Former law established, until July 1, 2023, 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. Former law required 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 that became the United States, and to recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Task Force's findings, as specified. Former law required the Task Force to submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature, as specified. This bill would provide that the State of California recognizes and accepts responsibility for all of the harms and atrocities committed by the state, its representatives thereof, and entities under its jurisdiction who promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of chattel slavery and the enduring legacy of ongoing badges and incidents from which the systemic structures of discrimination have come to exist. The bill would further provide that the State of California apologizes for perpetuating the harms African Americans have faced and affirms its role in protecting the descendants of enslaved people and all Black Californians. The bill would require a plaque memorializing this apology to be publicly and conspicuously installed and maintained in the State Capitol Building. The bill would impose various duties on the Department of General Services and the Joint Rules Committee relating to the installation and maintenance of the plaque. The bill would authorize the Department of General Services and the Joint Rules Committee to receive money from grants and private donations and would continuously appropriate those funds for this purpose, as specified. The bill would require the Legislature to prepare the formal apology and would request it be signed by specified state leaders. The bill would require the Secretary of State to submit a final copy of this formal apology to the State Archives, where it would be available for viewing by the general public in perpetuity. The bill would include related legislative findings.
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(1) Existing law regulates the employment of workers in grocery establishments, as defined, including requiring an incumbent grocery employer, as defined, where there is a change of control, as defined, to post a public notice of the change in control at the location of the affected grocery establishment within 5 business days following the execution of the transfer document, as specified. Existing law requires the notice to include, among other specified information, the name of the incumbent grocery employer, and to be posted in a conspicuous place at the grocery establishment in a manner where it can be readily viewed by specified persons, including eligible grocery workers. Existing law, the Pharmacy Law, provides for the licensure and regulation of pharmacies by the California State Board of Pharmacy. Existing law authorizes a pharmacy to furnish prescription drugs only to certain entities, including specific health care entities, and individual patients or another pharmacy either pursuant to prescription or as otherwise authorized by law. Existing law defines a pharmacy as an area, place, or premises licensed by the board in which the profession of pharmacy is practiced and where prescriptions are compounded. This bill would require a covered establishment, defined to include a grocery establishment or a pharmacy establishment, to satisfy specified requirements no later than 45 days before its closure, as defined, takes effect, including providing written notice of the closure to specified entities, including the employees of the covered establishment affected by the closure and their authorized representatives if the covered establishment employs more than 5 employees, and the Employment Development Department. The bill would require, notwithstanding that provision, a covered establishment that employs 5 or fewer employees to, no later than 30 days before a closure of the covered establishment takes effect, provide written notice of the closure to the employees of the covered establishment affected by the closure. The bill would exempt, notwithstanding the same provision, specified covered establishments, including a covered establishment that, among other things, is a pharmacy and is owned by a person or entity who owns 15 or fewer pharmacies nationwide, from providing written notice to specified persons and entities, including the Employment Development Department. The bill would exempt a covered establishment from these requirements if specified circumstances apply, including that the closure is necessitated by a physical calamity or an act of war, except as specified. (2) Existing law authorizes an aggrieved employee of a grocery establishment or their representative, as described, to bring an action, as specified, for violations of the above-described change of control provisions to recover, among other awards, reasonable attorney's fees and costs, if specified requirements are met, including that the employee provided written notice to the employer of the violations, as specified. Existing law also authorizes a civil penalty not to exceed $100 against, among other specified entities, the grocery employer for each employee whose rights are violated under those provisions. Existing law also authorizes an additional amount of $100 per employee payable as liquidated damages for each day of the violation until the violation is cured, as specified, and authorizes that amount to be recovered by the Labor Commissioner, as specified, and paid to the employee as compensatory damages. This bill would authorize a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000 for each closure to be assessed and collected in a civil action against a covered establishment that violates the above-described written notice provisions brought by specified persons or entities, including any person injured by the violation, except as specified. The bill would require the court, in assessing the amount of the civil penalty, to consider relevant circumstances, including the nature and severity of the misconduct, and require the court to award a prevailing plaintiff reasonable attorney's fees and costs. The bill would require, if the action is pursued by specified entities, including the Attorney General, that specified portions of the civil penalty collected be paid to, among other specified sources, the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered. The bill would entitle an employee that does not receive the written notice to recover in a civil action an additional sum of $100 payable as liquidated damages per employee for each day of the violation until the violation is cured, as specified. The bill would specify that these provisions do not preempt or alter any other rights or remedies, including any causes of action, available under any other federal or state law, except as specified. (3) Existing law, the California Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, establishes local workforce development boards to perform duties related to the planning, oversight, and evaluation of local workforce investment, including identifying workforce training programs. This bill would require a county, after receiving a written notice described above from any covered establishment, to provide the local workforce development board of the county in which the covered establishment is located with information about safety net programs, including the CalWORKs program, and would require a local workforce development board to provide the covered establishment with information about safety net programs and the availability of local workforce training services. The bill would require a covered establishment that receives information from a county or a local workforce development board as described above, no later than 30 days before its closure, to provide any of that information it receives to each of its employees. By increasing the duties of a county and a local workforce development board, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (4) Existing law provides for various public social services programs in the state, which are administered by the State Department of Social Services, including the CalFresh program, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county, and the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, under which each county provides cash assistance and other benefits to qualified low-income families and individuals. This bill would require the department, after receiving a written notice described above from a grocery establishment, to transmit to the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture information stating that the grocery establishment will be closing and the closing date. (5) This bill would make findings and declarations relating to these provisions. (6) 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 requires the State Department of Public Health to maintain a program of maternal and child health, which may include, among other things, facilitating services directed toward reducing infant mortality and improving the health of mothers and children. Existing law requires the Office of Health Equity within the department to serve as a resource for ensuring that programs collect and keep data and information regarding ethnic and racial health statistics, and strategies and programs that address multicultural health issues, including, but not limited to, infant and maternal mortality. Existing law makes legislative findings relating to implicit bias and racial disparities in maternal mortality rates. Existing law requires a hospital that provides perinatal care, and an alternative birth center or a primary clinic that provides services as an alternative birth center, to implement an evidence-based implicit bias program, as specified, for all health care providers involved in perinatal care of patients within those facilities. Existing law requires the health care provider to complete initial basic training through the program and a refresher course every 2 years thereafter, or on a more frequent basis if deemed necessary by the facility. Existing law requires the facility to provide a certificate of training completion upon request, to accept certificates of completion from other facilities, and to offer training to physicians not directly employed by the facility. Existing law requires the department to track and publish data on pregnancy-related death and severe maternal morbidity, as specified. This bill would make a legislative finding that the Legislature recognizes all birthing people, including nonbinary persons and persons of transgender experience. The bill would extend the evidence-based implicit bias training requirements to specified health care providers at hospitals that provide perinatal care, alternative birth centers, or primary care clinics, as specified. The bill would require an implicit bias program to include recognition of intersecting identities and the potential associated biases. The bill would require initial basic training for the implicit bias program to be completed by June 1, 2025, for current health care providers, and within 6 months of their start date for new health care providers, unless exempted. The bill would require specified facilities to, by February 1 of each year, commencing in 2026, provide the Attorney General with proof of compliance with these provisions, as specified. The bill would authorize the Attorney General to pursue civil penalties for violations of these provisions, as specified. The bill would require that Attorney General be awarded all attorney's fees and costs in any civil action in which a court imposes any of those civil penalties. The bill would authorize the Attorney General to post on its internet website a list of facilities that did not timely submit proof of compliance or were assessed penalties under these provisions, as specified. The bill would authorize the Attorney General to post any other compliance data they deem necessary and would authorize the Attorney General to biennially publish a report outlining compliance data related to these provisions. The bill would make the provisions of the act 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 requires the department to establish the Medically Tailored Meals Pilot Program and the Short-Term Medically Tailored Meals Intervention Services Program, to operate in specified counties and during limited periods for the purpose of providing medically tailored meal intervention services to eligible Medi-Cal beneficiaries with certain health conditions, including congestive heart failure, cancer, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or renal disease. 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, medically supportive food and nutrition services, including medically tailored meals. This bill would make medically supportive food and nutrition interventions a covered benefit under the Medi-Cal program, through both the fee-for-service and managed care delivery systems, no sooner than July 1, 2026, upon appropriation and subject to federal approval and the issuance of final guidance by the department. The bill would require those interventions to be covered if determined to be medically necessary by a health care provider or health care plan, as specified. The bill would require the provision of interventions for 12 weeks, or longer if deemed medically necessary. The bill would require the department to define the qualifying medical conditions for covered interventions and delineate the services included in the definition of a medically supportive food and nutrition intervention. The bill would require a health care provider, to the extent possible, to match the acuity of a patient's condition to the intensity and duration of the covered intervention and to include culturally appropriate foods. The bill would require the department, upon appropriation, to establish a medically supportive food and nutrition benefit stakeholder group, with a specified composition, to advise the department on certain related items, such as the scope of the benefit, among others.
Existing law establishes, until January 1, 2030, the Racial Equity Commission within the Office of Planning and Research and requires the commission to develop resources, best practices, and tools for advancing racial equity by, among other things, developing a statewide Racial Equity Framework that includes methodologies and tools that can be employed to advance racial equity and address structural racism in California. This bill would require the Office of Legal Affairs, which would be established within the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency as provided by SB 1403 of the 2023–24 Regular Session, to, upon appropriation by the Legislature, review, investigate, and make certain determinations regarding applications from persons who claim they are the dispossessed owner, as defined, of property taken as a result of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill would define "racially motivated eminent domain" to mean when the state, county, city, city and county, district, or other political subdivision of the state acquires private property for public use and does not distribute just compensation to the owner at the time of the taking, and the taking, or the failure to provide just compensation, was due, in whole or in part, to the owner's ethnicity or race. Upon a determination that providing property or just compensation is warranted, as provided, the bill would require the Office of Legal Affairs to certify that the dispossessed owner is entitled to the return of the taken property, as specified, or other publicly held property, as defined, of equal value, or financial compensation, as specified. Upon a determination that the dispossessed owner is entitled to other publicly held property of equal value, the bill would require the Office of Legal Affairs to solicit and select, as specified, a list of recommendations of publicly held properties that are suitable as compensation, as provided. Upon a rejection of the determination of the Office of Legal Affairs by the state or local agency that took property by racially motivated eminent domain, the bill would authorize the dispossessed owner, as specified, to bring an action to challenge the taking or the amount of compensation, as provided. Upon a determination that an applicant is not a dispossessed owner or issuing property or just compensation is not warranted, the bill would require the Office of Legal Affairs to notify the applicant of its finding and provide an appeal process, as specified. The bill would make every finding, decision, determination, or other official act of the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency subject to judicial review. Existing law generally prohibits state agencies from employing in-house counsel to act on behalf of the agency or its employees in judicial or administrative adjudicative proceedings, but exempts specified agencies from this provision. This bill would exempt the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency from that provision. This bill would make related findings and declarations, including those related to a gift of public funds.
Existing law, the California Community Care Facilities Act, generally provides for the licensing and regulation of community care facilities, including child daycare facilities, by the State Department of Social Services. Existing law also requires the State Public Health Officer to establish rules and regulations establishing minimum standards for organized camps, defined as a site with a program and facilities established for the primary purposes of providing an outdoor group living experience with social, spiritual, educational, or recreational objectives, for 5 days or more during one or more seasons of the year, except as specified. This bill, subject to an appropriation by the Legislature for this purpose, would require the State Department of Social Services to prepare a report, in consultation with a wide variety of stakeholders, regarding approaches for children's camp health and safety regulation and oversight. The bill would require the stakeholder group to be composed of representatives of designated state entities, including, but not limited to, the State Department of Public Health and the State Department of Education, and other stakeholders, such as parent advocate groups and local parks and health departments. The bill would require the department, following consultation with the stakeholder group, and within 24 months after funds are appropriated, to submit its recommendations in a report to the Legislature, as specified. The bill would require the recommendations to address a definition for a children's camp, the government agency or agencies necessary to establish and enforce rules and regulations relating to children's camps, and minimum health and safety requirements, as specified. The bill would require the report to include costs estimates for implementation of the recommendations included in the report.
The California Endangered Species Act prohibits the taking of an endangered, threatened, or candidate species, except as specified. Under the act, the Department of Fish and Wildlife (department) may authorize the take of listed species by certain entities through permits or memorandums of understanding for specified purposes. Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal to identify areas in the state as moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones based on consistent statewide criteria and based on the severity of fire hazard that is expected to prevail in those areas. Existing law requires a local agency to designate, by ordinance, moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones in its jurisdiction within 120 days of receiving recommendations from the State Fire Marshal, as provided. This bill would authorize a city, county, city and county, special district, or other local agency to submit to the department a wildfire preparedness plan to conduct wildfire preparedness activities on land designated as a fire hazard severity zone, as defined, that minimizes impacts to wildlife and habitat for candidate, threatened, and endangered species. The bill would require the wildfire preparedness plan to include, among other things, a brief description of the planned wildfire preparedness activities, the approximate dates for the activities, and a description of the candidate, endangered, and threatened species within the plan area. The bill would require the department, if sufficient information is included in the wildfire preparedness plan for the department to determine if an incidental take permit is required, to notify the local agency within 90 days of receipt of the wildfire preparedness plan if an incidental take permit or other permit is needed, or if there are other considerations, exemptions, or streamlined pathways that the wildfire preparedness activities qualify for, including, but not limited to, the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection's California Vegetation Treatment Program. The bill would require the department to provide the local agency, in its notification, with guidance that includes, among other things, a description of the candidate, endangered, and threatened species within the plan area and measures to avoid, minimize, and fully mitigate the take of the candidate, threatened, and endangered species, as provided. The bill would require the department, on or before July 1, 2025, to make a standard wildfire preparedness plan submission form publicly available on its internet website. The bill also would require the department, commencing January 1, 2026, to annually post on its internet website a summary of the wildfire preparedness plans submitted and include specified information in that summary.
Existing law, commencing with the 2023–24 fiscal year, appropriates $300,000,000 each fiscal year from the General Fund to the Superintendent of Public Instruction for allocation for the Local Control Funding Formula Equity Multiplier apportionment, as provided. Existing law requires the funding to be allocated to eligible local educational agencies that generate a specified local control funding formula entitlement based on, among other things, the percentage of unduplicated pupils served. Existing law establishes the Strong Workforce Program to provide funding to career technical education regional consortia made up of community college districts and local educational agencies, as specified. Existing law also establishes a K–12 component of the Strong Workforce Program. Existing law provides that, commencing with the 2018–19 fiscal year, the amount appropriated in the annual Budget Act for the K–12 component of the program is used to create, support, or expand high-quality career technical education programs at the K–12 level that are aligned with the workforce development efforts occurring through the program. Existing law requires each consortium to form a K–12 Selection Committee, as specified, for purposes of awarding grants under the K–12 component of the program and requires that applicants with certain characteristics be given positive consideration, as specified. This bill would require positive consideration for purposes of awarding grants under the K–12 component of the program to also be given to applicants that serve pupils enrolled at local educational agencies receiving Local Control Funding Formula Equity Multiplier funding.
Under existing law, the State Department of Public Health is responsible for the statewide administration of various programs and policies relating to personal health, including maternal, child, and adolescent health. Existing law requires the department to develop a coordinated state strategy for addressing the health-related needs of women, including implementation of goals and objectives for women's health, as specified. This bill would require the department to develop an awareness campaign to publicize the internet website "abortion.ca.gov" to the general public, health care providers, health care professional associations and societies, health care employers, local public health officers, and local health departments. The bill would require the department to implement the awareness campaign upon an appropriation by the Legislature for that purpose.
This measure would, among other things, urge the United States Congress and President Joseph R. Biden to fully fund the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Comprehensive Infrastructure Solution for the Tijuana River due to the ongoing impacts to public health, the environment, and the local economy caused by cross-border pollution and would urge President Joseph R. Biden to declare a national emergency due to those ongoing impacts.