Existing law provides that every person who possesses for sale or purchases for purposes of sale cocaine base is subject to imprisonment in a county jail for a period of 3, 4, or 5 years. This bill instead would provide that every person who possesses for sale or purchases for purposes of sale cocaine base is subject to imprisonment in a county jail for 2, 3, or 4 years. Existing law generally provides that the interest of any registered owner of a boat, airplane, or any vehicle, except as specified, that has been used to facilitate the manufacture of, or possession for sale or sale of, 14.25 grams or more of cocaine base or 28.5 grams or more of cocaine is subject to forfeiture, as specified. This bill would revise that provision to instead make property that has been used to facilitate the manufacture of, or possession for sale or sale of, 28.5 grams or more of cocaine base or cocaine subject to forfeiture. Existing law, except in unusual cases, prohibits granting probation or suspending a sentence for persons convicted of specified crimes relating to controlled substances, including possessing for sale a substance containing 57 grams or more of a substance containing cocaine, 14.25 grams or more of cocaine base, or 57 grams or more of a substance containing at least 5 grams of cocaine base, and transporting or importing for sale, selling, or offering to sell cocaine base. This bill would delete those provisions and would instead prohibit, except in unusual cases, granting probation or suspending a sentence for persons convicted of possessing for sale or selling a substance containing 28.5 grams or more of cocaine base or 57 grams or more of a substance containing at least 5 grams of cocaine or cocaine base. By making additional persons eligible for probation, 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.
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Existing law regulates the sale of certain merchandise, including political items and sports memorabilia. This bill would prohibit the State of California from selling or displaying the Battle Flag of the Confederacy, or a similar image, or tangible personal property inscribed with those images, unless the image appears in a book, digital medium, or state museum that serves an educational or historical purpose.
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 the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires a health care service plan or health insurer to comply with specified minimum medical loss ratios and requires a plan or insurer to provide an annual rebate to enrollees and insureds if the ratio of the amount of premium revenue expended by the plan or insurer on specified costs to the total amount of premium revenue is less than a certain percentage. Existing law specifies that these requirements do not apply to specialized health care service plan contracts or specialized health insurance policies. This bill would require health care services plans that issue, sell, renew, or offer specialized dental health care service plan contracts and health insurers that issue, sell, renew, or offer specialized dental health insurance policies to, no later than September 30, 2015, and each year thereafter, file a report, to be known as the MLR annual report, with the departments that contains the same information required in the 2013 federal Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) Annual Reporting Form. The bill would require the Department of Managed Health Care or the Department of Insurance, as applicable and, if a financial examination is determined to be necessary to verify the representations in the MLR annual report, to provide the health care service plan or health insurer with a notification before conducting the examination, and would require the plan or insurer to electronically submit to the appropriate department specified requested records, books, and papers. The bill would declare the intent of the Legislature that the data reported pursuant to these provisions be considered by the Legislature in adopting a medical loss ratio standard for health care service plans and specialized health insurance policies that cover dental services that would take effect no later than January 1, 2018. The bill would authorize the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance, until January 1, 2018, to issue guidance to health care service plans and health insurers of specialized health insurance policies subject to these provisions regarding compliance with these provisions, as specified. Because a willful violation of the bill's requirements by a health care service plan would be a crime, 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.
Existing law, the Urban Water Management Planning Act, requires every public and private urban water supplier that directly or indirectly provides water for municipal purposes to prepare and adopt an urban water management plan and to update its plan once every 5 years on or before December 31 in years ending in 5 and zero. The act requires the plan to, among other things, include a description of each water demand management measure that is currently being implemented, and an evaluation of specified water demand management measures that are not currently being implemented or scheduled for implementation. The bill would instead require an urban retail water supplier and an urban wholesale water supplier to provide narratives describing the supplier's water demand management measures, as provided. The bill would require, for urban retail water suppliers, the narrative to address the nature and extent of each water demand management measure implemented over the past 5 years and describe the water demand management measures that the supplier plans to implement to achieve its water use targets. The bill would require each urban water supplier to submit its 2015 plan to the Department of Water Resources by July 1, 2016. Existing law imposes various water use reduction requirements that apply to urban retail water suppliers, including a requirement that the state achieve a 20% reduction in urban per capita water use by December 31, 2020. Existing law requires an urban retail water supplier to develop urban water use targets and to report to the Department of Water Resources its progress on meeting its urban water use target as a part of its urban water management plan. Existing law requires an urban wholesale water supplier to include in its urban water management plan an assessment of its measures, programs, and policies to help achieve the required water use reductions. Existing law requires, by December 31, 2016, the department to review the 2015 urban water management plans and report to the Legislature on the progress toward achieving the 20% reduction in urban water use. The bill would extend the date by which the department is required to review the plans and report to the Legislature to July 1, 2017. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 10631 of the Water Code proposed by SB 1420 that would become operative if this bill and SB 1420 are both enacted and this bill is enacted last.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws, including a credit against those taxes for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2011, in an amount equal to an applicable percentage of either 20% or 25%, respectively, of the qualified expenditures, as defined, attributable to the production of a qualified motion picture in California, or, where the qualified motion picture is a television series that relocated to California or is an independent film, as provided. Existing law imposes specified duties on the California Film Commission related to the administration of the credits, including a requirement to allocate the tax credits until July 1, 2017, and limits the aggregate amount of credits that may be allocated to qualified motion pictures in any fiscal year to $100,000,000 through the 2016–17 fiscal year. Existing law, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2011, in lieu of the credits authorized under the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law for qualified motion pictures described above, also allows a credit against qualified state sales and use taxes, as provided. Existing law provides for a tentative minimum tax and further provides that, except for specified credits, no other credit shall reduce the tax imposed below the tentative minimum tax. This bill would establish similar credits under the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2016, to be allocated by the California Film Commission on or after July 1, 2015, and before July 1, 2020. This bill would, as compared to the existing tax credits, extend the scope of the credits for a qualified motion picture to the applicable percentage of qualified expenditures up to $100,000,000, would extend the credit to qualified expenditures for television pilot episodes, and would determine an applicable percentage of 25% or 20% for qualified expenditures, with an additional credit amount available, as specified. This bill would limit the aggregate amount of these new credits to be allocated in each fiscal year to up to $330 million, and would, subject to a computation and ranking of applicants based on the jobs ratio, as defined, require the California Film Commission to allocate credit amounts subject to specified categories of qualified motion pictures. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2016, in lieu of the credits authorized under the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law for qualified motion pictures described above, allow a credit against qualified state sales and use taxes, as provided. This bill would also require the Legislative Analyst's Office to prepare reports related to the effectiveness and administration of the qualified motion picture credit under the Sales and Use Tax Law, the Personal Income Tax Law, and the Corporation Tax Law. This bill would, for taxable years, beginning on or after January 1, 2016, additionally allow the credit under the Corporation Tax Law for qualified expenditures for the production of qualified motion pictures to reduce the tentative minimum tax. This bill would also make findings and declarations related to the entertainment industry, and would urge the United States Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission to investigate and impose sanctions on specified motion picture productions and elements of production to combat unfair and illegal competition. 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. The bill would state that its provisions are severable. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 23036 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, proposed by AB 2754, to be operative only if AB 2754 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2015, and this bill is chaptered last. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law authorizes the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to issue specialty license plates, including environmental license plates and specified special environmental design license plates. Under existing law, a state agency is authorized to apply to the DMV to sponsor a specialized license plate program, and the DMV is required to issue those license plates if the agency meets certain requirements. The DMV is required to charge specified fees for certain services related to the issuance of those plates. Existing law establishes the Breast Cancer Control Account in the Breast Cancer Fund, and requires that funds in that account, upon appropriation by the Legislature, be allocated for the provision of early breast cancer detection services for uninsured and underinsured women. This bill would require the State Department of Health Care Services to apply to sponsor a breast cancer awareness license plate program, and would require the DMV to issue the license plates if the State Department of Health Care Services meets certain requirements. The bill would authorize the State Department of Health Care Services to accept and use donated artwork from California artists for the license plate. The bill would require the revenue generated from the license plates, as specified, to be deposited in the Breast Cancer Control Account in the Breast Cancer Fund. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
This measure would declare November 8, 2014, as California Solar Professionals Day.
This measure would urge the National Football League (NFL) to join with the Legislature and numerous organizations in calling for a name change for the Washington, D.C. NFL team, and calls upon the owners of NFL teams based in California to urge the owner of the Washington, D.C. NFL team and the NFL Commissioner to change the team mascot.
This measure would declare November 2014 as Diabetes Awareness Month.
This measure would recognize the month of October 2014 as Filipino American History Month and the 427th anniversary of the first presence of Filipinos in the continental United States.