Asm. Cheryl R. Brown

Existing law establishes the State Department of Public Health in state government. Existing law vests within the department certain duties and powers to protect and preserve the public health. This bill would require the State Department of Public Health to develop, on or before June 1, 2018, a state data collection plan and uniform standards and protocols for purposes of collecting statewide information on unintentional injury incidents, as specified. The bill would specify that its provisions not be construed to require data collection beyond that required by existing law.

Existing law, the Gambling Control Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of various legalized gambling activities and establishments by the California Gambling Control Commission and the investigation and enforcement of those activities and establishments by the Department of Justice. Existing law prohibits a person, whether or not for gain, hire, or reward, from making a betting pool or placing a bet or wager on the result of any contest or event, including a sporting event, as specified. This bill would enact the Internet Fantasy Sports Games Consumer Protection Act, which would require a person or entity to apply for, and receive, a license from the department prior to offering an Internet fantasy sports game for play in California. The bill would require the department to issue a license to a person or entity that applies for a license if the person or entity satisfies specified requirements, including, among others, that the applicant is of good character, honesty, and integrity. The bill would also require a person to register with a "licensed operator" prior to participating in an "Internet fantasy sports game" on an "authorized Internet Web site," as those terms are defined. The bill would prohibit a licensed operator from offering an Internet fantasy sports game based on a collegiate sports or athletic event, or any other sports or athletic event in which amateur athletes participate. The bill would require a licensed operator, among other things, to ensure that a registered player is eligible to play on an authorized Internet Web site, and to implement appropriate data security standards to prevent access by a person whose age and location have not been verified. The bill would authorize the department to assess a civil penalty against a licensed operator that violates these provisions according to a specified schedule depending on the number of violations. The bill would require the department to develop an online self-exclusion form on or before July 1, 2017, and to deliver that form to each licensed operator, and would require each licensed operator to make that form available to its registered players. The bill would also require a licensed operator to, among other things, hold the funds in a registered player's account in trust for that registered player. The bill would prohibit a licensed operator from engaging in certain activities, including, among other things, from allowing a registered player to establish more than one account or user name on its authorized Internet Web site, from issuing credit to a registered player, from advertising in publications or other media that are aimed exclusively or primarily at persons under 21 years of age, and from depicting persons under 21 years of age, students, or school or college settings in its advertisements. The bill would also prohibit an officer, director, principal, employee, or contractor of a licensed operator from engaging in certain activities, including, among other things, from playing an Internet fantasy sports game offered by a licensed operator. The bill would require a licensed operator to pay an annual regulatory fee, for deposit into the Fantasy Sports Fund, which the bill would establish in the State Treasury. The bill would continuously appropriate the Fantasy Sports Fund to the department for the reasonable costs of license oversight, consumer protection, state regulation, and other purposes related to the bill. The bill would require each licensed operator to pay a one-time license fee into the General Fund in an unspecified amount. The license fee would be credited against quarterly fees equivalent to an unspecified percentage of the licensed operator's gross income that is attributable to the operation of an authorized Internet Web site in California. The bill would make proprietary information provided by a licensed operator confidential in order to protect the licensed operator and to protect the security of an authorized Internet Web site. The bill would also prohibit a city, county, or city and county from regulating, taxing, or entering into a contract with respect to, any matter governed to the bill's provisions, and would make conforming changes. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIIIA of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

(1) The California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009 provides for the regulation of private postsecondary educational institutions by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education in the Department of Consumer Affairs. The act also establishes the Student Tuition Recovery Fund and requires the bureau to adopt regulations governing the administration and maintenance of the fund, including requirements relating to assessments on students and student claims against the fund, and establishes that the moneys in this fund are continuously appropriated to the bureau for specified purposes. This bill would appropriate the sum of $1,300,000 from the Student Tuition Recovery Fund to the Attorney General for the purposes of providing grants to eligible nonprofit community service organizations to assist eligible students affected by the closure of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., as defined, with loan discharge and other student loan-related requests and tuition recovery-related claims, and to pay an amount not to exceed $150,000 for the reasonable administrative costs of the Attorney General's office related to these grants, as specified. The bill would require the bureau to notify the Attorney General of all unlawful Corinthian Colleges closures within 15 days of the effective date of these provisions. The bill would require the Attorney General to, among other things, within 90 days of the notification, solicit grant applications from eligible nonprofit community service organizations, select one or more of these organizations deemed to be qualified, and set additional terms and conditions of the grants as necessary. The bill would provide that any unused funds are to be returned to the Attorney General for return to the Student Tuition Recovery Fund, except that, upon the approval of the Attorney General, an eligible nonprofit community service organization may expend those unused funds to provide assistance to students who were enrolled at an institution approved to operate by the bureau and who were harmed by the unlawful closure of that institution. The bill would set a schedule for how grant funds are to be distributed. The bill would require the grantee to submit specified information to the Attorney General on a quarterly basis, and require the Attorney General to make these reports available to the Legislature and the bureau upon request. The bill would require the Attorney General to provide the Legislature and the bureau a final report summarizing all the information submitted to it by grantees, promptly following the time when all funds are expended by the grantees, or by January 1, 2019, whichever is earlier. The bill would authorize the Attorney General to contract with another qualified entity to perform the Attorney General's duties under these provisions. (2) This bill would, until July 1, 2020, authorize state agencies that provide licensure to consider for licensure students who were enrolled in an educational program of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., designed to lead to licensure from that state agency, and who did not receive that licensure due to the institution's closure. (3) The Cal Grant Program prohibits an applicant from receiving Cal Grant awards totaling in excess of the amount equivalent to the award level for a total of 4 years of full-time attendance in an undergraduate program, except as provided. This bill would partially exempt from this limitation on Cal Grant awards a student who was enrolled and received a Cal Grant award at a California campus of Heald College, and who was unable to complete an educational program offered by the campus due to its closure. (4) The California National Guard Education Assistance Award Program authorizes the renewal of California National Guard Education Assistance Awards, for a maximum of the greater of either 4 years of full-time equivalent enrollment or the duration for which the qualifying member would otherwise be eligible pursuant to the Cal Grant Program, if specified conditions are met. This bill would partially exempt from this limitation on California National Guard Education Assistance Awards a student who was enrolled and received a California National Guard Education Assistance Award at a California campus of Heald College, and who was unable to complete an educational program offered by the campus due to its closure. (5) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law requires that all persons honorably discharged from the control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, Division of Juvenile Justice, to thereafter be released from all penalties or disabilities resulting from the offense for which they were committed. Existing law separately requires that every person discharged from the control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Juvenile Justice, who has not, during the period of control, been placed in a state prison, to thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense or crime for which he or she was committed. This bill would require all persons honorably discharged from the control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Juvenile Justice by the Board of Parole Hearings, Juvenile Division or from the control of the county probation department by the juvenile court to be released from all penalties or disabilities resulting from the offense for which they were committed. The bill would require that each person honorably discharged from the control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Juvenile Justice by the Board of Parole Hearings, Juvenile Division, and each person discharged from the control of the county probation department by the juvenile court who has not, during the period of control, been placed in a state prison, to thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense or crime for which he or she was committed.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. The California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program requires the commission to establish a renewables portfolio standard requiring all retail sellers, defined as including an electrical corporation, to procure a minimum quantity of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, at specified percentages of the total kilowatthours sold to their retail end-use customers during specified compliance periods. The program requires the commission to direct each electrical corporation to annually prepare a renewable energy procurement plan to satisfy its procurement requirements pursuant to the program. As part of the renewable energy procurement plan process, the commission is required to adopt rules establishing a process that provides criteria for the rank ordering and selection of least-cost and best-fit eligible renewable energy resources to comply with the program's procurement obligations and requires that the criteria take specified matters into account, including workforce recruitment, training, and retention efforts, as specified. This bill would require that the criteria take into account jobs retained associated with contracting for existing eligible renewable energy resources.

This measure would proclaim that Monday, January 18, 2016, be observed as the official memorial of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birth and his work in the Civil Rights Movement.