Existing law generally protects employees who disclose illegal or improper workplace activities by prohibiting interference with, and retaliation for, making such disclosures. Existing law provides procedures for a person to file a complaint alleging violations of legislative ethics. Existing law also authorizes each house of the Legislature to adopt rules for its proceedings and to select committees necessary for the conduct of its business. This bill would impose criminal and civil liability on a Member of the Legislature or legislative employee, as defined, who interferes with, or retaliates against, a legislative employee's exercise of the right to make a protected disclosure, which is defined as a good faith allegation made by a legislative employee to specified entities that a Member of the Legislature or a legislative employee has engaged in, or will engage in, activity that may constitute a violation of law, including sexual harassment, or a violation of a legislative standard of conduct. The bill would also impose civil liability on an entity that interferes with, or retaliates against, a legislative employee's exercise of the right to make a protected disclosure, as specified. By creating new crimes, 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
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(1) Existing law, commonly known as the Ellis Act, generally prohibits public entities from adopting any statute, ordinance, or regulation, or taking any administrative action, as specified, to compel the owner of residential real property to offer or to continue to offer accommodations, as defined, in the property for rent or lease. Existing law excepts from this prohibition residential hotels with certain characteristics. This bill, on and after January 1, 2018, would except from the Ellis Act residential hotels in the City of Oakland. (2) This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the City of Oakland.
Existing law proscribes the crime of human trafficking, as defined. A person who causes, induces, or persuades, or attempts to cause, induce, or persuade, a person who is a minor at the time of commission of the offense to engage in a commercial sex act, with the intent to effect or maintain a violation of any of specified sex offenses, is guilty of human trafficking. Existing law also proscribes the crime of prostitution. Existing law establishes the Board of State and Community Corrections to provide statewide leadership, coordination, and technical assistance to promote effective state and local efforts and partnerships in California's adult and juvenile criminal justice system. Existing law authorizes the County of Alameda to create a pilot project, contingent upon local funding, for the purposes of developing a comprehensive, replicative, multidisciplinary model to address the needs and effective treatment of commercially sexually exploited minors, as specified. Existing law establishes the Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Program, which is administered by the State Department of Social Services in order to adequately serve children who have been sexually exploited, and requires the department, in consultation with the County Welfare Directors Association of California, to develop an allocation methodology to distribute funding to counties that elect to participate in the program. This bill would require the Board of State and Community Corrections to establish a pilot project in each of the Counties of Alameda, Sacramento, and San Joaquin, if the county elects to participate in the pilot project. The bill would authorize each participating county to determine whether that county's probation department or child welfare agency, or both, would create and operate a program funded by the pilot project. The bill would require a program funded by the pilot project to provide services to youth within that county's jurisdiction in order to address the need for services relating to the commercial sexual exploitation of youth. The bill would state that the purpose of the pilot project is to test a service model, as specified, that would produce improved outcomes for youth victims of human trafficking. The bill would require the programs created by the pilot project that receive funding pursuant to these provisions to be licensed by the State Department of Social Services. The bill would make the funding for the pilot projects established pursuant to this authority contingent upon an appropriation in the annual Budget Act and would require the Board of State and Community Corrections to administer those funds. The bill would also require a county that elects to participate in the pilot project and establishes a program pursuant to these provisions to conduct at least one evaluation of the program's impact and effectiveness and to submit that evaluation to the board and the Legislature no later than January 1, 2024. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2025.
Existing law governs the delivery of health care services to persons in the state through private and public means. 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 that act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, 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. This bill would create the 9-member Health Care for All Commission in the State Department of Health Care Services, for the purpose of investigating and making recommendations on improving health care access and affordability for all Californians. The bill would require the Governor, the Senate Rules Committee, and the Speaker of the Assembly to each appoint 3 members of the commission, and require the commission to elect its chair from among its members. The bill would require the commission to meet quarterly between January 1, 2018, and January 1, 2020, and during that time period investigate issues related to improving health care access and affordability for all Californians. The bill would, following the investigation, require the commission to provide a report and recommendations regarding its findings to the Legislature. The bill would require the State Department of Health Care Services to provide general support and staff assistance to the commission.
Existing law generally regulates the undertaking of bail and the licensing of bail agents, bail permittees, and bail solicitors. Existing law requires an insurer executing an undertaking of bail to do so through a person holding a bail license. This bill would require all surety insurers that execute undertakings of bail to have a compliance unit with dedicated staff, to pay all forfeited bail bonds into escrow, and to provide a sworn statement to the Department of Insurance of all business transacted under its license or licenses in the last calendar year and to attest that bail licensees who they provide coverage to are in compliance with state law. The bill would require all contracts for bail to disclose the name of the insurer providing surety and a contact for the Department of Insurance for complaints. The bill would require the Department of Insurance to conduct a study and make recommendations no later than July 1, 2018, regarding insurers who provide coverage to bail licensees, as specified.
The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including a credit for qualified renters in the amount of $120 for spouses filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses if adjusted gross income is $50,000 or less, as currently adjusted to $78,125, and in the amount of $60 for other individuals if adjusted gross income is $25,000 or less, as currently adjusted to $39,026. This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2017, would increase that credit from $120 to $360 and from $60 to $180. For taxpayers living in a high-cost area, as defined, the bill would increase the adjusted gross income limitation for spouses filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses to $97,656 and for other individuals to $48,828. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, 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 provides for a schedule of benefits provided under the Medi-Cal program, which includes certain dental services that are referred to as Denti-Cal. Existing law, the California Healthcare, Research, and Prevention Tobacco Tax Act of 2016, or Proposition 56, which was approved by voters at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, increases taxes imposed on distributors of cigarettes and tobacco products and allocates a specified percentage of those revenues to the department to increase funding for existing health care programs under the Medi-Cal program. Existing law establishes the Healthcare Treatment Fund for this purpose. This bill would require the department, for the 2017–18 fiscal year, to double Denti-Cal provider reimbursement rates for the 15 most common prevention, treatment, and oral evaluation services based on the average rates per service established in the 2015–16 fiscal year. The bill would appropriate for the 2017–18 fiscal year such an amount as may be necessary to double the reimbursement rates from the Healthcare Treatment Fund to the department, as specified.
Existing law provides for the procedure of approving and accepting bail, and issuing an order for the appearance and release of an arrested person. Existing law requires that bail be set in a fixed amount, as specified, and requires, in setting, reducing, or denying bail, a judge or magistrate to take into consideration the protection of the public, the seriousness of the offense charged, the previous criminal record of the defendant, and the probability of his or her appearing at trial or at a hearing of the case. Under existing law, the magistrate or commissioner to whom the application is made is authorized to set bail in an amount that he or she deems sufficient to ensure the defendant's appearance or to ensure the protection of a victim, or family member of a victim, of domestic violence, and to set bail on the terms and conditions that he or she, in his or her discretion, deems appropriate, or he or she may authorize the defendant's release on his or her own recognizance. Existing law provides that a defendant being held for a misdemeanor offense is entitled to be released on his or her own recognizance, unless the court makes a finding on the record that his or her release would compromise public safety or would not reasonably ensure the appearance of the defendant as required. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to safely reduce the number of people detained pretrial, while addressing racial and economic disparities in the pretrial system, to ensure that people are not held in pretrial detention simply because of their inability to afford money bail. This bill would implement a revised pretrial release procedure. The bill would require, except when a person is arrested for certain felonies, that a pretrial services agency conduct a pretrial risk assessment on an arrested person and prepare a pretrial services report that includes the results of the pretrial risk assessment and recommendations on conditions of release for the person immediately upon booking. The bill would require the pretrial services agency to transmit the report to a magistrate, judge, or court commissioner and the magistrate, judge, or court commissioner, within an unspecified number of hours, to issue an oral or written order to release the person, with or without release conditions, subject to the person signing a specified release agreement. The bill would require, if a person is in custody at the time of his or her arraignment, the judge or magistrate to consider the pretrial services report and any relevant information provided by the prosecuting attorney or the defendant and to order the pretrial release of the person, with or without conditions, subject to the person signing a specified release agreement. If the judge or magistrate determines that pretrial release, with or without conditions, will not reasonably ensure the appearance of the person in court as required, the bill would require the judge or magistrate to set monetary bail at the least restrictive level necessary to ensure the appearance of the defendant in court as required. The bill would authorize, if the judge or magistrate has set monetary bail, the person to execute an unsecured appearance bond, execute a secured appearance bond, or deposit a percentage of the sum mentioned in the order setting monetary bail. The bill would authorize a prosecuting attorney to file a motion seeking the pretrial detention of a person in certain circumstances, including when the person has been charged with a capital crime and the prosecuting attorney alleges that the facts are evident or the presumption great. The bill would require, if this motion has been filed, a hearing to be held to determine whether to release the person pending trial, unless the person waives the hearing. The bill would authorize the person to be detained pretrial only if the court makes one of several specified findings. The bill would require each county to establish a pretrial services agency that would be responsible for gathering information about newly arrested persons, conducting pretrial risk assessments, preparing individually tailored recommendations to the court regarding release options and conditions, and providing pretrial services and supervision to persons on pretrial release. The bill would require an unspecified agency to take certain actions relating to the implementation of the revised pretrial release procedure, including, among others, selecting a pretrial risk assessment tool to be used in conducting pretrial risk assessments that meets specified requirements and reviewing collected data to monitor compliance with state law and guidelines relating to pretrial release. The bill would also authorize that agency to take certain actions relating to the implementation of the revised pretrial release procedure, including, among other things, providing training and assistance to judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, pretrial services agencies, jail staff, and law enforcement agencies. The bill would require the Board of State and Community Corrections, in consultation with that unspecified agency, to develop a plan that establishes statewide requirements for counties relating to annual reporting of pretrial release and detention information. By imposing additional duties on local agencies, 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.