At our March meeting, the club membership approved the package of bills recommended by the club’s Executive Board and legislative committee. Letters of support have been sent to the authors of the bills. Our Club has signed on to letters written by organizations advocating for these bills and, as the politics and elections Chair, I have submitted letters on behalf of the club to the state legislative advocacy portal. I also sit on the Santa Monica Democratic Club’s legislative committee and have won that club’s endorsement for many of the bills that our club voted to support this year and over the past two years.
The legislative committee has identified a new consent calendar of bills for your consideration in May. Some of these bills were brought to my attention when the Santa Monica Democratic Club voted to endorse them. Please review them and feel free to ask any questions at our meeting! Links are provided for those of you who want to do a deeper dive! The bills will go before the Executive Board who will vote on endorsement and then to club membership at our May meeting.. Anyone can pull any of the individual bills from consent. We can decide as a club to vote on the entire package – or pull certain individual bills off of the consent calendar for individual discussion.
LGBTQIA Rights/Civil Rights/Criminal Justice Reform
SB 497 (Weiner) Legally Protected health care activity/Transgender state of refuge. This bill would protects the privacy and safety of individuals seeking gender affirming health care in California by: 1) protecting sensitive data from being disclosed to out-of-state law enforcement seeking to prosecute people receiving care that is legal in California 2) establishing criminal penalties for accessing sensitive health data without a warrant 3) expanding the protections for transgender people by strengthening California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act to protect privacy of patients seeking gender affirming care and 4) stating the intent to protect teachers who are affirming of transgender youth. Prescriptions of certain drugs are now shared with police departments (eg testosterone) FACT Sheet
SB 418 (Menjivar) Health Care Coverage: Nondiscrimination. The bill would strengthen nondiscrimination protections in health care coverage by protecting access to gender-affirming care, including for transgender and intersex individuals. The bill ensures that health care providers and insurers cannot impose discriminatory restrictions or cost barriers, reinforcing legal accountability and expanding equitable health care access. FACT sheet.
AB 358 (Alvarez) -Criminal Procedure/Privacy – oppose. Per the ACLU this bill
“would unnecessarily weaken the ‘nation’s best digital privacy law’, the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA), and expose Californians’ private electronic information to warrantless searches. Further, the exception contemplated by AB 358 would violate individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights.” Assembly Members Isaac Bryan and Tina McKinnor from AD 61 did NOT vote for this bill when it came to committee. ACLU opposition letter.
AB 1489 (Bryan) -Peace Officers. This bill would “require a law enforcement agency that issues a firearm to a peace officer it employs that employs a peace officer to have a policy prohibiting that officer from carrying the firearm issued by the agency with any firearm when the officer has a blood alcohol concentration greater than 0.00%, whether the officer is on duty or off duty, unless the officer is on duty and engaged in an undercover assignment in the course of their employment as a peace officer…” Assemblymember Isaac Bryan says of the bill, ““There is no standardized and consistent policy prohibiting police officers from carrying agency-issued firearms while consuming alcohol, creating significant risks to public safety and law enforcement accountability. Los Angeles Police Department have only partially addressed the issue by lowering the legal blood-alcohol limit for armed officers from 0.08% to 0.04%. Unfortunately, this approach does not fully prevent firearm-related incidents, as seen in multiple cases where officers used their weapons while under the influence, leading to harmful consequences, internal investigations, and erosion of public trust…AB 1489 addresses the absence of a standardized policy by mandating all law enforcement agencies to implement a policy prohibiting officers—on or off duty—from carrying their service firearms while consuming alcohol. By closing this dangerous loophole, the bill ensures that officers abide by clear, enforceable guidelines that protect both themselves and the communities they serve. National firearm safety organizations, including the NRA, emphasize that alcohol should never be used while handling weapons—yet police officers, entrusted with public safety, currently operate without a universal prohibition. AB 1489 will align law enforcement practices with fundamental firearm safety principles, preventing tragic, avoidable incidents and reinforcing trust and accountability between law enforcement and the public.”
AI- Artificial intelligence/Labor
SB 7 – (McNerney) Employment: automated decision systems –”no robo bosses act.” Coauthored by AD 55 Assemblymember Isaac Bryan & AD 57 Assemblymember Sade Elhawary, this bill would require human oversight of artificial intelligence systems in the workplace to help prevent abuses. It would bar California employers from relying primarily on AI systems, known as automated decision-making systems (ADS), to make hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination decisions without human oversight. SB 7 is sponsored by California Federation of Labor Unions and the AFL-CIO.
The Santa Monica Democratic Club has endorsed this bill. “No worker should have to answer to a robot boss when they are fearful of getting injured on the job, or when they have to go to the bathroom or leave work for an emergency,” said Lorena Gonzalez, President of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, representing over 1,300 unions with 2.3 million union members. “When it comes to decisions that most impact our jobs, our safety and our families, we need human oversight.” Press Release
ENVIRONMENT/UTILITIES & ENERGY
AB 942 (Calderon)-Net energy metering: eligible customer-generators: tariffs. OPPOSE. The bill’s author Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, who is a former SoCal Edison lobbyist, proposes that the state renege on its contract, pulling the rug out from under nearly two million solar customers, slashing their solar credit, and slapping them with a solar tax. If you invested in expensive solar panels expecting promised energy credits would eventually cover the upfront costs, you will be out of luck if this bill passes. These new changes would apply to ALL solar customers who signed up for solar before April 2023 (NEM1 and NEM2). The LA Times reported that , per Open Secrets, “Southern California Edison and the other two big investor-owned utilities are among Calderon’s most generous corporate donors. Last year, the company gave Calderon’s campaign $11,000. Sempra, the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric, also contributed $11, 000, while Pacific Gas and Electric Provided $8,000.”The Santa Monica Democratic Club has voted to OPPOSE this bill. Information from Solar Rights Alliance. LA Times Article: Former Edison executive Calderon, now a lawmaker, seeks to cut rooftop solar credits.
HOUSING/RENTERS RIGHTS
AB 246 (Bryan) Social Security Tenant Protection Act of 2025. Assemblymember Isaac Bryan gutted and amended his bill to implement a rent freeze in LA County. The club endorsed this bill in March and it now returns to the membership for their vote.
The current version of this bill would make it illegal to evict a renter for failure to pay rent if the tenant signs, under penalty of perjury, a statement that failure to pay is due to problems receiving social security benefits. This bill would prohibit a court, during a declared social security benefit payment interruption, from issuing a summons on a complaint for unlawful detainer (or eviction order) in any action that seeks possession of residential real property and that is based, in whole or in part, on nonpayment of rent or other charges, if the defendant experiences a loss of income due to the social security benefit payment interruption. The Santa Monica Democratic Club voted to endorse this bill. Bryan tells us:
If the Feds cut social security we will not let our seniors and neighbors with disabilities be evicted in California. The richest man in the world might not care about your livelihood and retirement but we do. And, we will fight to protect it.
SB 808 (Caballero) Expediting Judicial Review of Improper Housing Project Denials. This bill would speed up resolution of housing enforcement actions under state laws such as the Housing Accountability Act. We all know that delays in the approval process lead to higher housing costs. This bill is sponsored by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Fact Sheet.
AB 1157 (Kalra) The Affordable Rent Act. Co-authored by Culver City’s State Representatives Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas and Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, this bill would enhance and extend the State Rent Cap that was established by the 2019 Tenant Protection Act (TPA), to 1) Limit allowable annual rent increases to Consumer Price Index + 2% or 5%, whichever is lower 2) remove the TPA’s exemption for single-family homes 3) Make the TPA -which was scheduled to sunset in 2030 -permanent. CALMATTERS coverage FACT Sheet WITHDRAWN
AB 253 (Ward) Third Party Permit Review. Delays in the housing approval process lead to higher costs. This bill would allow applicants to hire third party licensed architects and engineers to review permit applications when cities are slow walking the approval process. This would end post-entitlement delays for single-family homes, ADUs, and missing middle projects, speeding projects through the permitting pipeline. Information from California Yimby. Fact Sheet.
AB 609 (Wicks) California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: housing development projects. This bill would exempt infill housing developments from the usual delays and litigation associated with environmental review. It is intended to end housing development fights over CEQA. Information from California Yimby. Fact Sheet.
SB 79 (Weiner) Local government land: public transit use: housing development: transit-oriented development. This bill would allow mid rise multifamily housing near transit stations and empower transit agencies to build housing on their land. This bill would allow hundreds of thousands of units of transit-oriented housing to be built, providing transit agencies with needed ridership and funding. Information from California Yimby. Fact Sheet.
SB 677 (Weiner) Housing development: streamlined approvals. This bill would expand access to streamlined permitting and massively improve SB 9, the 2021 bill legalizing duplexes and lot splits statewide. The bill would make it as easy to build a duplex or small-lot home as it is to build an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU). Information from California Yimby. Fact sheet.
Education
AB 1468 (Zbur, Addis)-OPPOSE- WITHDRAWN
AB 715 (Zbur, Addis) OPPOSE – Educational Equity: Discrimination. Because of organized opposition, AB 1468 was withdrawn. But now, the authors have introduced a replacement: AB 715. AB 715 repackages the same dangerous ideas as AB 1468—but takes them even further. It was introduced through a last-minute gut-and-amend process that bypassed public review, undermining transparency and community input. And what it proposes is alarming:
- It expands “nationality” to include shared ancestry or religion, creating a vague legal basis to ban educational content that critiques Israel’s war crimes or discusses Palestinian experiences.
- It gives the State Superintendent new power to bypass local school boards and directly intervene in discrimination complaints, undermining local control and due process.
- It commits to creating an antisemitism coordinator—without defining antisemitism—while offering no parallel protections for other marginalized groups.
- It opens the door to silencing educators, harassing school board members, and punishing political speech about Palestine, settler colonialism, or U.S. foreign policy.
In short, AB 715 weaponizes anti-discrimination language to suppress truth, education, and dissent. Petition Against the Bill
AB 288 (McKinnor) California Right to Organize will protect California workers’ right to organize by clarifying that all workers subject to the jurisdiction of the NLRA as of January 1, 2025, who are not able to freely exercise their right to organize and collectively bargain because they have have been excluded from or have not received a response or remedy from the National Labor Relations Board within the specified statutory timelines can seek relief at the state level from the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).
Specifically, the following groups may petition PERB under the bill:
● Workers previously covered by the NLRA if the NRLA is repealed or narrowed to exclude them from coverage;
● Workers who are deprived of recourse because the NLRB cannot execute its duties due to a lack of quorum or legal challenges that limit their ability to adjudicate cases;
● Workers who petition for recognition, bargain a first contract, are terminated and filed an unfair labor practice, or experience any other unfair labor practice if the NLRB fails to meet specified statutory deadlines to grant relief.
California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction. AB 288 respects federal labor law, but affirms that if workers are unable to get a remedy at the federal level, the state can act to protect workers’ fundamental right to organize. The right to join a union and bargain collectively is essential to economic security and human dignity of all California workers. AB 288 ensures that California workers can exercise this right. Fact Sheet