California’s Constitution by handing control over housing back to localities…

On Wednesday, [Mayor Bruce] Ehlers, [Encinitas City Council Member Luke Shaffer] Shaffer and their colleagues backed the resolution to support a potential statewide ballot measure that would amend California’s Constitution and hand control over housing back to localities…(more)

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The question no one has answered yet, is why, if the state has been writing density bills and developers have been building dense housing for decades, why have the housing prices gone up instead of down? Where are the studies that prove building dense housing has lowered housing prices anywhere?

100’s of California cities are fighting the state’s ferocious appetite for power that has been carving out a larger role for itself while handing the local communities and their citizens the bills for increased infrastructure bills that used to go to developers.

The state claims the cities can raise the funds by raising taxes to pay for growth they demand and nobody wants. That is not a winning argument yet, the YIMBY keep peddling it.

It gets better. Newsom and Wienerites are now tipping their toes in the Maga sea of inequities by cutting off social services and tearing the safety nets they once built. How is this going to play among what is left of the Democratic Party they want to lead in Washington?