SB 768 California Senate · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Courts: data reporting.

Summary
Existing law, the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, requires legal counsel to be appointed to represent low-income parties in civil matters involving critical issues affecting basic human needs in courts selected by the Judicial Council. The act requires the Judicial Council to develop one or more programs to provide competitive grants to provide legal counsel to low-income persons who require legal services in civil matters involving specific types of civil matters, including, among others, housing-related matters, probate conservatorships, guardianships, and domestic violence and civil harassment restraining orders. Existing law requires the Judicial Council to consider various factors, including, among others, the unmet need for legal services in the geographic area to be served, in selecting and renewing participating programs. Existing law requires program applicants to, among other things, describe how the program would be administered and the means by which the program would serve the particular needs of the community, such as by providing representation to limited-English-speaking clients. This bill would require courts to provide the Judicial Council each month with information regarding unlawful detainer cases, as specified, aggregated by ZIP Code. The bill would require the Judicial Council to make that information publicly available online every 4 months.
Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared
Introduction
Feb 2025
Committee Review
Floor Vote
Governor
Introduced Feb 21, 2025 Last action Feb 2, 2026
Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

02/21/25 - Introduced 04/10/25 - Amended Senate · 5 edits · Apr 10, 2025
MODERATE
The amended version adds an entirely new Government Code section (68652) requiring each court to report monthly data on unlawful detainer cases to the Judicial Council, aggregated by ZIP Code. The data points include filings, counsel representation for both parties, pretrial judgments, trial types, dismissals, and outcomes. The Judicial Council must publish this data publicly every four months in a downloadable spreadsheet. This significantly expands the bill's scope from a single annual data collection requirement to a more granular monthly reporting system with faster public release.
Scope change
The bill now covers both the Code of Civil Procedure (Judicial Council data collection and reporting) and the Government Code (direct court reporting obligations), creating a two-tier system where courts feed monthly ZIP-Code-level data to the Judicial Council, which then publishes it quarterly and reports annually to the Legislature.
SCOPE

Adds new Government Code Section 68652, expanding the bill beyond the Code of Civil Procedure to also impose direct reporting duties on courts.

REQUIREMENT

Requires each court to report monthly to the Judicial Council on seven specific data points for unlawful detainer cases: filings, defendant counsel representation, landlord counsel representation, pretrial judgments (default/stipulated), trial type (bench vs. jury), plaintiff-requested dismissals, and judgment outcomes.

DEFINITION

All reported data must be aggregated by the ZIP Code of the premises in the lawsuit, enabling neighborhood-level analysis of eviction activity.

TIMELINE

Data collection applies only to unlawful detainer cases filed on or after January 1, 2026.

ENFORCEMENT

Requires the Judicial Council to post all received data publicly every four months in a downloadable electronic spreadsheet on its website, compared to the original bill's yearly public availability requirement.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.
Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
14
Key actions
3
Committee
3
Amendments
1
May 23, 2025
Upper · Passed
May 23 hearing: Held in committee and under submission.
upper
Apr 23, 2025
Upper · Passed
From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. with recommendation: To consent calendar. (Ayes 13. Noes 0. Page 837.) (April 22). Re-referred to Com. on APPR.
upper
Apr 10, 2025
Upper · Passed
From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on JUD.
upper
Mar 12, 2025
Committee
Referred to Com. on JUD.
upper
Feb 21, 2025
Introduced
Introduced. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print.
upper
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors

Sponsors

Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
ME
María Elena Durazo
DDemocratic
CA
26