Existing law, the California Values Act, prohibits a California law enforcement agency, defined as including both state and local agencies but excluding the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, from providing a person's release date or responding to a request for notification of a release date, unless that information is available to the public. The bill would prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from detaining on the basis of a hold request, providing an immigration authority with release date information, or responding to a notification request, transferring to an immigration authority, or facilitating or assisting with a transfer request any individual who is eligible for release pursuant to specified provisions, including, among others, youth offender, elderly, and medical parole releases. Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to cooperate with the United States Department of Homeland Security by providing the use of prison facilities, transportation, and general support, as needed, for the purposes of conducting and expediting deportation hearings and subsequent placement of deportation holds on undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated in state prison. Existing law requires the department to identify inmates serving terms in state prison who are undocumented aliens subject to deportation. Existing law would require the department, upon the enactment of any federal law requiring these persons to be incarcerated in federal prison, to provide this information to the federal government, as specified. This bill would repeal these provisions.
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Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to establish and supervise a county- or county consortia-administered program to provide cash assistance for aged, blind, or disabled legal immigrants who are not citizens who, due to their immigration status, are not eligible for the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Program for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled, also known as SSI/SSP benefits. Under existing law, an individual is eligible for this program if their immigration status meets SSI/SSP eligibility criteria but they are not eligible for those benefits solely due to their immigration status, as specified. Existing law also requires any person who is found to be eligible by the department for federally funded SSI to apply for SSI benefits. This bill would expand eligibility for that program to aged, blind, and disabled individuals regardless of immigration status if the individual meets the eligibility criteria for the program and is not eligible solely due to their immigration status. This bill would exempt individuals who are not qualified immigrants, as specified, from having to apply for SSI in order to receive benefits. The bill would also delete several inoperative provisions. The bill would make the implementation of these substantive changes contingent upon an appropriation for its express purposes. By expanding county duties under the program, 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, 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, the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act and the Ralph C. Dills Act, regulate the labor relations of employees and employers of local public agencies and the state, respectively. Those acts grant specified employees, including, among others, certain employees of fire departments, of local public agencies and the state the right to form, join, and participate in the activities of employee organizations of their choosing and require public agency employers, among other things, to meet and confer with representatives of recognized employee organizations and exclusive representatives on terms and conditions of employment. The acts grant the Public Employment Relations Board the power to hear specified disputes in relation to these provisions and to make determinations regarding them. With regard to certain employees of fire departments, existing law provides that those persons do not have the right to strike or recognize a picket line of a labor organization while in the course of the performance of their official duties. This bill would provide, except as specified, that it is not unlawful or a cause for discipline or other adverse action against a public employee for that public employee to refuse to enter property that is the site of a primary strike, perform work for a public employer involved in a primary strike, or go through or work behind a primary strike line. The bill would prohibit a public employer from directing a public employee to take those actions. The bill would authorize a recognized employee organization to inform employees of these rights and encourage them to exercise those rights. The bill would also state that a provision in a public employer policy or collective bargaining agreement that purports to limit or waive the rights set forth in this provision shall be void as against public policy, except that the bill would require the parties to negotiate over the bill's provisions if the bill is in conflict with a collective bargaining agreement entered into before January 1, 2024, as prescribed. The bill would exempt certain public employees of fire departments and certain peace officers from these provisions. The bill would include related legislative findings.
Existing law requires the Board of Parole Hearings, among other responsibilities, to conduct parole suitability hearings and determine whether an inmate is suitable for parole. Existing law allows an unlawfully imprisoned person to prosecute a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of the imprisonment. This bill would require the Board of Parole Hearings to notify a parole candidate who has been denied parole of their right to petition the court for habeas relief, as specified. The bill would authorize the court to, upon request, appoint counsel to a parole candidate who has reached their minimum eligible parole date who petitions the court for habeas relief after being denied parole. The bill would establish that a parole candidate who has reached their minimum eligible parole date has made a case for relief that should be accepted as correct unless proved otherwise and that the reviewing court may not deny a petition based on that fact without a hearing. The bill would require a court reviewing a petition for habeas relief based on a parole denial to uphold a decision to deny parole only if the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the person presents a current, unreasonable risk of danger to others, as specified.
The Cannella Environmental Farming Act of 1995 requires the Department of Food and Agriculture to establish and oversee an environmental farming program to provide incentives to farmers whose practices promote the well-being of ecosystems, air quality, and wildlife and their habitat. The act also requires the department to establish the Healthy Soils Program and a technical assistance grant program, as specified. Existing law, the Farmer Equity Act of 2017, requires the department to ensure the inclusion of socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, as defined, in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of food and agriculture laws, regulations, and policies and programs, as specified. This bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature and in collaboration with certain entities, to establish the Regional Farmer Equipment and Cooperative Resources Assistance Pilot Program as part of the Farmer Equity Act of 2017 to provide financial and technical assistance to support regional farm equipment sharing and enhance cooperative benefits first for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and, if funding is available, for limited resource farmers and ranchers or eligible entities that serve socially disadvantaged or limited resource farmers and ranchers, as specified. The bill would specify the entities eligible for financial assistance under the program and would require that applications for financial assistance to develop and expand equipment sharing programs include certain information. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2029.
Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care, and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires a health care service plan contract issued, amended, delivered, or renewed on or after January 1, 2000, or an individual or group policy of disability insurance or self-insured employee welfare benefit plan to provide coverage for mammography for screening or diagnostic purposes upon referral by specified professionals. Under existing law, mammography performed pursuant to those requirements or that meets the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force is provided to an enrollee or an insured without cost sharing. This bill would require a health care service plan contract, a policy of health insurance that provides hospital, medical, or surgical coverage, or a self-insured employee welfare benefit plan issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2025, to provide coverage without imposing cost sharing for, among other things, screening mammography and medically necessary diagnostic breast imaging, including diagnostic breast imaging following an abnormal mammography result and for an enrollee or insured indicated to have a risk factor associated with breast cancer, except as specified. 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 provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits and extended benefits to eligible individuals who meet specified requirements. Under existing law, unemployment benefits are paid from the Unemployment Fund, which is continuously appropriated for these purposes. Existing law makes an employee ineligible for benefits if the employee left work because of a trade dispute and specifies that the employee remains ineligible for the duration of the trade dispute. Existing case law holds that employees who left work due to a lockout by the employer, even if it was in anticipation of a trade dispute, are eligible for benefits. This bill would restore eligibility after the first 2 weeks for an employee who left work because of a trade dispute. The bill would codify specified case law that holds that employees who left work due to a lockout by the employer, even if it was in anticipation of a trade dispute, are eligible for benefits. The bill would specify that the bill's provisions do not diminish eligibility for benefits of individuals deprived of work due to an employer lockout or similar action, as specified. Because this bill would expand the categories of people eligible to receive benefits from a continuously appropriated fund, it would make an appropriation.