This year, San Francisco Senator Scott Wiener passed a bill that will allow mid-rise housing to be built near transit stops, a win for the pro-housing lawmaker who’d seen two previous attempts collapse before even reaching the Senate floor, blocked by lawmakers concerned about state interference in local land-use decisions.

On multiple occasions this year, Senate Bill 79 just narrowly escaped the same fate — saved only by a bit of legislative maneuvering by Wiener. To get his bill passed, Wiener had to muscle past committee chairs, kept floor votes open while he hunted down stragglers and negotiated over a dozen amendments into the bill to appease lawmakers from areas resistant to development.

Wiener has called SB 79 “landmark” legislation — but it remains to be seen if the bill helps to cement his legacy, or if it will be too weighted down with amendments to be of any practical use to developers, a common criticism of recent housing legislation. The bill is still sitting on Newsom’s desk, and he has yet to give it his signature.

To YIMBY supporters, Wiener’s victory in finally passing the housing-near-transit bill showcased the senior Senator’s growing clout after nearly a decade in the Legislature and his mastery of its processes.

“Wiener is an incredibly effective legislator — part of that is not just about knowing how to negotiate, but also knowing how the process works,” said Matthew Lewis, spokesman for California YIMBY, a pro-housing organization that regularly sponsors Wiener’s bills. “In any game, the players who master all the rules, all the techniques better than everyone else will get the best results.”

Meanwhile, Wiener’s critics say the bill is less the work of a master legislator than one willing to make significant amendments and bend Sacramento norms to get a law across the finish line in the face of heavy opposition, from Republicans and Democrats alike.

Libby Schaaf, an advisor to the pro-housing Abundance Network who worked with Wiener on previous versions of the bill when she was Oakland mayor, acknowledged the lawmaker’s dogged approach can frustrate his colleagues.

“There are plenty of people in Sacramento who find his persistence and courage really grating, because he’s making people take difficult votes,” she said.

SB 79 looked as if it could die in its first committee. The chair, Sen. Aisha Wahab of Fremont, opposed the bill on the grounds that it tilted too heavily toward developers without requiring enough affordable housing. In Sacramento, a chair’s word usually decides a bill’s fate. But Wiener went above Wahab’s head, calling Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, the Democratic Majority leader, asking him to give the other Senators on the committee permission to vote against the chair. It’s a maneuver known in the Capitol as “rolling the chair,” and often seen as a breach of decorum and defiance of leadership.

But Wiener did it again in the next committee, too, this time overruling Los Angeles Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, who echoed many of Wahab’s concerns. One longtime California Legislature lobbyist described the rolling of two chairs in two weeks as “extra unique” to CalMatters.

Having cleared both committees, SB 79 advanced to the Senate floor in June. The measure initially fell two votes shy of passing — but Wiener worked the chamber, keeping the roll call open until he pulled along two wavering Democrats to get to a majority.

SB 79 then moved to the Assembly, which is seen by many YIMBY’s as an easier sell on housing bills than the Senate. But even there, the bill faced a block of opposition, in particular from legislators from more suburban districts weary of dense housing.

By the time the bill reached the Assembly Appropriations Committee, it wasn’t clear whether Chair Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, had the votes to pass it. But she and Wiener may have gotten lucky when one expected “no” vote, Gregg Hart of Santa Barbara, was absent. Although Wicks had a quorum, Speaker Robert Rivas replaced him with Patrick Ahrens, a freshman assemblymember from Silicon Valley known to be pro-housing and a likely “yes” vote for SB 79. The bill squeaked through the committee 8-6, with Ahrens’ vote tipping the scales.

To boost his final vote count, Wiener made a number of amendments to the bill, chipping away at opposition from influential interest groups while also significantly narrowing the bill’s scope. To neutralize opposition from the powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council, he agreed to require union labor on any building taller than 85 feet. To placate tenant groups, he added protections for low-income neighborhoods. And to win over suburban lawmakers, he narrowed the bill’s reach to counties with over 15 major passenger rail stations, leaving out places like Marin and Contra Costa.

Even with those deals, the bill only narrowly passed the Assembly, which voted on bipartisan lines 43-19, with 18 members abstaining. When the bill returned to the Senate Floor for its concurrence vote — required because of the amendments made in the Assembly — the bill got 21 votes, just enough to pass — with Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, casting the deciding vote after Southern California Democrat Laura Richardson last-minute flipped her vote from ‘aye’ to ‘no.’ In what was a surprise to some, both rolled chairs ended up rolling Wiener’s way, with Wahab and Durazo voting for the bill.

“I take seriously the responsibility to strengthen bills so they deliver real affordability for Californians,” Wahab said in a text. “While no legislation is perfect, this bill incorporated several of the recommendations I raised from the beginning, and with those changes, I felt it was in a place to support.”

Durazo’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

YIMBY’s have celebrated the win, saying that it signals the Legislature’s pro-housing shift. But from the final tally, it appears that Wiener relied on each amendment to bring enough legislators on board. One lobbyist told this news organization that they’d never seen a bill amended 13 times. Wiener’s spokesperson said that an “unusual amount of work went into this bill.”

Whether SB 79 helps to boost the housing supply remains to be seen. Rising interest rates and construction costs have slowed development across California since 2022.

“When you look at where this actually applies, it’s a tiny, tiny sliver of most of our cities,” said Mott Smith, a developer based in Los Angeles and chair of California Infill Builders. Still, he called the measure “extraordinarily important, symbolically,” noting it marked the clearest legislative endorsement yet of dense housing near transit.

“He’s moving the Overton window,” Schaff said. “He’s moving people’s perceptions about what is possible. Every time, he figures out an adjustment to make his proposal more successful the next time.”

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