Under existing law, a candidate for the United States House of Representatives or local elective office may purchase space in the county voter information guide to make a candidate statement. A candidate for United States Senate may purchase space for a candidate statement in the state voter information guide. A candidate for state elective office may also purchase space to make a candidate statement in the state voter information guide, but only if the candidate accepts certain voluntary campaign expenditure limits. Existing law prohibits these candidate statements from making any reference to the candidate's opponents. This bill would limit a candidate statement to a recitation of the candidate's own education, professional experience, public service, community involvement, and qualifications. The bill would prohibit a candidate statement from including, in addition to references to other candidates, a link or other reference to external content other than the candidate's campaign website; content that is vulgar or profane, or that threatens or incites violence; false statements or misleading claims; or any other content that is unrelated to the candidate's qualifications. The candidate would be required to submit a declaration with the candidate statement that attests that the statement is true and correct. Because a person who willfully makes a false statement in that declaration would be guilty of the crime of perjury, this bill expands the scope of that crime and thereby creates a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the Secretary of State and county elections officials to omit from the voter information guide any portion of a candidate statement that does not comply with the bill, except false statements and misleading claims, and it would require them to print the remainder of the statement if it can stand independently and does not mislead voters. The bill would make a fee paid by a candidate for the printing or inclusion of a candidate statement nonrefundable if any part of the statement is printed in the voter information guide, but the fee would be refunded if the statement is omitted. By increasing the duties of county elections officials, this bill would create a state-mandated local program. Existing law provides for the public examination of state and county voter information guides. During the 20-day examination period for the state guide, an elector may seek a writ of mandate or an injunction requiring any or all of the materials to be amended or deleted. During the 10-day examination period for the county guide, a voter of the relevant jurisdiction in which an election is being held, or the relevant local elections official themselves, may seek a writ of mandate or an injunction requiring any or all of the materials to be amended or deleted. A court will issue such a writ of mandate or injunction only upon clear and convincing proof that the material in question is false, misleading, or inconsistent with law, and that issuance of the writ or injunction will not substantially interfere with the printing or distribution of official election materials as provided by law. This bill would similarly allow any registered voter to seek a writ of mandate or an injunction requiring any or all of the material in a candidate statement in the state or a county voter information guide to be amended or deleted, as specified. This bill would require that, as in current law, the writ of mandate or an injunction only be issued upon clear and convincing proof that the material in question is false, misleading, or inconsistent with the requirements of the bill, and that issuance of the writ or injunction will not substantially interfere with the printing or distribution of official election materials as provided by law. This bill would additionally allow a county elections official to bring such an action for a writ or injunction challenging a candidate statement in the county voter information guide over which they have jurisdiction. 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 with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Sponsored bills
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws, including various motion picture credits, commonly referred to as motion picture credit 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, and the certified studio credit, to be allocated by the California Film Commission in differing amounts equal to specified percentages of the qualified expenditures of a qualified motion picture in this state. Existing law establishes the continuously appropriated Tax Relief and Refund Account and the Corporation Tax Fund and provides that payments required to be made to taxpayers or other persons are to be paid from those funds. This bill would allow a credit against those taxes in an amount between 35% and 50% of qualified expenses relating to the post-production of a qualified motion picture in California to be allocated by the California Film Commission, as specified. The bill would require the credit to be administered in the same manner as the motion picture credit 4.0, except as specified. The bill would require the California Film Commission to utilize a post-production services ratio, as defined, to allocate credits, as specified. The bill would limit the aggregate amount of credits allocated in a fiscal year based on a determination made by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act plus additional amounts, as described. The bill would require that 85% of the total allocable credits are reserved for qualified taxpayers that attest, under penalty of perjury, that they will abide by specified labor condition requirements. By expanding the scope of the crime of perjury, this bill would impose a state-mandated locale program. This bill would allow a qualified taxpayer to elect to be paid a refund if the amount allowable as a credit exceeds the qualified taxpayer's tax liability for the taxable year, as specified. By requiring moneys to be paid from the Tax Relief and Refund Account and the Corporation Tax Fund, the bill would make an appropriation. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure, as defined, to include tax credits, to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax credit will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would include findings and reporting requirements in compliance with this requirement. The bill would require exchange of information between the Legislative Analyst's Office and other specified agencies in order to comply with these requirements. The bill would make the unauthorized disclosure of this information subject to existing law, the violation of which is a crime. By expanding the scope of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Sections 17039 and 23036 of the Revenue and Taxation Code proposed by AB 2222 to be operative only if this bill and AB 2222 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. 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 requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to develop and make available on its internet website a Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Safety Building Standards Compliance training intended for use in the training of local building officials, builders, and fire service personnel, as specified. Existing law authorizes the Office of the State Fire Marshal to allow certification of contractors who conduct defensible space, home hardening, fuel reduction, roadside clearance, and other contracting activities for wildlife resiliency efforts and who have completed specified training programs. Existing law requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to develop and update a Wildland-Urban Interface Products listing of products and construction assemblies that comply with prescribed regulations regarding building in a wildland-urban interface area. Existing law authorizes the Office of the State Fire Marshal to expend funds from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund, upon an appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes of researching and developing the products listing and the educational and training provisions. Existing law requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to establish the State Fire Marshal's Wildfire Mitigation Advisory Committee. This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2028, the State Fire Marshal's Wildfire Mitigation Advisory Committee to develop an implementation plan for a home hardening certification program that identifies home hardening measures, including defensible space, that can be voluntarily implemented during renovation or property improvement projects, or both, to substantially reduce the risk of loss during a fire and bring existing building stock into alignment with state building standards for wildland-urban interface areas. The bill would require the committee, in developing the implementation plan for the home hardening certification program, to provide specified recommendations. The bill would authorize the Office of the State Fire Marshal to expend funds from the Building Standards Administration Special Revolving Fund, upon an appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes of developing the implementation plan for the home hardening certification program. The bill would require the committee, on or before January 1, 2028, to provide a report to specified legislative committees on its findings and recommendations pursuant to these provisions. The bill would require, on or before January 1, 2029, the State Fire Marshal to establish the home hardening certification program based on the recommendations made by the Wildfire Mitigation Advisory Committee.
Existing law, the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, governs the operation of common interest developments, and requires a common interest development to be managed by an association, as specified. Existing law imposes various requirements regarding the installation or use of an electric vehicle charging station in a common interest development. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to provide an association that complies with those requirements with civil liability protection for injuries and damages emanating from an electric vehicle charging station or its use that the association does not own, except as specified. Existing law authorizes an owner of a separate interest of a common interest development to install an electric vehicle charging station in a common area for the exclusive use of the owner under specified circumstances and subject to certain requirements. In this regard, existing law makes the owner and each successive owner of the electric vehicle charging station responsible for costs for damage to the electric vehicle charging station, the common area, or separate interests resulting from the installation, maintenance, repair, removal, or replacement of the electric vehicle charging station. This bill would additionally make the owner and each successive owner responsible for the costs for the above-specified damages resulting from the use of the electric vehicle charging station. The bill would require that the installer of the electric vehicle charging station indemnify or reimburse the association or its members for loss or damage caused by the installation of the electric vehicle charging station.
Existing law, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (act) , regulates certain single-use packaging and plastic single-use food service ware, as provided. As part of its comprehensive statutory scheme, the act requires producers of covered materials to reduce and recycle covered plastic material and to ensure that covered materials that are offered for sale, distributed, or imported in or into the state on or after January 1, 2032, are recyclable or compostable, as provided. The act establishes, until January 1, 2037, the California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund, which consists of all environmental mitigation surcharges, interest, penalties, and other amounts collected pursuant to the act, as provided. The act requires, upon appropriation by the Legislature, that 60% of the moneys in the fund be expended to monitor and reduce the historical and current environmental justice and public health impacts of plastics, and that 40% of the moneys in the fund be expended to monitor and reduce the environmental impacts of plastics on terrestrial, aquatic, and marine life and human health. This bill would, among other things, require each expenditure made upon appropriation from the fund to comply with specified requirements, including, among others, prioritizing programs, projects, and initiatives that benefit communities most burdened by the impacts of plastic pollution or demonstrate meaningful and durable partnership with California Native American tribes and that provide multiple benefits. The bill would require each of those expenditures to achieve one or more of specified purposes, including, among others, sustained mitigation of the potential adverse health impacts of plastics, supporting a reduction in plastic production, use, and disposal, and supporting research, data collection, and monitoring activities, as specified. The bill would require each department, agency, or entity implementing a grant program funded by the fund to take specified actions, such as providing technical assistance and providing a simplified preapplication and application. The bill would require reimbursement of a grantee's or subgrantee's indirect costs by applying one of 4 enumerated rates, not to exceed 35% of the total grant award. The bill would authorize moneys from the fund to be expended on implementing the bill and would prohibit moneys from the fund from being expended on specified purposes. The bill would expand the entities eligible to receive grants from the fund, as specified. This bill would require the Secretary for Environmental Protection to annually publish a list of all program, project, and initiative expenditures made pursuant to the fund, as specified. The bill would authorize the secretary to request information from grant recipients, as provided.
Existing law, the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, prohibits an operator of an addictive internet-based service or application from providing an addictive feed, as defined, to a user unless the operator does not have actual knowledge that the user is a minor, as specified, or the operator has obtained verifiable parental consent to provide an addictive feed to the user who is a minor. Existing law, the Digital Age Assurance Act, beginning January 1, 2027, requires a person who owns, maintains, or controls a software application, as defined, to request age bracket data sent by a real-time secure application programming interface or operating system with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched. This bill would prohibit a covered platform, as defined, from providing an addictive feature, as defined, to a user who is under 16 years of age and would require a covered platform to implement reasonable measures to ensure that users under 16 years of age are not offered or provided any addictive feature on the covered platform. The bill would also authorize the Attorney General to adopt regulations to implement and enforce the bill in order to further the purpose of protecting minors online, including by altering the scope of "covered platform" if the Attorney General determines that doing so is necessary to ensure that "covered platform" applies to internet websites, online services, online applications, or mobile applications that make addictive features, as defined, available to users under 16 years of age. This bill would impose a civil penalty upon a noncompliant platform and would require its provisions to be enforced by a civil action brought only by the Attorney General or a local public prosecutor, as specified. This bill would also establish the e-Safety Advisory Commission within the Department of Justice as an independent advisory body that is only for administrative purposes to advise state government on certain matters related to online safety and would require the commission to, on or before January 1 of each year, report to the Legislature and the Governor on, among other things, its activities under the bill.
Existing law establishes the State Water Resources Control Board in the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) and the California regional water quality control boards which prescribe waste discharge requirements in accordance with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act. Existing law, the Petroleum Industry Information Reporting Act of 1980, requires refiners, as defined, to report monthly to the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) , for each of their refineries, specified information, and requires that any confidential information pertinent to the responsibilities of the Energy Commission, as provided, which is obtained by another state agency be available to the Energy Commission and be treated in a confidential manner. This bill would require, no later than December 31, 2028, every refiner, as defined for purposes of the bill, to submit to CalEPA a retirement plan setting forth information concerning decommissioning and site remediation for every refinery it owns, operates, or controls, as provided. The bill would require the CalEPA, no later than 6 months following the submission of the retirement plan, to review the retirement plan for completeness and reasonableness and to make a determination as to whether the retirement plan complies with the requirements imposed by the bill. The bill would require CalEPA, if it determines that the retirement plan complies with the bill's requirements, to make the retirement plan available on CalEPA's internet website for public comments for not less than 45 days. The bill would authorize CalEPA to require further revisions to the retirement plan after the public comment period, as provided, before it is deemed final. The bill would require CalEPA, after CalEPA has determined that no further revisions are necessary, to promptly post the final retirement plan on its internet website. This bill would require a refiner who, on or after January 1, 2026, gives notice of intent to permanently shut down, shut down to reconfigure, or sell a refinery in a transaction that may result in a refinery shutting down or reconfiguring, as provided, to submit either the required retirement plan, or, if a final retirement plan has been released, an update of the retirement plan within a specified timeframe, as provided. The bill would require, on or before December 31, 2027, CalEPA to publicly provide an overview of the methods, costs, and timelines associated with soil and groundwater remediation that have been employed at refineries that have undergone decommissioning and remediation and to update the overview, as provided. This bill would make information filed pursuant to the above-described provisions confidential information, as provided. The bill would require a refiner to file the final retirement plan concurrently with the Energy Commission and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The bill would authorize CalEPA, the Energy Commission, and the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to share the information with the Legislature, any governmental agency, or a local government, including an air pollution control district or an air quality management district, only if the Legislature, the governmental agency, or the local government that receives the information agrees to maintain the confidentiality of the information. The bill would further require any information that is, or may be, accessible by the public, as provided, by CalEPA, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, a certified unified program agency, or a local government, to be made publicly available even if that information is also contained in the retirement plan. This bill would require, on or before December 31, 2027, CalEPA, in coordination with the Energy Commission, to compile a survey of existing local, state, and federal statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to refiners concerning decommissioning, closure, financial assurance, and site remediation obligations, as provided, for a specified purpose. This bill would require CalEPA, no later than one year after the retirement plans are deemed final, to publish publicly on CalEPA's internet website a report assessing the total decommissioning and remediation liabilities for refineries in the state, and identify opportunities for greater transparency prior to the closure notice, as provided. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
Existing law makes it a crime to, by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction that is a crime of violence, intentionally injure, intimidate, interfere with, or attempt to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. This bill would make it unlawful for a person to, within a radius of 100 feet from an entrance or exit of a place of religious worship, as defined, intentionally approach another person seeking to enter or exit a place of religious worship within 8 feet of that person to either pass a leaflet or handbill to, display a sign to, or engage in oral protest or education or to harass, obstruct, threaten, or intimidate the person or occupant. The bill would, for the purposes of determining that distance, measure from the body of the person seeking to enter or exit, or the exterior of a motor vehicle they occupy, to the body of, or any sign or object held by, the other person. The bill would prescribe specified fines, imprisonment, or fine and imprisonment for a violation of these provisions. By creating a new 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, the California Coastal Act of 1976, among other things, requires anyone wishing to perform or undertake any development in the coastal zone, except as specified, in addition to obtaining any other permit required by law from any local government or from any state, regional, or local agency, to obtain a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission or a local government, as provided. The act provides that a coastal development permit is not required for the replacement of any structure, other than a public works facility, destroyed by a disaster. This bill would prohibit that coastal development permit exemption from applying to the replacement of a structure by an applicant who was not listed as the property owner of record immediately preceding the disaster if replacement of the structure would, among other things, encroach upon an open space easement or deed restriction that has been recorded or offered for dedication, as provided. By creating additional duties for a local government in reviewing coastal development permits, the bill would impose 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law generally regulates classes of insurance, including residential property insurance. Existing law prohibits a policy of residential property insurance from being issued or renewed by an insurer unless the named insured is provided a copy of specified information, including the California Residential Insurance Disclosure. Under existing law, the California Standard Form Fire Insurance Policy requires an insured to notify every claimant that they can request copies of claim-related documents, as defined to include all valuation, measurement, and loss adjustment calculations of the amount of loss, covered damage, and cost of repairs, that the insurer is required to provide within 15 calendar days of the request. Under existing law, it is a misdemeanor to issue or countersign a fire policy that varies from the standard form fire insurance policy. This bill would modify the definition of claim-related documents for purposes of the above-described provisions to include all valuation, measurement, and loss adjustment calculations, whether preliminary or final, that relate to the amount of loss, covered damage, and cost of repairs. Because the bill would make changes to the standard form for fire insurance, the bill would expand the scope of an existing crime and 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. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 2071 of the Insurance Code proposed by SB 876 to be operative only if this bill and SB 876 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.