Orpheus16's Shortform

Orpheus16

This is a special post for quick takes by Orpheus16. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

Why do people think there's a ~50% chance that Newsom will veto SB1047?

The base rate for vetoes is about 15%. Perhaps the base rate for controversial bills is higher. But it seems like SB1047 hasn't been very controversial among CA politicians.

Is the main idea here that Newsom's incentives are different than those of state politicians because Newsom has national ambitions? So therefore he needs to cater more to the Democratic Party Establishment (which seems to oppose SB1047) or Big Tech? (And then this just balances out against things like "maybe Newsom doesn't want to seem soft on Big Tech, maybe he feels like he has more to lose by deviating from what the legislature wants, the polls support SB1047, and maybe he actually cares about increasing transparency into frontier AI companies?)

Or are there other factors that are especially influential in peoples' models here?

(Tagging @ryan_greenblatt, @Eric Neyman, and @Neel Nanda because you three hold the largest No positions. Feel free to ignore if you don't want to engage.)

2Orpheus162y

Thanks for sharing! Why do you think the CA legislators were more OK pissing off Big Tech & Pelosi? (I mean, I guess Pelosi's statement didn't come until relatively late, but I believe there was still time for people in at least one chamber to change their votes.) To me, the most obvious explanation is probably something like "Newsom cares more about a future in federal government than most CA politicians and therefore relies more heavily on support from Big Tech and approval from national Democratic leaders"– is this what's driving your model?

This is a fair point. I think Newsom is a very visible and prominent target who has more risk here (I imagine people don't pay that much attention to individual California legislators), it's individually his fault if he doesn't veto, and he wants to be President and thus cares much more about national stuff. While the California legislators were probably annoyed at Pelosi butting into state business.

4Eric Neyman2y

For what it's worth, I don't have any particular reason to think that that's the reason for her opposition.