Existing law classifies controlled substances into 5 schedules and places the greatest restrictions and penalties on the use of those substances placed in Schedule I. Opiates, including fentanyl, are classified in Schedule II. Existing law prohibits a person from possessing for sale or purchasing for purposes of sale specified controlled substances, including fentanyl, and punishes a violation of that prohibition by imprisonment in a county jail for 2, 3, or 4 years. Existing law also prohibits transporting, importing into this state, selling, furnishing, administering, or giving away specified controlled substances, including fentanyl, and punishes a violation of that prohibition by imprisonment in a county jail for 3, 4, or 5 years. Existing law also prohibits the trafficking of specified controlled substances, including fentanyl, and punishes a violation of that prohibition by imprisonment in a county jail for 3, 6, or 9 years. This bill would impose an additional punishment of 3, 4, or 5 years to a person who is convicted of the crimes mentioned above involving fentanyl or a fentanyl analog that was designed, shaped, colored, advertised, or packaged in such a way as to resemble food or candy. By imposing a new enhancement to the penalty of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing constitutional law establishes the right of freedom of speech. Existing case law interpreting those provisions applies varying levels of scrutiny to state action that restricts protected speech, based in part on the nature of the forum in which the speech occurs. This bill would declare that, notwithstanding any law, a social media platform, as defined, shall be considered a traditional First Amendment forum for those purposes, as specified. The bill would require a social media platform located in California to develop a policy or mechanism to address content or communications that constitute unprotected speech, including obscenity, incitement of imminent lawless action, and true threats, or that purport to state factual information that is demonstrably false.
Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to license and regulate health facilities, including general acute care hospitals. A violation of those provisions is generally a crime. This bill would require a licensed general acute care hospital with an emergency department to determine the range of crowding scores, as defined, that constitute each category of the crowding scale, as provided, for its emergency department. The bill would require the hospital to calculate and record a crowding score at a minimum every 4 hours, except as specified, to assess the crowding condition of the hospital's emergency department. The bill would require, by January 1, 2025, the hospital to develop and implement a full-capacity protocol for each of the categories of the crowding scale, as specified. The bill would require the hospital to file its protocol with the Department of Health Care Access and Information and to annually report any revisions to its protocol. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law prohibits a person from being subjected to discrimination on the basis of specified attributes, including, among others, sex, in a program or activity conducted by a postsecondary educational institution that receives, or benefits from, state financial assistance or enrolls students who receive state student financial aid. Existing law provides that sexual harassment of students is a form of sex discrimination prohibited under this prohibition. This bill instead would provide that sexual harassment of students is a form of sex-based harassment and sex-based discrimination prohibited under that prohibition.
Existing law generally regulates classes of insurance, including automobile liability insurance. Existing law prohibits classifying a private passenger motor vehicle as a commercial vehicle, for-hire vehicle, permissive use vehicle, or livery solely because its owner allows it to be shared, if specified criteria are met. Existing law requires a personal vehicle sharing program to provide insurance coverage for the vehicle and driver that is equal to or greater than the coverage maintained by the vehicle owner, but no less than 3 times the minimum coverage amounts for private passenger vehicles. Existing law requires an owner or operator of a motor vehicle, or an owner of a vehicle used to transport passengers for hire not regulated by the Public Utilities Commission, to maintain liability insurance coverage for the named insured and any other person using the vehicle with permission in the amount of $15,000 for the bodily injury or death of any one person, $30,000 for the bodily injury or death of all persons, and $5,000 for damage to the property of others resulting from any one accident. Existing law increases these minimum amounts to $30,000, $60,000, and $15,000, respectively, on January 1, 2025. Under existing law, a violation of these requirements is a crime. This bill would delete the insurance coverage requirement for a personal vehicle sharing program, and would instead require a personal vehicle sharing program, when a vehicle is engaged in personal vehicle sharing, to provide liability insurance coverage of the same minimum coverage that applies to an owner or operator of a motor vehicle. The bill would require a personal vehicle sharing program to provide the vehicle owner and operator with the ability to purchase additional coverage and to make specified disclosures. A violation of these provisions would make a person liable for a specified civil penalty, and a violation of the requirement to maintain minimum liability coverages would be a crime, thus imposing a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law establishes the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program, which requires the Public Utilities Commission to implement annual procurement targets for the procurement of eligible renewable energy resources, which is defined as an electrical generating facility that meets the definition of "renewable electrical generation facility" subject to certain conditions, for all retail sellers, as defined, and requires local publicly owned electric utilities to adopt and implement a renewable energy resources procurement plan to achieve the targets and goals of the program. This bill would include a facility that uses renewable hydrogen, as defined, meeting certain requirements, including a requirement that sellers and purchasers of renewable hydrogen comply with a system for tracking and verifying the use of renewable hydrogen, as a renewable electrical generation facility for purposes of the California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because certain provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law establishes various public social services programs, including, among others, CalWORKs and the State Supplementary Program for Aged, Blind and Disabled. Existing law sets forth the purposes of public social services for which state grants are made to counties that include, among others, providing reasonable support and maintenance for needy and dependent families and persons. This bill would instead state that providing reasonable support and maintenance for needy and vulnerable children, adults, and families is a purpose of public social services.
The California Constitution authorizes the Legislature, with the approval of 23 of the membership of each legislative house, to allow a county board of supervisors to exempt from property taxation those properties having a full value too low to justify the costs of assessment and collection. Existing property tax law implementing this authority generally limits any exemption granted under this constitutional provision by a county board of supervisors to real property with a total base year value, as adjusted annually for inflation, or personal property with a full value, not exceeding $10,000. The annual inflation adjustment applied to real property total base year value for this purpose is limited to no more than 2% per year. Existing property tax law also limits any exemption for new construction to situations where the new total base year value of the property, as adjusted for inflation, including the new construction, is $10,000 or less. This bill would raise these maximum exemption amounts to $15,000 for the lien dates occurring on or after January 1, 2024, and before January 1, 2029. The bill would apply the inflation adjustment factor commencing on January 1, 2025, for calculating the maximum exemption value to both the total base year value of real property and the full value of personal property. The bill would also eliminate the 2% limitation to the inflation adjustment for the purpose of calculating the exemption for a property having a full value too low to justify the costs of assessment and collection. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax exemption will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would make specified findings detailing the goal, purpose, and objective of the above-described expansion of a tax exemption, performance indicators for determining whether the expanded exemption meets that goal, purpose, and objective, and data collection requirements. Existing law requires the state to reimburse local agencies annually for certain property tax revenues lost as a result of any exemption or classification of property for purposes of ad valorem property taxation. This bill would provide that, notwithstanding those provisions, no appropriation is made and the state shall not reimburse local agencies for property tax revenues lost by them pursuant to the bill. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, prohibits a business from selling the personal information of a consumer if the business has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless the consumer, in the case of a consumer at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age, or the consumer's parent or guardian, in the case of a consumer who is less than 13 years of age, has affirmatively authorized the sale of the consumer's personal information. Existing law, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, requires, beginning July 1, 2024, a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level of privacy, as prescribed, and requires a business, before any new online services, products, or features are offered to the public, to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment for any online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children and maintain documentation of this assessment as long as the online service, product, or feature is likely to be accessed by children. This bill would prohibit a social media platform, as defined, from using a design, algorithm, or feature that the platform knows, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, causes child users, as defined, to do any of certain things, including experience addiction to the social media platform. This bill would provide that a social media platform is not in violation of the bill if the social media platform instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits, as defined, of its designs, algorithms, and features that have the potential to cause violations of the provision described above, and the social media platform corrected, within 30 days of the completion of the audit, any design, algorithm, or feature discovered by the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of violating that provision. This bill would subject a social media platform that knowingly and willfully violates these provisions to a civil penalty not to exceed $250,000 per violation, an injunction, and an award of litigation costs and attorney's fees in an action brought only by certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General.
Existing law establishes the California School for the Deaf, Northern California, the California School for the Deaf, Southern California, and the California School for the Blind, known as the state special schools, under the administration of the State Department of Education, and 3 related diagnostic centers under the administration of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as provided. Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires specified components of the local funding formula to be adjusted by the percentage change in the annual average value of the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government Purchases of Goods and Services for the United States, as published by the United States Department of Commerce for the 12-month period ending in the 3rd quarter of the prior fiscal year, as specified. Existing law requires the Superintendent to annually apportion any entitlement provided to the state special schools from specified former categorical programs to the state special schools in the same amount as the state special schools received from those categorical programs in the 2012–13 fiscal year. Commencing with the 2024–25 fiscal year, this bill would require that amount be adjusted each fiscal year by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. Existing law appropriates additional funding to the state special schools and centers in the annual Budget Act. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to increase the amount of state funding appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in the annual Budget Act by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. The bill would require the Superintendent to calculate, for the 2024−25 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, an adjustment amount to the amount appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in a specified item of the annual Budget Act for the preceding fiscal year that is equivalent to the percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above, for the fiscal year that is being calculated. The bill would, contingent upon an appropriation for these purposes, require the Superintendent to proportionately allocate those funds appropriated for the adjustment amount to the state special schools and diagnostic centers.
Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission, in consultation with the Independent System Operator, to establish resource adequacy requirements for all electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators. Existing law requires electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to maintain physical generating capacity and electrical demand response adequate to meet their load requirements, as specified. This bill would expressly authorize electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to jointly enter into agreements to procure electricity generated from offshore wind facilities.
Existing law establishes the Labor and Workforce Development Agency in state government under the supervision of an executive officer known as the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development. Existing law charges the agency with various duties relating to coordinating workforce programs and overseeing specified departments, boards, and panels, including the Employment Development Department and the California Workforce Development Board. Existing law establishes the California Workforce Development Board, formerly named the California Workforce Investment Board, as the body responsible for assisting the Governor in the development, oversight, and continuous improvement of California's workforce investment system and the alignment of the education and workforce investment systems to the needs of the 21st century economy and workforce. Existing law requires the board to establish a committee known as the Green Collar Jobs Council to, among other things, consult with other state agencies, higher education representatives, local workforce investment boards, industry representatives, and specified others in the development of a strategic initiative relating to the training and development of a skilled workforce to meet the needs of California's emerging green economy. This bill would require the Labor Market Information Division of the Employment Development Department to conduct, upon appropriation by the Legislature, a green jobs survey, as specified, to gather information about statewide green job industry strengths. The bill would require the division to create a standard operating definition of "green job" based on the results of the survey for the purpose of employment in California, as described. The bill would require the California Workforce Development Board to incorporate the survey's findings into education outreach, as specified, and would require the Workforce Services Branch of the Employment Development Department to incorporate the survey's findings into appropriate communications or educational materials relating to job opportunities for persons seeking employment.
