Existing civil rights provisions provide that all persons within the jurisdiction of this state have the right to be free from any violence, or intimidation by threat of violence, committed against their persons or property because of political affiliation, or on account of position in a labor dispute, or sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition, or because another person perceives them to have one or more of those characteristics. Those civil rights provisions provide civil remedies for violations of their provisions. This bill would prohibit a person from requiring a waiver of the protections afforded under those provisions as a condition of entering into a contract for the provision of goods or services, including the right to file and pursue a civil action or complaint with, or otherwise notify, the Attorney General or any other public prosecutor, or law enforcement agency, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, or any court or other governmental entity. This bill would require any waiver of the protections afforded under those provisions to be knowing and voluntary, and in writing, and expressly not made as a condition of entering into the contract or as a condition of providing or receiving goods or services. This bill would provide that any person seeking the enforcement of a waiver of the protections afforded under those civil rights provisions shall have the burden of proving that the waiver was knowing and voluntary and not made as a condition of the contract or of providing or receiving the goods or services. The bill's provisions would apply to contracts entered into, removed, altered, modified, or extended on and after January 1, 2011. This bill would provide that its provisions shall not be construed to negate other specified provisions. This bill would include legislative findings and declarations with respect to the public policy underlying its provisions. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 51.7 of the Civil Code as proposed by AB 2706, to be operative only if AB 2706 and this bill are both enacted and become effective on or before January 1, 2011, both bills amend those sections, and this bill is enacted after AB 2706 is enacted.
Sponsored bills
Existing law provides for unemployment compensation benefits to eligible individuals who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Existing law authorizes any employer who is entitled to receive specified notice of an unemployment claim, to, within 10 days after mailing of the notice, submit to the Employment Development Department specified facts disclosing whether the claimant for benefits left the employer's employ voluntarily and with good cause under certain circumstances, including, among other things, that the claimant left the employer's employ to protect his or her children or himself or herself from domestic violence abuse. This bill would revise various provisions governing eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits to specify that a claimant is eligible for benefits where he or she left an employer's employ to protect his or her family from domestic violence abuse. By increasing the number of persons who may be eligible to receive unemployment compensation benefits, thereby providing for increased amounts payable from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the bill would make an appropriation. Existing law requires the department, upon the filing of a new claim for benefits, to promptly make a computation regarding the maximum amount of benefits payable, and to promptly notify the claimant of the computation. This bill would also require the department to promptly notify the claimant of the method of computation. Existing law requires, whenever any warrant drawn on an account in the Unemployment Fund, the Unemployment Administration Fund, the Contingent Fund, or the Disability Fund by the Controller remains unclaimed after 3 years, that amount reverts to the account and the fund from which the amount was payable. This bill would reduce that time period for reversion of those amounts to one year. Existing law requires the department to administer specified provisions related to leisure sharing, to become operative upon the date that any federal or other funds are received, and specifies that those provisions shall remain in effect for a period of 3 years after that date. This bill would repeal those laws related to leisure sharing. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 1030, 1032, and 1256 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, proposed by AB 2055, to be operative only if AB 2055 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2011, and this bill is chaptered last.
Existing law prescribes procedures for the issuance of registered warrants and provides that a registered warrant is acceptable and may be used as security for the performance of any public or private trust or obligation. This bill would, if the Controller makes a specified determination, require a state agency to accept, from a person or entity, a registered warrant issued by the Controller and endorsed by that payee, at full face value, for the payment of any obligations owed by that payee to that state agency. The bill would specify that its requirements do not apply to certain obligations and would require the Controller, on or before the September 1 following the conclusion of a fiscal year in which a state agency is required to accept registered warrants pursuant to these provisions, to submit a report to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. The bill would make its provisions inoperative on July 1, 2012, and would repeal them on January 1, 2013. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Every Woman Counts program, requires the State Department of Public Health to provide breast cancer and cervical cancer screening services to eligible low-income individuals under a federal grant made under the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention breast and cervical cancer early detection program. Funding for these services is provided by a combination of federal and state moneys. Existing law requires these services to be provided at the level of funding budgeted from state and other resources during the fiscal year in which the Legislature has appropriated funds to the department for this purpose. The bill would require the department, 90 days prior to making policy changes, to send written notice outlining the proposed changes to contractors providing services pursuant to this program and to notify the Legislature, in writing, if the changes would restrict access or reduce services offered. Existing law establishes the Breast Cancer Fund, which funds various programs through the Breast Cancer Control Program for the detection, treatment, and cure of breast and cervical cancer, as specified. Entities funded by the Breast Cancer Control Program are required to submit a specified report annually to the Legislature. This bill would require that the report be submitted on or before February 1 of each year and would add specified information to that report.
Existing law provides for the regulation and licensure by the Commissioner of Financial Institutions of state-chartered banks and credit unions, money transmitters, persons engaged in the business of issuing travelers checks, business and industrial development corporations, and corporations engaging in the business of selling, in this state, payment instruments issued by it. Each of the laws regulating these licensees establishes various enforcement provisions for violations of those laws. This bill would repeal specified portions of those enforcement provisions. The bill would recast, in one body of law, the enforcement provisions applicable to those licensees and would also recast various other provisions applicable to those licensees. The bill would recast provisions establishing the Deputy Commissioner of Financial Institutions for the Division of Credit Unions. The bill would recast provisions making it a crime for the deputy commissioner to fail to report to the commissioner information regarding the insolvency or unsafe condition of a licensee, if the deputy commissioner has knowledge of those facts. The bill would make other related changes, and would make other changes related to bank and trust company depositaries and stock acquisitions. Existing law authorizes the commissioner to examine the books, accounts, records, files, and any office of a credit union. Existing law authorizes the commissioner to take possession of the property and business of a credit union if the commissioner finds, among other things, that the credit union has inadequate capital or is insolvent. This bill would require the officers and employees of a credit union to exhibit the securities, books, records, and accounts to the examiners, on request. The bill would authorize the commissioner to take possession of the property and business of the credit union if the commissioner finds that the credit union has inadequate net worth, as defined, or is insolvent. The bill would also authorize the commissioner to call a meeting of the board of directors of a credit union, as specified. Existing law prohibits a corporation from engaging in the trust business unless it complies with specified requirements. Existing law exempts from those requirements, among others, certain persons or corporations acting as a trustee or any person appointed as a receiver, trustee, or other fiduciary by the court. This bill would exempt professional fiduciaries from those requirements.
Existing law, the Clinical Social Worker Practice Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of social workers by the Board of Behavioral Sciences. Existing law requires the board to issue a license to each applicant meeting specified requirements who successfully passes a board administered standard written or oral examination or both examinations and existing law also provides for a clinical vignette written examination for these applicants. Under existing law, the fee for the standard written examination is $150 and the fee for the clinical vignette written examination is $100. This bill would, on and after January 1, 2014, if the board makes a specified determination, instead require the board to issue a license to each applicant meeting specified requirements who successfully passes the Association of Social Work Boards Clinical Level Exam administered by the Association of Social Work Boards and a separate California jurisprudence and ethics examination incorporated or developed and administered by the board. The bill would provide a maximum $100 fee for the jurisprudence and ethics examination. The bill would also make conforming changes. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 4996.3 of the Business and Professions Code proposed by AB 2191, to be operative if AB 2191 and this bill become effective on or before January 1, 2011, and this bill is enacted last. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 4996.17 of the Business and Professions Code proposed by SB 1489, to be operative if SB 1489 and this bill become effective on or before January 1, 2011, and this bill is enacted last.
Existing law establishes the California State University and its various campuses under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University. Existing law requires the California State University to offer undergraduate and graduate instruction through the master's degree in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education, including teacher education. This bill, until July 1, 2018, would authorize the California State University to establish a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program at 3 campuses chosen by the Board of Trustees to award the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. The bill would distinguish the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the doctor of philosophy degree offered at the University of California. The bill would require the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program to be designed to enable professionals to earn the degree while working full time, train nurses for advanced practice, and prepare clinical faculty to teach in postsecondary nursing programs. The bill would require the California State University to enroll and maintain no more than 90 full-time equivalent students in the degree pilot program at all 3 campuses combined. The bill would require initial funding to come from existing budgets, without diminishing the quality of undergraduate programs or reducing enrollment therein. The bill would require the California State University, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the Department of Finance to jointly conduct a statewide evaluation of the degree pilot program and report the results to the Legislature and the Governor on or before January 1, 2017.
(1) Existing law requires, if a person is convicted of a specified driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offense and the offense occurred within 10 years of 2, or 3 or more, prior specified DUI offenses that resulted in a conviction, that the person be punished by enhanced penalties, and that the person's privilege to operate a motor vehicle be revoked by the department for a period of 2, 3, 4, or 5 years, as applicable. Existing law authorizes the court to impose specified additional orders on a person when the person is convicted of a driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offense, depending on the circumstances. This bill would, beginning January 1, 2012, authorize the court to order a 10-year revocation of the driver's license of a person who has been convicted of 3 or more specified DUI offenses if the court considers certain factors, including, but not limited to, the period of time that has elapsed since his or her previous DUI convictions. The bill would also authorize a person who had his or her driver's license revoked for 10 years to apply to the Department of Motor Vehicles, 5 years from the date of the last DUI conviction, to have his or her privilege to operate a motor vehicle reinstated subject to certain conditions, including, among other things, the condition that the person was not convicted of any other drug- or alcohol-related offenses, under state law, during the driver's license revocation period. (2) Existing law requires that a person, convicted of driving under the influence, without bodily injury to another, within 10 years of being convicted of a separate violation of one or more specified DUI offenses, be punished by his or her driving privilege being suspended or revoked for a period of 2 or more years. Existing law requires, among other things, the Department of Motor Vehicles to advise a person, who was only under the influence of an alcoholic beverage at the time of the violation, that he or she may apply for a restricted driver's license after completion of 90 days, 6 months, or 12 months, of the suspension or revocation period, or if the person was under the influence of any drug or the combination of any drug and alcohol, or if the person concurrently did any act forbidden by law or neglected any duty imposed by law that proximately caused bodily injury to another person other than the driver, then after completion of 12 months of the revocation period, which may include credit for a specified concurrent suspension, subject to specified conditions. This bill would revise and recast the above provisions to make technical and nonsubstantive, as well as conforming, changes as a result of the changes made by Chapter 193 of the Statutes of 2009 (SB 598) .
Existing law establishes standards for the handling and use of pesticides and for determining the hazards posed by pesticides to worker safety. Existing law imposes various reporting requirements on physicians and local health officers when there are known or suspected instances of pesticide poisoning. Under existing law, worker reentry into areas treated by pesticides determined to be hazardous to worker safety may be restricted by whether pesticide residue levels on treated plants are determined by scientific analysis not to be a significant factor in cholinesterase depression or other health effects. This bill would require any laboratory that performs cholinesterase testing on human blood for an employer to enable the employer to satisfy his or her responsibilities for medical supervision of his or her employees who regularly handle pesticides pursuant to specified regulations or to respond to alleged exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors or known exposure to the inhibitors that resulted in illness to electronically report specified information in its possession on every person tested to the Department of Pesticide Regulation, which would be required to share the information in an electronic format with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and the State Department of Public Health on an ongoing basis, as specified. This bill would require the OEHHA to review the cholinesterase test results. This bill would require, by December 31, 2015, the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the OEHHA, in consultation with the State Department of Public Health, to prepare a report, as specified, and to post that report on their Internet Web sites. This bill would repeal its provisions on January 1, 2017.
Existing law requires the Attorney General to perform specified duties with regard to providing state agencies with legal services. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to these provisions.