Existing law requires that an election for congressional and state elective offices be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of each even-numbered year. Existing law requires a presidential general election to be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in any year that is evenly divisible by the number 4. Existing law designates specific days as holidays in this state. Existing law designates holidays on which community colleges and public schools are required to close. Existing law entitles state employees, with specified exceptions, to be given time off with pay for specified holidays. Existing law designates optional bank holidays. This bill would add the day on which a statewide general election is held, which is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of any even-numbered year, to these lists of holidays. The bill would require community colleges and public schools to close on any day on which a statewide general election is held. The bill would require the California State University, and request the University of California, to close campuses on a day on which a statewide general election is held. The bill would require that state employees, with specified exceptions, be given time off with pay for days on which a statewide general election is held. The bill would provide that the third Monday in February, also known as Washington Day, is observed only in odd-numbered years. By increasing the duties of local officials, 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.
Sponsored bills
Existing law authorizes the Employment Development Department (department) to administer the federal-state unemployment insurance program and provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits to eligible individuals who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Existing law establishes procedures for the filing, determination, and payment of benefit claims, and those benefits are payable from the Unemployment Fund. Existing law requires the department to promptly pay benefits if it finds the claimant is eligible and to promptly deny benefits if it finds the claimant is ineligible for benefits. Existing law requires the department to consider facts submitted by an employer in making this determination and also provides for the department to audit claims, as specified. This bill would, beginning July 1, 2021, require the department, as part of its process for determining eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits, cross-check all claimant information with state and county correctional facility inmate data in an effort to detect fraudulent applications. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law establishes a motor vehicle inspection and maintenance (smog check) program that is administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs. The smog check program requires inspection of motor vehicles upon initial registration, biennially upon renewal of registration, upon transfer of ownership, and in certain other circumstances. Existing law exempts specified vehicles from being inspected biennially upon renewal of registration, including, among others, all motor vehicles manufactured prior to the 1976 model year. This bill would also exempt from the biennial smog check inspections all motor vehicles manufactured after the 1976 model year but prior to the 1983 model year if the owner submits proof that the motor vehicle is insured as a collector motor vehicle.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow a credit (CalCompetes tax credit) against the taxes imposed under those laws, for each taxable year beginning on and after January 1, 2014, and before January 1, 2030, in an amount as provided in a written agreement between the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and the taxpayer, approved by the California Competes Tax Credit Committee, and based on specified factors, including the number of jobs the taxpayer will create or retain in the state and the amount of investment in the state by the taxpayer. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax credit to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax credit will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill, for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years, would increase the total amount of credits that may be allocated by $10,000,000 and would require that those credits be reserved for pharmaceutical companies, as defined. The bill also would include additional information required for any bill authorizing a new income tax credit. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law establishes the Employment Development Department, administered by the Director of Employment Development, within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties related to the administration of the state unemployment and disability compensation programs. This bill would require the department to establish, upon appropriation by the Legislature, an advisory committee to advise the department on matters within the department's jurisdiction, including, but not limited to, unemployment insurance. The bill would require the committee to include members representing a diverse spectrum of private and public employers and employees impacted by programs overseen by the department, as provided. The bill would require the committee to hold open and public meetings in compliance with the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act at least once a quarter. The bill would require, commencing on January 1, 2023, the committee to prepare and publicly publish an annual report describing its activities, including, but not limited to, recommendations made by the advisory committee and the department's response to those recommendations. The bill would also make related findings and declarations.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, in modified conformity with federal law, generally define "gross income" as income from whatever source derived, except as specifically excluded, and provides various exclusions from gross income for purposes of computing tax liability. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2021, and before January 1, 2026, would exclude, under both laws, from gross income the amount of a grant awarded pursuant to the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law establishes the Employment Development Department within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties, including administration of the unemployment and disability insurance programs for California. Existing law requires the department to pay unemployment compensation benefits to unemployed individuals meeting specified requirements, to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program, and to report to the Legislature, as specified. Under existing law, unemployment compensation benefits are paid from the Unemployment Fund, and the expenses for administering these provisions are paid from the Unemployment Administration Fund, which is continuously appropriated for these purposes. This bill would establish the Unemployment Insurance Reform Project to be administered by the Director of Employment Development. Under the bill, the Employment Development Department would be required to comply with various reporting and review processes. In this regard, the bill would require the department to report specified information regarding overpayments at least once every 6 months on its internet website, to immediately perform a risk assessment of its deferred workloads, and to develop a workload plan that prioritizes its deferred workloads based on that risk assessment. The bill would require the department to develop a recession plan so that it is well prepared to provide services during future economic downturns, as specified. The bill would require the department to, by March 1, 2021, revise its public dashboards with regard to the number of backlogged claims, as specified. This bill would require the department to convene a working group to assess the lessons learned from claim surges and identify the processes that the department can still improve and issue a report by January 1, 2022, as specified. The bill would require the department, by June 1, 2021, to determine the reasons that claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification, as specified, and to identify the elements of the Benefit System Modernization that can assist the department in making timely payments. This bill would require the department to, by May 1, 2021, implement a formal policy that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why unemployment insurance claimants call for assistance and, by October 1, 2021, and every 6 months thereafter, to analyze this data to improve its call center. Because this bill would authorize the expenditure of funds from the Unemployment Administration Fund for new purposes, the bill would make an appropriation.
(1) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. Existing law authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. This bill would continuously appropriate $480,000,000 and $20,000,000 to the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention and the California Conservation Corps, respectively, for fire prevention activities, as provided. (2) The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973 prohibits a person from conducting timber operations unless a timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional forester has been submitted to, and approved by, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Existing law, until January 1, 2022, authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to exempt from the requirements of that act a person engaged in forest management whose activities are limited to the cutting or removal of trees on the person's property that eliminates the vertical continuity of vegetative fuels and the horizontal continuity of tree crowns for the purpose of reducing flammable materials and maintaining a fuelbreak for a distance of not more than 300 feet on each side from an approved and legally permitted habitable structure, when that cutting or removal is conducted in compliance with certain requirements. This bill would extend the state board's authorization to provide for the above exemption indefinitely. The bill would extend the distance of the fuelbreak to not more than 500 feet. (3) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. This bill would exempt from the requirements of CEQA projects or activities related to forest health and fuel reduction that involve thinning overgrown brushes or trees 10 inches or less in diameter by mechanical thinning, pile burning, prescribed fire, and grazing. Because a lead agency would be required to determine the applicability of this exemption, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (4) 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.
Existing law establishes the Office of Small Business Advocate within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development for the purpose of advocating for the causes of small business and to provide small businesses with the information they need to survive in the marketplace. This bill, the Keep California Working Act, would establish the Keep California Working Grant Program. The act would require the Small Business Advocate to administer the program and award grants, as specified, to small businesses and nonprofit entities that meet specified criteria, including that the entity has experienced economic hardship resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The act would specify that grant money awarded pursuant to the program may be used only for specified purposes, including payroll costs, health care benefits, paid sick, medical, or family leave, and insurance premiums. The act would appropriate $2.6 billion dollars to the Office of Small Business Advocate for those purposes. The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, in conformity with federal income tax law, generally define "gross income" as income from whatever source derived, except as specifically excluded, and provide various exclusions from gross income. This bill would exclude from gross income, for state income tax purposes, the amount of a grant awarded pursuant to the Keep California Working Grant Program. Existing law requires a bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. The bill also would include additional information required for a bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) , it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer, unless based upon a bona fide occupational qualification or applicable security regulations established by the United States or the State of California, to refuse to hire or employ a person or to refuse to select a person for a training program leading to employment, or to bar or discharge a person from employment or a training program leading to employment, or to discriminate against a person in compensation or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of the race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or military and veteran status of that person. FEHA provides that nothing in that act relating to discrimination on account of sex affects the right of an employer to use veteran status as a factor in employee selection or to give special consideration to Vietnam-era veterans. This bill would enact the Voluntary Veterans' Preference Employment Policy Act to authorize a private employer to establish and maintain a written veterans' preference employment policy, to be applied uniformly to hiring decisions, to give a voluntary preference for hiring a veteran over another qualified applicant. The bill would require a private employer with a veterans' preference employment policy to annually report to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing the number of veterans hired under the preference policy and any demographic information about those veterans that the employer obtained in response to the department's reporting requirements. Under the bill, failure to submit that report would render any preference granted by the employer ineligible for the protections provided by this bill. The bill would require the department to report that information, in addition to the number of discrimination claims received based on an employer's veterans' preference employment policy, to specified legislative policy committees by July 1, 2025, and July 1, 2027. The bill would provide that the granting of a veterans' preference pursuant to the bill, in and of itself, shall be deemed not to violate any local or state equal employment opportunity law or regulation, including, but not limited to, the antidiscrimination provisions of FEHA. The bill would revise the existing veteran status provision in FEHA to remove references to discrimination on account of sex and to Vietnam-era veterans, and would, instead, provide that nothing in that act relating to discrimination affects the right of an employer to use veteran status as a factor in hiring decisions if the employer maintains a veterans' preference employment policy established in accordance with the Voluntary Veterans' Preference Employment Policy Act. The bill would prohibit a veterans' preference employment policy from being established or applied for the purpose of discriminating against an employment applicant on the basis of a protected classification, as specified. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2028.