Judiciary omnibus: family law.

(1) Existing law provides that an unmarried person under 18 years of age is capable of consenting to and consummating marriage upon obtaining a court order granting permission of the underage person or persons to marry. Existing law requires the court order and written consent of the parents of each underage person, or of one of the parents or the guardian of each underage person, to be filed with the clerk of the court, and requires a certified copy of the order to be presented to the county clerk at the time the marriage license is issued. This bill would instead require the court order and written consent of at least one of the parents or the guardian of each underage person to be filed with the clerk of the court. Existing law provides that parties to a marriage are not required to have the same name. Existing law provides that one party or both parties to a marriage may elect to change the middle or last names, or both, by which that party wishes to be known after solemnization of the marriage, and authorizes a person to adopt any of the specified last names and middle names, including a hyphenated combination of last names and a hyphenated combination of the current middle name and current last name of the person or spouse or a hyphenated combination of the current middle name and the last name given at birth of the person or spouse. This bill would instead authorize a person to adopt a combination of last names, and a combination of the current middle name and the current last name of the person or spouse or a combination of the current middle name and the last name given at birth of the person or spouse. Existing law requires the person solemnizing the marriage to obtain a duplicate marriage license, if a marriage license is lost, damaged, or destroyed after the marriage ceremony, but before it is returned to the county recorder, or deemed unacceptable for registration by the county recorder. Existing law prohibits the duplicate marriage license from being issued later than one year after the issuance of the original license and requires the license to be returned by the person solemnizing the marriage to the county recorder within one year of the issuance date shown on the original license. This bill would instead prohibit the duplicate marriage license from being issued later than one year after the date of marriage, and would require the license to be returned by the person solemnizing the marriage to the county recorder within one year of the date of marriage. (2) Existing law authorizes a person desiring to adopt a nondependent child to file an adoption request in an authorized county. Under existing law, a petition for adoption of a nondependent child may be filed in specified locations, including the county in which the petitioner resides or where the adoption agency, department, or public adoption agency is located. If a child has been adjudged to be a dependent of the juvenile court, and thereafter has been freed for adoption by the juvenile court, existing law authorizes the petition to be filed in either the county where the petitioner resides or in the county where the child was freed for adoption. This bill would instead provide that a petitioner desiring to adopt a dependent child who is freed for adoption by the juvenile court and with whom that dependent child is placed for adoption may file the adoption request either in the county where the petitioner resides or in the county where the child was freed for adoption. (3) Existing law authorizes the court to limit the control to be exercised over a dependent child by any parent or guardian and requires the court, by its order, to clearly and specifically set forth all those limitations in all cases in which a minor is adjudged to be a dependent child of the court. Existing law provides that the court's authority does not limit the ability of a parent to voluntarily relinquish his or her child to the State Department of Social Services, to a county adoption agency, or to a licensed private adoption agency at any time while the child is the subject of a petition to declare him or her a dependent child, if the department, county adoption agency, or licensed private adoption agency is willing to accept the relinquishment. When accepting the relinquishment of a child subject to a petition to declare him or her a dependent child, existing law requires a licensed private adoption agency to file with the court one original and 10 copies of a request to approve the relinquishment within 5 court days of accepting the relinquishment. This bill would instead require a licensed private adoption agency, or allow another party or that party's counsel, to file with the court one original and 5 copies of a request to approve the relinquishment within 10 court days of accepting the relinquishment. (4) Existing law establishes the Department of Child Support Services within the California Health and Human Services Agency, which administers all services and performs all functions necessary to establish, collect, and distribute child support. Existing state law establishes within the Department of Child Support Services a Statewide Child Support Registry and a single statewide automated child support system as required under federal law, referred to as the California Child Support Automation System. Existing law requires the Statewide Child Support Registry to include storage and data retrieval of specified information, including any information required under federal law, for all California child support orders. This bill would reenact those provisions relating to the Statewide Child Support Registry in the Family Code. The bill would delete obsolete provisions in the Welfare and Institutions Code relating to the procurement and development of the California Child Support Automation System. Existing law requires each clerk of the court to provide the child support information described above within 20 days to the Department of Child Support Services or the registry from each new or modified child support order. Existing law requires the department to, among other things, ensure that all child support data received from the clerks of the court are entered into the registry within 10 days of receipt. Existing law requires any information maintained by the Statewide Child Support Registry received from the clerks of the court to be provided to county district attorneys, the Franchise Tax Board, the courts, and others as provided by law. This bill would instead require the department to ensure that all child support data received from the clerks of the court are entered into the Statewide Child Support Registry within 5 business days of receipt. The bill would instead require any information maintained by the registry received from the clerks of the court to be provided to local child support agencies, the court, and others as provided by law. The bill would require the registry to operate to ensure that all data in the registry can be accessed and integrated for statistical analysis and reporting purposes with all child support order data contained in the California Child Support Enforcement System. (5) Existing law establishes within the Department of Child Support Services the State Disbursement Unit for the collection and disbursement of payments under support orders. Existing law requires any child support delinquency collected by the department to be deposited into the State Treasury to the credit of the Special Deposit Fund, which is a continuously appropriated fund, and distributed as specified by interagency agreement executed by the Franchise Tax Board and the department, with concurrence of the Controller. Upon availability of the State Disbursement Unit, existing law requires any child support delinquency collected to be deposited in a manner that the deposit and subsequent disbursement are consistent with federal law. This bill would repeal these requirements. (6) Existing law requires each county to maintain a local child support agency that is responsible for promptly and effectively establishing, modifying, and enforcing child support obligations. Existing law requires local child support agencies, on a monthly basis, to provide to any CalWORKs recipient or former recipient from whom an assignment is currently effective, a notice of amount assigned support payments made on behalf of the recipient or former recipient. This bill would reenact this requirement in the Family Code. (7) Existing law requires any person, financial institution, or securities intermediary in possession or control of a financial asset upon which a levy has been issued to withhold the amount of the financial asset for the purpose of collecting a delinquent child support obligation to liquidate the financial asset in a commercially reasonable manner within 20 days of issuance of the levy or notice to withhold. Existing law requires, within 5 business days of liquidation, the person, financial institution, or securities intermediary to transfer to the local child support agency, the Franchise Tax Board, or the department, as applicable, the proceeds of the liquidation, as specified. This bill would instead require the person, financial institution, or securities intermediary to transfer to the State Disbursement Unit the proceeds of the liquidation. (8) This bill would delete references to the California Child Support Automation System and would refer instead to the California Child Support Enforcement System. The bill would delete obsolete references to the Franchise Tax Board and the California Family Support Council, and would also delete other obsolete provisions and make other conforming changes. (9) Existing law specifies the number of judges of the superior court for each county, and allocates additional judgeships to the various counties in accordance with uniform standards for factually determining additional need in each county, as approved by the Judicial Council, and other specified criteria. Existing law provides for the conversion of 146 subordinate judicial officer positions in eligible superior courts upon the occurrence of specified conditions, including that the proposed action is ratified by the Legislature, except that no more than 16 positions may be converted to judgeships in any fiscal year. Notwithstanding this provision, existing law authorizes up to 10 additional subordinate judicial officer positions to be converted to judgeships in any fiscal year if the conversions will result in a judge being assigned to a family law or juvenile law assignment previously presided over by a subordinate judicial officer and the proposed action is ratified by the Legislature. This bill would ratify the authority of the Judicial Council to convert 10 subordinate judicial officer positions to judgeships in the 2016–17 fiscal year when the conversion will result in a judge being assigned to a family law or juvenile law assignment previously presided over by a subordinate judicial officer. (10) The bill would delete an obsolete provision, and make other nonsubstantive changes.