Asm. Buffy Wicks

Maddy summaryThis bill designates February 2026 as Unclaimed Property Month in California to raise awareness about state-held financial assets. It encourages residents to check the state Controller's website to claim unclaimed funds such as uncashed checks and insurance proceeds. The resolution does not change any laws or policies but serves as a public awareness campaign to help people locate and claim their abandoned property. It directs the Assembly Chief Clerk to distribute copies of the resolution for public distribution.

Maddy summaryThis House Resolution declares January 2026 as School Board Recognition Month to honor the nearly 5,000 school board members across California's 1,000 school districts and county offices of education. The resolution recognizes these locally elected officials for their work in guiding public education and serving diverse communities, emphasizing their role in ensuring students' academic, social-emotional, and health needs are met. It calls on community members to join in acknowledging the dedication of school board members and collaborate to improve the education system. The bill has no operational effect beyond this symbolic recognition and does not change any laws or policies.

Maddy summaryThis House Resolution formally recognizes the importance of affordable homeownership for California families, particularly those with lower incomes, and highlights how nonprofit-led programs help build generational wealth and reduce economic disparities. The document emphasizes that existing state programs like CalHome support the construction and preservation of affordable homes through competitive funding to cities, counties, indigenous communities, and nonprofit builders such as Habitat for Humanity. While the resolution does not create new laws or funding, it serves as an official acknowledgment of homeownership's role in improving educational outcomes, health, civic participation, and neighborhood stability. The text also notes California's significant housing deficit and racial wealth gaps as context for why expanding affordable ownership opportunities is a priority for state policy.

Existing law requires a social media platform to take certain actions with respect to child sexual abuse material on the social media platform, including by requiring the social media platform to provide, in a mechanism that is reasonably accessible to users, a means for a user who is a California resident to report material to the social media platform that the user reasonably believes meets certain criteria, including that the reported material is child sexual abuse material and that the reporting user is depicted in the material. Existing law also requires the social media platform to collect information reasonably sufficient to enable the social media platform to contact, as specified, a reporting user. This bill would delete the requirement for reporting material that the reporting user be depicted in the material, would require that the depicted individual be depicted as a minor, and would additionally require the mechanism to be clear and conspicuous. The bill would require a social media platform to ensure that any report submitted using the reporting mechanism is reviewed through a hash matching process and would require a social media company to ensure review by a natural person if there is not an established or known hash match to child sexual abuse material with respect to the reported material and the reported material is not otherwise blocked. Existing law makes a noncomplying social media company liable to a reporting user for actual damages and statutory damages, as specified. This bill would also impose a civil penalty on a noncomplying social media company to be collected in a civil action by certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General. The bill would make a social media company liable to a depicted individual, as defined, for specified violations. Existing law prohibits a social media platform from knowingly facilitating, aiding, or abetting commercial sexual exploitation, as defined, and exempts a social media platform from being deemed in violation of that prohibition if it instituted a specified audit program and provided to each member of its board of directors a true and correct copy of each audit, as prescribed. This bill would revise those provisions to, instead, require a social media platform to submit to third-party audits and release audit reports to the public in order to be exempt from being deemed in violation that prohibition, as prescribed. This bill would declare that its provisions are severable.

Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law, subject to implementation of the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, authorizes a Medi-Cal managed care plan to elect to cover community supports approved by the department as cost effective and medically appropriate in a comprehensive risk contract that are in lieu of applicable Medi-Cal state plan services. Under existing law, community supports that the department is authorized to approve include, among other things, housing transition navigation services, housing deposits, and housing tenancy sustaining services. Existing law, subject to an appropriation, requires the department to complete an independent analysis to determine whether network adequacy exists to obtain federal approval for a covered Medi-Cal benefit that provides housing support services. Existing law requires that the analysis take into consideration specified information, including the number of providers in relation to each region's or county's number of people experiencing homelessness. Existing law requires the department to report the outcomes of the analysis to the Legislature by January 1, 2024. This bill would delete the requirement for the department to complete that analysis, and instead would make housing support services for specified populations a covered Medi-Cal benefit when the Legislature has made an appropriation for purposes of the housing support services. The bill would require the department to seek federal approval for the housing support services benefit, as specified. Under the bill, subject to an appropriation by the Legislature, a Medi-Cal beneficiary would be eligible for those services if they either experience homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. Under the bill, the services would include housing transition navigation services, housing deposits, and housing tenancy sustaining services, as defined. The bill would authorize the department to implement, interpret, or make specific this section, in whole or in part, by means of all-county letters, plan letters, provider bulletins, information notices, or similar instruction, and to enter into exclusive or nonexclusive contracts, or amend existing contracts for its purposes, as specified. The bill would authorize these provisions to be modified by the department to the extent necessary to meet the requirements of federal law or regulations, to obtain federal approval, or to enhance the probability that federal approval can be obtained, as specified.

Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt statewide academically rigorous content standards in the core curriculum areas of reading, writing, mathematics, history/social science, and science, as specified. Existing law requires the Instructional Quality Commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks to the state board and develop criteria for evaluating instructional materials. This bill would require the state board to, on or before January 1, 2028, develop and adopt academically rigorous content standards for ethnic studies instruction in high school. The bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2028, to review and recommend to the state board curriculum frameworks and instructional materials for ethnic studies instruction in high school, as specified. The bill would require the state board to provide the commission with evaluation criteria to use in providing its review and recommendations. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation to establish an advisory committee with a majority of the advisory committee's members being experts in African American studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, Native American studies, and Latino and Chicanx studies, to provide input to the state board on proposed content standards and to the commission on proposed curriculum frameworks and instructional materials for ethnic studies instruction in high school. Existing law requires a pupil to complete designated coursework while in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, in order to receive a diploma of graduation from high school. These graduation requirements include, commencing for pupils graduating in the 2029–30 school year, the completion of a one-semester course in ethnic studies meeting specified requirements. Under existing law, the requirement to complete an ethnic studies course may be fulfilled by the completion of, among others, a course based on the model curriculum developed by the Instructional Quality Commission, an ethnic studies course taught as part of a course that has been approved as meeting the A–G requirements of the University of California and the California State University, or a locally developed ethnic studies course approved by the governing board of a school district or the governing body of a charter school. Existing law requires the curriculum, instruction, and instructional materials for these ethnic studies courses to meet specified requirements, including that they not reflect or promote any bias, bigotry, or discrimination against any person or group of persons on the basis of certain characteristics. Existing law makes these provisions relating to ethnic studies courses operative only upon an appropriation of funds by the Legislature for purposes of these provisions. This bill would require the curriculum, instruction, and instructional materials for any high school ethnic studies course, including ethnic studies courses meeting high school graduation requirements, to meet the above-described requirements, and would require the curriculum, instruction, and instructional materials for all high school ethnic studies courses to additionally, among other things, foster multicultural respect and understanding and focus on the domestic experience and stories of historically marginalized peoples in American society. To the extent that the bill would impose new duties on local educational agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require a school district, county office of education, or charter school to provide, on or before June 30, 2026, the State Department of Education with a copy of all curricula, instruction, and instructional materials in ethnic studies that schools offer or plan to offer to pupils in any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, and the adoption calendar for curricula, instruction, and instructional materials in ethnic studies proposed for adoption by the governing board or body of the local educational agency for instruction to these pupils. The bill would require a local educational agency that does not have an ethnic studies course in place for its pupils in any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, on or before June 30, 2026, to provide the department with a copy of all curricula, instruction, and instructional materials in ethnic studies that its schools seek to adopt at least 60 days before being first presented at a public meeting of the governing board or body of the local educational agency for instruction to these pupils. The bill would require the department to post the information received pursuant to these requirements on its internet website. To the extent that the bill would impose new duties on local educational agencies, it would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the department to monitor compliance with the requirements of this bill as part of its annual compliance monitoring of state and federal programs and to provide a report to the relevant policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature summarizing the data collected through compliance monitoring, 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, 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.

The California Constitution authorizes the development, construction, or acquisition of developments composed of urban or rural dwellings, apartments, or other living accommodations for persons of low income financed in whole or in part by the federal government or a state public body, or to which the federal government or a state public body extends assistance, if a majority of the qualified electors of the city, town, or county in which the housing is proposed to be located approves the project by voting in favor thereof, as specified. This measure, the Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) Act, would create an account in the General Fund into which, beginning in the 2027–28 fiscal year, and each fiscal year thereafter until September 30, 2036, a sum would be transferred from the General Fund equal to or greater than 5% of the estimated amount of General Fund revenues for that fiscal year, as specified. The measure would require the moneys in the account to be appropriated by the Legislature to the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, and would authorize that agency to expend the moneys to fund prescribed matters related to homelessness and affordable housing, including housing and services to prevent and end homelessness. This measure would require the agency to develop a 10-year investment strategy, with input from stakeholders, that demonstrates how moneys in the account will be used to produce affordable housing and end homelessness through specific performance measures and benchmarks. On or before October 1 of each year, and until October 1, 2036, the measure would require the agency to annually report to the Legislature on its progress in meeting those performance measures and benchmarks.

The Powering Up Californians Act requires the Public Utilities Commission, on or before September 30, 2024, to establish reasonable average and maximum target energization time periods, as defined, and a procedure for customers to report energization delays to the commission, as provided. The act requires the commission to require electrical corporations to take remedial actions necessary to achieve those target energization time periods and to require certain reports to be publicly available. This bill would require the commission, in a new or existing proceeding, to require each large electrical corporation to compile a list of information needed to approve or deny an energization application, to post an example of a complete, approved energization application and an example of a complete energization application for a housing development project, and to make those items available on its internet website by a date specified by the commission. The bill would also require the commission to require each large electrical corporation to determine if an energization application is complete and provide notice or otherwise provide certain information under a specified procedure. The bill would require the commission to require each large electrical corporation, upon approval of an energization application, to immediately transmit that determination to the applicant by electronic mail and, if applicable, by posting the response on its internet website, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the above provisions would be part of the Public Utilities Act and a violation of a commission action implementing this bill's requirements would be 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.

(1) Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, which includes, among other mandatory elements, a housing element. Existing law requires a public agency to administer its programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing, and take no action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. Existing law defines "affirmatively furthering fair housing," as provided. The Planning and Zoning Law requires that a housing element include, among other things, a program that sets forth a schedule of actions during the planning period. Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop a standardized reporting format for programs and actions taken pursuant to the requirement to affirmatively further fair housing. This bill would require the department to develop the above-described standardized reporting format on or before December 31, 2026. (2) Existing law requires, for the 4th and subsequent revisions of the housing element, the department to determine the existing and projected need for housing for each region, as specified. Existing law requires the department, in consultation with the council of governments, to determine the existing and projected need of housing for each region at least 2 years prior to the scheduled revision of the housing element, as provided. Existing law requires the department to meet and consult with the council of governments regarding the assumptions and methodology to be used to determine the region's housing needs at least 26 months prior to the scheduled revision of the housing element, as provided. This bill, except as specified, would extend the above-described timeline for the department to determine the existing and projected need of housing for each region from 2 years to 3 years prior to the scheduled revision of the housing element. The bill would require the department to meet and consult with the council of governments, as described above, pursuant to prescribed deadlines. For the 7th revision of the housing element, the bill would require the department to meet and consult with each council of governments at least 38 months prior to the scheduled revision, except for specified councils of governments. For the 8th and subsequent revision of the housing element, the bill would require the department to meet and consult with each council of governments at least 38 months prior to the scheduled revision. (3) Existing law authorizes at least 2 or more cities and a county, or counties, at least 28 months prior to the scheduled housing element revision, to form a subregional entity to allocate the subregion's existing and projected housing need among its members. If the council of governments does not receive a notification of this formation at least 28 months prior to the update, existing law requires the council of governments to implement specified requirements regarding the regional housing need process. Existing law requires the council of governments to determine the share of regional housing need assigned to each delegate subregion at least 25 months prior to the scheduled revision. This bill would extend the above-described timeline for cities and counties to form a subregional entity to allocate the subregion's housing need, as provided, from 28 months to 34 months, and the above-described timeline for the council of governments to determine the share of regional housing need assigned to each subregion from 25 months to 31 months, respectively. (4) Existing law, at least 2 years before a scheduled revision of the housing element, as specified, requires each council of governments, or delegate subregion as applicable, to develop, in consultation with the department, a proposed methodology for distributing the existing and projected regional housing need to jurisdictions, as specified. Existing law, at least 1 12 years before a scheduled revision of the housing element, as specified, requires each council of governments and delegate subregion, as applicable, to distribute a draft allocation of regional housing needs to each local government in the region or subregion, where applicable, and the department, as specified. This bill, except with respect to the 7th housing element cycle for councils of governments with a housing element revision due date during the 2027 calendar year, would instead require that the above-described methodology be developed from at least 2 12 years before a scheduled revision of the housing element, and that the distribution of the draft allocation plan be made at least 2 years before a scheduled revision of the housing element, respectively. (5) Existing law requires a planning agency to submit a copy of its draft housing element or amendments to its housing element or housing element revision to the department for review, and requires the department to notify the city, county, or city and county with written findings if the department finds that the housing element or the amendment does not substantially comply with specified law. If the department finds that the draft housing element or draft amendment is not in substantial compliance, existing law requires the jurisdiction to either update the draft to substantially comply with specified law, or adopt the draft housing element or amendment without changes, as provided. This bill would require the department, if the department finds that a draft element or draft amendment does not substantially comply, as described above, to (A) identify and explain the specific deficiencies in the draft element or draft amendment and (B) provide the specific analysis or text that the department expects the planning agency to include in the draft element or draft amendment to remedy those deficiencies, as specified. The bill would require a jurisdiction, in updating a noncompliant housing element or amendment under the above-described provisions, to include the specific analysis or text in its draft element or amendment. (6) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65583 of the Government Code proposed by SB 340 and AB 610 to be operative only if this bill and either or both of those bills are enacted and this bill is enacted last. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65584.01 of the Government Code proposed by SB 486 to be operative only if this bill and SB 486 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65584.03 of the Government Code proposed by AB 1275 to be operative only if this bill and AB 1275 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65584.04 of the Government Code proposed by SB 486 and AB 1275 to be operative only if this bill and either or both of those bills are enacted and this bill is enacted last. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 65585 of the Government Code proposed by AB 507 to be operative only if this bill and AB 507 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (7) By imposing additional duties on local governments, this bill would create 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.

Maddy summaryThis bill establishes January as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month in California to raise public awareness about human trafficking. The resolution recognizes the severity of human trafficking as a felony crime and highlights statistics showing its prevalence across the country and specific challenges with identifying male victims and labor trafficking cases. It aims to educate the public and encourage reporting and support for victims during this designated month.