Asm. Buffy Wicks

(1) Existing law creates the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which is headed by the Labor Commissioner, and commits to it the general authority to enforce the requirements of the Labor Code. Existing law generally authorizes people who believe that they have been discharged or otherwise discriminated against in violation of any law enforced by the Labor Commissioner to file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement within 6 months after the occurrence of the violation. Existing law generally requires the Labor Commissioner to commence actions to enforce labor standards within 3 years of their accrual, as specified. This bill would extend the period of time within which people may file complaints subject to the 6-month deadline, described above, to within one year after the occurrence of the violations. (2) Existing law prohibits employers and their agents from making, adopting, or enforcing a rule, regulation, or policy preventing an employee from disclosing information to certain entities or from providing information to, or testifying before, any public body conducting an investigation, hearing, or inquiry if the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of a law, as specified. Existing law also prohibits retaliation against an employee for various reasons. This bill would authorize a court to award reasonable attorney's fees to a plaintiff who brings a successful action for a violation of the provisions described above.

Existing law provides the State Department of Public Health with the authority to pursue all actions necessary to protect public health, including areas of product safety. This bill would, commencing January 1, 2025, prohibit a person or entity from manufacturing, selling, delivering, holding, or offering for sale, in commerce any cosmetic product that contains any of several specified intentionally added ingredients, except under specified circumstances.

(1) Existing law allows the sheriff of each county to operate a store in connection with the county jail to sell confectionary, tobacco, postage and writing materials, and toilet articles to incarcerated people in the jail. Existing law allows the sheriff to fix the sale prices of the articles offered for sale at the store. Existing law requires profits from the store to be deposited in the inmate welfare fund and requires the fund to be used primarily for the benefit, education, and welfare of incarcerated people. This bill would prohibit the items in the store from being offered at a price in excess of 10% above the cost paid to the vendor supplying the article. The bill would rename the inmate welfare fund the incarcerated peoples' welfare fund and would require money in the fund to be expended solely for the benefit, education, and welfare of incarcerated people. The bill would require articles offered for sale at the store to only be available for purchase by incarcerated people and not staff of the jail. (2) Existing law imposes specified procedural and substantive content requirements on contracts entered into by local agencies, including cities and counties. This bill would cap telephone and other service rates and would prohibit communication or information service providers from imposing and collecting specified fees.

Existing law authorizes a defendant to apply, prior to the commencement of trial, for an order directing that a hearing to determine intellectual disability be conducted when the prosecution in a criminal case seeks the death penalty. Existing law requires the court to order a hearing to determine whether the defendant has an intellectual disability upon the submission of a declaration by a qualified expert stating the expert's opinion that the defendant is a person with an intellectual disability. Existing law defines "intellectual disability" for these purposes as a condition of significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested before 18 years of age. This bill would change the definition of "intellectual disability" to include conditions that manifest before the end of the developmental period, as defined by clinical standards. The bill would also prohibit the results of a test measuring intellectual functioning to be changed or adjusted based on race, ethnicity, national origin, or socioeconomic status. The bill would require the court to order a hearing to determine whether the defendant is a person with an intellectual disability upon a prima facie showing, as defined, that the defendant is a person with an intellectual disability. The bill would authorize a person in custody pursuant to a judgment of death to apply for an order directing that a hearing to determine intellectual disability be conducted as part of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and would specify the procedure for making the determination as to whether the defendant is a person with an intellectual disability.

Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to maintain a policy on the use of force, as specified. Existing law requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to implement courses of instruction for the regular and periodic training of law enforcement officers in the use of force. Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to report to the Department of Justice, as specified, any incident in which a peace officer is involved in a shooting or use of force that results in death or serious bodily injury. This bill would create a division within the Department of Justice to, upon the request of a law enforcement agency, review the use-of-force policy of the agency and make recommendations, as specified. This bill would require a state prosecutor to investigate incidents of an officer-involved shooting resulting in the death of an unarmed civilian, as defined. The bill would make the Attorney General the state prosecutor unless otherwise specified or named. The bill would authorize the state prosecutor to prepare a written report, and would require the state prosecutor to post any reports made on a public internet website. The bill would require, commencing July 1, 2023, the Attorney General to operate a Police Practices Division within the department to review, upon the request of a local law enforcement agency, the use of deadly force policies of that law enforcement agency and make recommendations, as specified. The bill would require the department to implement these provisions subject to an appropriation for this purpose.

Existing law requests the Regents of the University of California to assemble a colloquium of scholars to draft a research proposal to analyze the economic benefits of slavery that accrued to owners and the businesses, including insurance companies and their subsidiaries, that received those benefits, and to make recommendations to the Legislature regarding those findings. Existing law requires the Insurance Commissioner to request and obtain information from insurers licensed and doing business in this state regarding any records of slaveholder insurance policies issued by any predecessor corporation during the slavery era. Existing law requires insurers to research and report to the commissioner on insurance policies that provided coverage for injury to, or death of, enslaved people. This bill would establish the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, with a Special Consideration for African Americans Who are Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States, consisting of 9 members, appointed as provided. The bill would require the Task Force to, among other things, identify, compile, and synthesize the relevant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the institution of slavery that existed within the United States and the colonies. The bill would require the Task Force to recommend, among other things, the form of compensation that should be awarded, the instrumentalities through which it should be awarded, and who should be eligible for this compensation. The bill would require the Task Force to submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature. The bill would authorize reimbursement of the members' expenses only to the extent an appropriation therefor is made in the Budget Act. The bill would state that any state level reparations authorized under these provisions are not to be considered a replacement for any reparations enacted at the federal level. The bill would repeal these provisions on July 1, 2023.

Existing law makes every person who willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any public officer, peace officer, or an emergency medical technician, as defined, in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of the office or employment, when no other punishment is prescribed, guilty of a misdemeanor. Existing law also authorizes specified peace officers to close an area where a menace to the public health or safety is created by a calamity and to close the immediate area surrounding any emergency field command post or other command post activated for the purpose of abating a calamity, riot, or other civil disturbance, as specified. Existing law makes any unauthorized person who willfully and knowingly enters those areas and who remains in the area after receiving notice to evacuate or leave guilty of a misdemeanor. Existing law exempts a duly authorized representative of any news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network from the provisions prohibiting entry into the closed areas, as specified. This bill would, if peace officers close the immediate area surrounding any emergency field command post or establish any other command post, police line, or rolling closure at a demonstration, march, protest, or rally where individuals are engaged primarily in constitutionally protected activity, as described, require that a duly authorized representative of any news service, online news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network, as described, be allowed to enter those closed areas and would prohibit a peace officer or other law enforcement officer from intentionally assaulting, interfering with, or obstructing a duly authorized representative who is gathering, receiving, or processing information for communication to the public. The bill would also prohibit a duly authorized representative who is in a closed area from being cited for the failure to disperse, a violation of a curfew, or a violation of other, specified law. The bill would require that if a representative is detained by a peace officer or other law enforcement officer, the representative be permitted to contact a supervisory officer immediately for the purpose of challenging the detention. For purposes of this bill, a duly authorized representative would be a person who appears to be engaged in gathering, receiving, or processing information, who produces a business card, press badge, other similar credential, or who is carrying professional broadcasting or recording equipment.

Existing law provides for the exclusion of a prospective juror from a trial jury by peremptory challenge. Existing law prohibits a party from using a peremptory challenge to remove a prospective juror on the basis of an assumption that the prospective juror is biased merely because of the sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, ethnic group identification, age, mental disability, physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation of the prospective juror, or on similar grounds. This bill would, for all jury trials in which jury selection begins on or after January 1, 2022, prohibit a party from using a peremptory challenge to remove a prospective juror on the basis of the prospective juror's race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, or religious affiliation, or the perceived membership of the prospective juror in any of those groups. The bill would allow a party, or the trial court on its own motion, to object to the use of a peremptory challenge based on these criteria. Upon objection, the bill would require the party exercising the challenge to state the reasons the peremptory challenge has been exercised. The bill would require the court to evaluate the reasons given, as specified, and, if the court grants the objection, would authorize the court to take certain actions, including, but not limited to, starting a new jury selection, declaring a mistrial at the request of the objecting party, seating the challenged juror, or providing another remedy as the court deems appropriate. The bill would subject the denial of an objection to de novo review by an appellate court, as specified. The bill would, until January 1, 2026, specify that its provisions do not apply to civil cases.

Existing law governs employment relations, defines the contract of employment, and establishes the obligations of employers to their employees. This bill would require an employer, as defined, to offer its laid-off employees specified information about job positions that become available for which the laid-off employees are qualified, and to offer positions to those laid-off employees based on a preference system, in accordance with specified timelines and procedures. The bill would define the term "laid-off employee" to mean any employee who was employed by the employer for 6 months or more in the 12 months preceding the state of emergency giving rise to the application of the bill's provisions, and whose most recent separation from active service was due to a public health directive, government shutdown order, lack of business, a reduction in force, or other economic, nondisciplinary reason related to the state of emergency, as defined. The bill would also require an incumbent employer, within 15 days after the execution of a transfer document, to provide to the successor employer specified information pertaining to eligible employees and would require the successor employer to maintain and hire from a preferential hiring list for a specified time period. The bill would authorize an employee to enforce violations of these provisions by filing an action with the Division of Labor Standards and would authorize various remedies, including hiring and reinstatement rights and awarding of back pay.

Existing law sets the time for commencement of any civil action for recovery of damages suffered as a result of sexual assault, as defined, to the later of within 10 years from the date of the last act, attempted act, or assault with intent to commit an act, of sexual assault by the defendant against the plaintiff or within 3 years from the date the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered that an injury or illness resulted from an act, attempted act, or assault with intent to commit an act, of sexual assault by the defendant against the plaintiff. However, existing law revives claims for damages of more than $250,000 arising out of a sexual assault or other inappropriate contact, communication, or activity of a sexual nature by a physician occurring at a student health center between January 1, 1988, and January 1, 2017, that would otherwise be barred prior to January 1, 2020, solely because the applicable statute of limitations has or had expired, and would authorize a cause of action to proceed if already pending in court on October 2, 2019, or, if not filed by that date, to be commenced between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. This law is not applicable to a public entity. This bill would revive claims for damages arising out of a sexual assault or other inappropriate contact, communication, or activity of a sexual nature by a physician while employed by a medical clinic owned and operated by the University of California, Los Angeles, or a physician who held active privileges at a hospital owned and operated by the University of California, Los Angeles, at the time that the sexual assault or other inappropriate contact, communication, or activity of a sexual nature occurred, between January 1, 1983, and January 1, 2019, that would otherwise be barred before January 1, 2021, solely because the applicable statute of limitations has or had expired, and would authorize a cause of action to proceed if already pending in court on January 1, 2021, or, if not filed by that date, to be commenced between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the University of California.