This year, our Club voted to support a number of impactful bills making their way through the state legislature. Most are still active, some may have another chance next year, and two have already bitten the dust.
Bills that are not voted out of the legislative house in which they originated by “house of origin day” (which was June 2nd this year) are usually pronounced dead. A bill that appears headed for that fate can be ordered by its author to the “inactive file”. That allows the bill to become a “two year bill” that can have another vote in January 2024.
Bills that get trapped in the Appropriations Committee’s Suspense file are going nowhere.
Here is a look at where some of our favored bills stand as of this writing and any votes or authorship by our district’s representatives in Sacramento.
CIVIL LIBERTIES
AB 93 (Bryan) Criminal Procedure: consensual searches. This bill will prohibit police officers from asking for consent to search a person or their vehicle without an evidence-based legal justification. FAILED
Bryan—introduced the bill
ACA 8 California Abolition Act.
The California Abolition Act would amend Article 1, Section 6 of the California Constitution to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude without exception.
Active in Assembly
Bryan—co-author
Smallwood-Cuevas—co-author
AB 793 Privacy: Dragnet Digital Surveillance. This bill seeks to protect the privacy of those who seek abortion care, gender-affirming care, or simply engage in First Amendment-protected activity from a type of dragnet digital surveillance demand known variously as “reverse warrants”, “keyword warrants”, or “geofence warrants”.
Active in Senate
Bryan—voted “Yes”
ACA 4 (Bryan) Elections: eligibility to vote. This bill would extend the right to vote to incarcerated people. Expanding the franchise will more closely connect people in prison with society, potentially reducing recidivism.
Active in Assembly
Smallwood-Cuevas—co-author
Bryan—voted “yes” in Assembly Appropriations Committee
ACA 5 (Low; Principal Co-Authors include Smallwood-Cuevas) Marriage equality. This measure would express the intent of the Legislature to amend the Constitution of the State relating to marriage equality. It’s a state constitutional amendment designed to rescind Proposition 8, the discriminatory ban on same-sex marriage that was struck down in federal district court in 2010. Active in Senate
Smallwood-Cuevas—co-authored
Bryan—voted “Yes”
DEMOCRATIC REFORM
AB 421 Proposition Reform. This bill would require that 10 percent of the signatures be gathered by unpaid volunteers. It would require that the paid gatherers register with the State, obtain an ID badge to be worn while gathering, and receive mandatory training.
Active in Senate
Bryan—Introduced the bill
Smallwood-Cuevas—co-authored
AB 83 The Get Foreign Money Out of California Elections Act.
Robert Reich explains here.
Two Year Bill (Persevere. We have 6 months to change minds!)
Bryan: Voted “Yes” in Assembly Elections and Appropriations Committees
HOUSING, TENANT PROTECTIONS, HOMELESSNESS
AB 309 (Lee) Social Housing.
Re-introduces AB2053 which would add social housing to the State’s toolkit to address the shortage of affordable homes for all income levels in California.
Active in Senate
Bryan—voted “Yes”
AB 745 (Bryan) Re-entry Housing and Workforce Development Plan. Re-introduces last year’s AB 1816, which would create the Reentry Housing and Workforce Development Program to provide grants for innovative or evidence-based housing, housing-based services, family reunification services, women services, and employment interventions to allow people with recent histories of incarceration to exit homelessness and remain stably housed.
Two Year Bill (We have 6 months to change minds!)
Bryan—introduced the bill
AB 920 (Bryan) Unhoused as a protected category. This bill would make being an unhoused person a protected category under California’s anti-discrimination statute.
In Appropriations Committee’s “suspense file” (FAILED)
Bryan—introduced the bill
SB 567 (Durazo) Builds on the Tenant Protection Act (AB 1482). This bill expands protections from no-fault evictions, lowers the amount that rent may be increased to inflation or 5 percent, whichever is lower (like Culver City), makes statewide tenant protections applicable to single family homes, condos and mobile homes, and creates new enforcement mechanisms.
Active in Assembly
Smallwood-Cuevas—co-authored
SB 4 (Wiener) Planning and zoning: housing development: higher education institutions and religious institutions. This bill makes it easier for churches and non-profit universities to build housing if they so choose. Thanks to previous council’s support for affordable housing, Culver City approved a project like this, Jubilo Village, that will bring nearly 100 homes affordable to people making between 30% and 80% of the area median income. Active in Assembly
Smallwood-Cuevas—voted “Yes”
HEALTHCARE
AB 1690 (Kalra) Universal health care coverage. Known as CalCare, this bill re-introduces AB 1400, which would establish the intent of the Legislature to guarantee accessible, affordable, equitable, and high-quality health care for all Californians through a comprehensive universal single-payer health care program that benefits every resident of the state.
Two Year Bill (The struggle continues!)
No votes have been taken on this bill.
SB 238 (Wiener) Health care coverage: independent medical review. This bill mandates an automatic referral to the state’s existing independent medical review process every time a private insurance company denies a child mental health treatment.
Active in Assembly
Smallwood-Cuevas—voted “Yes”
PUBLIC TRANSIT
AB 610 (Holden)
Free Youth Transit Pass Program. This bill re-introduces last year’s AB 1919, which would create a five-year Youth Transit Pass Pilot Program to provide grants to transit agencies to create or expand free fare transit programs for college and K-12 students.
Active in Senate
Bryan—voted “Yes”
CLIMATE PACKAGE
SB 253 requires all large corporations that do business in California to more fully disclose the greenhouse gasses emitted by their corporate supply chain.
Active in Assembly
Bryan—co-author
Smallwood-Cuevas—voted “Yes”
SB 261 helps protect consumers from the massive potential financial losses associated with the climate crisis by requiring companies to disclose these risks. Active in Assembly
Smallwood-Cuevas—voted “Yes”
SB 252 would require the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) to divest from investments in fossil fuel companies by 2031.
Two Year Bill [Bill McKibbon article]
Smallwood-Cuevas—voted “Yes”