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California passed a 2018‒2019 budget with record budget surpluses as the state attention shifted to the upcoming 2018 election. This was Jerry Brown's final budget after sixteen years as governor, a state record. Brown was concerned the state's volatile income tax revenues might not hold up during a future recession and wanted to store as much of the surplus away in the state's emergency "rainy-day" fund. Continuing the annual pattern, Democratic legislators wanted to spend some of the surplus on social services, including the increasing problems of homelessness and affordable housing. In addition, legislators began to address the long-ignored problem of sexual harassment in the capitol and was on the front line of the #MeToo movement, leading several legislators to resign. Democrats did well in the November elections, leading to an even bluer California.

California passed a fairly uncontentious 2017‒2018 budget as the state focused more onPresident Donald Trump, and on Governor Jerry Brown's ultimately successful attempt to corralthe state legislature into passing a new gas tax. Legislative Democrats specifically targetedTrump's immigration policies, focusing on a bill that would make California a "sanctuary state."Meanwhile, Brown worked diligently to marshal support for the new tax, which required a twothirdssupermajority vote. Even with a largely unified Republican opposition, Democrats heldtogether their legislative supermajority won in 2016 and approved a rare tax increase in theGolden State. They followed it by passing the budget, as well as an extension of California'scap-and-trade system designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, DemocraticCalifornia has positioned itself in diametric opposition to a Republican Trump Administration.

Governor Jerry Brown used the relatively easy budget negotiations during this budget cycle to set himself up to run as the elder statesman seeking reelection for an unprecedented fourth term as governor. But it was not budget politics or even elections that occupied Sacramento's attention this fiscal year, but rather a series of three separate political corruption investigations and convictions in the State Senate that tarnished the Golden State. These cases not only generated a great deal of negative media attention, but they cost the Democrats three seats, as the caucus was forced to suspend all three senators. This denied the Democrats their supermajority in the Senate, and therefore the legislature as a whole.

California was in a better position during the 2016-2017 budget cycle than it had been in previous years. Rather than arguing over budget cuts, the majority Democrats spent their time debating spending priorities. In the end, legislative Democrats and Governor Jerry Brown both claimed victory, which left the state on a solid financial footing. As Governor Brown entered the second half of his second term, the Democratic Party continued to strengthen its hold on the state. November 2016 Election Day victories provided the party with a two-thirds majority in the legislature, ensuring state government in the coming years would remain an exclusively intraparty affair.

California's budget politics were temporarily sidetracked by an increasingly severe statewide drought, forcing the state to take action. Democratic lawmakers elected new leadership, who, like their predecessors, argued the state should increase social spending. The major budget clash centered on California's booming economy and what to do with a large projected tax surplus. The legislature wanted to spend the revenue, while Governor Jerry Brown downplayed the fiscal estimates and wanted to squirrel away the extra money in the state's new rainy-day fund. Brown sparred with the University of California over UC's increasing reliance on out-of-state students to fund the university, limiting the number of spots for California students.

Unlike his first budgets, Governor Jerry Brown began this budget cycle from a position of political strength. The Democrats controlled a 2/3 supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, allowing them to increase taxes without a single Republican vote. Voters approved Brown's temporary tax increases in a November 2012 referendum, adding several billion in state revenue. The improved economic and political situations allowed Brown and Democratic lawmakers to broaden the debate over the 2013-2014 budget. The centerpiece is a massive restructuring of state money for K-14 education. In addition, Brown wants to continue paying down the "Wall of Debt", the nearly $30 billion the state had accumulated over its previous borrowing spree.