Each year in Sacramento brings a new crop of crazy bills — some of which actually pass the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

Traditionally, the governor’s role has been to play “the adult in the room,” and to veto the most extreme proposals. 

But this year, the brakes are off, because Gavin Newsom is trying to position himself ahead of a wide-open Democratic presidential primary that will begin the moment the polls close in the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

Newsom needs to look as “progressive” as possible, given the rise of socialism within his party. He’s trying to jump on that broken bandwagon.

That’s why a bill like AB 2599 has a chance to become law. The bill would require any large company in California that can trace its roots back before 1965 to search through its records and disclose any possible connection to slavery. 

California entered the Union as a “free” state in 1850, meaning that it outlawed slavery from the outset. 

But under AB 2599, if any company that later did business in California had been involved in any remote way in the slave trade nearly 200 years ago, it would have to disclose that information on a state website — and face the inevitable backlash.

A bill as pointless as AB 2599 falls into the same category of bills as AB 3121, which was passed at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. It set up a “task force” to study reparations. 

Newsom duly signed it — and strung the committee along until, at the end, he declined to offer any cash to the descendants of former slaves. 

He did, however, sign AB 3089 in 2024, which offered a formal apology for slavery — which, again, California had never allowed.

AB 2599 isn’t the only absurd bill awaiting Newsom’s signature.

The Legislature also passed SB 868, which will allow people to put solar panels on the balconies of their apartments. 

The purpose is ostensibly to help people lower their electric bills. But rather than devising a simpler solution — say, giving incentives for apartment building owners to put solar panels on their rooftops — legislators decided that tenants should be able to mount them on their balconies.

If you want to know what that will look like, think about Third World cities where people mount satellite dishes on every conceivable nook and cranny.

There are safety implications of having all those panels, and cables, mounted on — or hanging off of — balconies. The California Municipal Utilities Association warns that line workers maintaining the power grid could be at risk from electricity surges flowing back into the grid.

The genius behind this bill is none other than state Sen. Scott Wiener, whose controversial SB 79 law aims to encourage high-rises near transit hubs. 

Evidently Wiener wants to decorate his high-rises with solar panels hanging off the sides.

Perhaps the most consequential bill moving through the Capitol is SB 577, which is a compromise over the urgent issue of old sex abuse lawsuits.

As The California Post has explained, in 2019, during the height of the “#metoo” movement, Newsom signed a law called AB 218 that effectively canceled the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits.

What followed was a tidal wave of legal claims filed against cities and school districts for alleged abuse that happened decades before.

Many public institutions simply opted to settle these lawsuits, rather than suffer the political consequences of defending against the allegations in court.

But the settlements were massive. The city of Santa Monica shelled out a staggering $230 million. The LA Unified School District has borrowed $750 million to pay out these claims; the final toll could be $1 billion.

That’s all money that could be helping Californians today. Instead, it is being spend on misconduct from the past.

And some of that misconduct might never have happened. LA County District Attorney Nathan Hochman says that a majority of old sex abuse claims filed against the county could be fraudulent.

There is an urgent need for caps on damages that still allow victims to be compensated, but without destroying local government and school districts. 

Yet SB 577 doesn’t impose caps, which the trial lawyers don’t want. Instead, it raises the standard of evidence required to prove a claim. 

That’s a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough to address the fiscal crisis unfolding in communities across the state.

It remains to be seen what Newsom signs, and what he vetoes. But the number of absurd laws signed will be higher than usual.

On slavery and AB 2599, for example, Newsom isn’t really thinking about California.

He’s thinking about South Carolina, the first state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, with a majority-black electorate that Newsom has struggled to reach.

What a way to govern.

Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.