Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a bill from Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, D-Fresno, and Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, on Thursday, putting the next political ball in the Fresno County Board of Supervisors court.

With the Better Roads Safer Streets half-cent, 30-year sales tax now heading to the Nov. 3 ballot via the governor’s signature, the supervisors are threatening legal action.

On Thursday morning, supervisors Garry Bredefeld and Buddy Mendes, along with Clovis Mayor Pro Tem Diane Pearce and Reedley Mayor Matthew Tuttle, held a news conference opposing AB 1923 from  Soria and Caballero.

Bredefeld and Mendes said the county has consulted with an elections law expert and will discuss litigation against Newsom.

Fresno County Supervisor Luis Chavez, who voted against a study blocking Better Roads Safe Streets from the ballot, told GV Wire that Newsom signed AB 1923 Thursday afternoon.

The state Constitution allows counties to call for a study, and Bredefeld said that the county was within its right order the study examining the effects of the potential $7.4 billion tax.

Soria’s bill targeted only Fresno County, leaving out other counties, including Alameda County which this week had supervisors similarly call for a study on a $30 minimum wage petition, likely delaying that measure until 2028.

“I will call upon my colleagues to vote to initiate immediate litigation at our upcoming Board of Supervisors meeting to contest the law’s constitutionality and its violation of state election code,” Bredefeld said. “Fresno County’s authority to control local matters is at stake. And we will never bow to radical, progressive extremists and corrupt Sacramento politicians.”

Supervisor Have Duty to Put Better Roads Onto Ballot

In a statement, Chavez — who along with Supervisor Brian Pacheco voted to move Better Roads Safe Streets onto the ballot — said the transportation tax successor to 40-year-old Measure C is the “most consequential measure our community will decide.” He said it is the job of supervisors to honor the democratic process.

“There’s nothing more local control than the people themselves. Not one or two or three elected officials, the power always resides with the people,” Chavez said in a Thursday statement. “To deny the more than 32,000 citizens that signed a petition the right to vote, is to be against democracy.”

In a statement, Soria thanked the governor for signing the measure.

“Thank you for recognizing the voters of Fresno County did everything in their power to qualify this initiative for the ballot — despite a last-minute procedural maneuver by their own board of supervisors to delay and deny democracy,” Soria said in a statement. “I am proud to announce the ‘Fresno County Transportation Improvement Act’ will appear on this November’s ballot, just as the voters intended.

Does AB 1923 Classify as Urgent?

The lawsuit will, among other things, examine Article 4 of the California election code, specifically the urgency clause covered in Section 8.

That immediacy is what propelled AB 1923.

“Urgency statutes are those necessary for immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety,” California law states.

At a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, Mendota Mayor Victor Martinez said without transportation tax funds, rural cities can’t fund road repair.

The cities of Clovis and Fresno would lose out on transit funds in addition to road repair funds. That urgency may be reduced as the city of Fresno, at least, has proposed its own half-cent transportation tax that will help backfill Measure C revenue losses.

Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer promised at the previous city council meeting he would veto the city of Fresno’s proposal if both appeared on the ballot.

Additionally, Paul Yoder, lobbyist for Fresno County, said Measure C funds won’t completely run out until 2029.

The original bill from Soria was a measure to give loans to distressed hospitals, some of which would have been in Fresno.

“If you’re a resident of Fresno, Tulare, or Madera counties, AB 1923 should tell you everything you need to know about Sacramento; they will turn their backs on patients and hospitals in need at the drop of a hat,” Bredefeld said.

Delay Was of Group’s Own Making: Mendes

Bredefeld and Mendes talked about how it was the same groups behind Better Roads Safe Streets that “hijacked” the process, putting the group in the time crunch they now find themselves in.

Too many duplicate signatures ultimately pushed approval of the measure to the brink where a study could cause a two-year delay, Bredefeld said.

Of the 32,000 signatures collected, Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters James Kus told GV Wire that after review, staff determined 7,547 signatures were invalid.

Before that, when the county and the transportation coalition were still working in good faith on the renewed Measure C language, Veronica Garibay, executive director of Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, worried about the timeline, Mendes said.

Mendes accused the group of using COG’s resources to craft the ballot measure, making nominal changes to call it their own.

Reedley Mayor Matthew Tuttle, who sits on the COG board, said the rural mayors who approved the bill did so under threats that nothing else would get passed.

“They’re dangled a few dollars to get a few of their roads done,” Tuttle said. “And threatened that if they don’t take it, then they’re not going to get anything.”

Connection Between Newsom and CVCF’s Swearengin

Newsom signed the bill amid a scandals about behested payments to his wife’s charities. The Central Valley Community Foundation, which heavily funded and pushed Better Roads Safe Streets, has similarly paid and received money to support the California Partners Project, associated with Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

The Central Valley Community Foundation is led by former Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin.

The foundation has collected $280,000 in contributions to carry out projects through Siebel Newsom’s nonprofits. In 2021, the Fair Political Practices Commission showed the foundation and the California Endowment, a major supporter of the foundation, as paying $49,383 to the Partners Project.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in 2025 on a $99,000 payment from the CVCF to the Partners Project that the foundation has since disputed. Nine days after that payment was recorded, it was announced that CVCF had won a $14 million grant to run a jobs program.

That listing has been removed from FPPC’s database but GV Wire has seen files reportedly before they were removed that contain the listed payment.

A statement to the Free Beacon from CVCF in 2025 denies that that payment took place.

What’s more, the law firm hired by the foundation, Olson Remcho, is the same firm hired by Newsom on Prop. 50, which redrew the state’s congressional maps. Olson Remcho also helped write Fresno’s Measure P arts and sales tax, which CVCF heavily backed.

“The people of California and the people of Fresno County deserve a governor who makes decisions in the public interest — not in the interest of an organization that has been writing six-figure checks to your family’s charity for six years,” Bredefeld said.