Asm. Jim Patterson

This measure would designate the month of June 2021 as Healthy Homes Awareness Month.

Existing law provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits to eligible persons who are unemployed through no fault of their own through a federal-state unemployment insurance program administered by the Employment Development Department, subject to oversight by the Director of Employment Development. Under existing law, the expenses of administering the unemployment insurance program are paid from the Unemployment Administration Fund, a continuously appropriated fund. Existing law requires the Department of Justice to maintain state summary criminal history information, including the identification and criminal history of a person, including name, date of birth, social security number, physical description, fingerprints, photographs, dates of arrests, arresting agencies and booking numbers, charges, dispositions, sentencing information, and similar data about the person. Existing law requires the Attorney General to furnish this information to specified persons, agencies, or organizations, including the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, if needed in the course of their duties. Existing law makes it a crime for any person authorized by law to receive state summary criminal history information to knowingly furnish the information to a person who is not authorized by law to receive it. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide the names and social security numbers of current inmates to the Employment Development Department for the purposes of preventing payments on fraudulent claims for unemployment compensation benefits. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide the information to the Employment Development Department at least every 90 calendar days and upon that department's request. Because this bill would expand the group of persons who can be convicted for knowingly furnishing state summary criminal history information to unauthorized persons, it would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would require, for the purpose of preventing payments on fraudulent claims for unemployment compensation benefits, for any unemployment compensation benefits paid on and after July 1, 2021, the Director of Employment Development to verify with the information provided by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation before making any payment of unemployment compensation benefits that the claimant is not an inmate currently incarcerated in the state prisons. The bill would also prohibit the department from using the information provided by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation unless the information of current inmates is equal to or less than 90 calendar days old. This bill would require, if the department determines a claimant is an inmate currently incarcerated in the state prisons, the department to notify the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of Justice of the attempt to make a fraudulent claim for unemployment compensation benefits. The bill would authorize the Employment Development Department to disseminate social security numbers to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for this purpose. By expanding the purposes of a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation. 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains personal information about that individual, including, but not limited to, the individual's social security number, telephone number, driver's license number, or credit card account number, unless that personal information is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence. Existing law, commencing on or before January 1, 2023, prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail that contains an individual's social security number unless the number is truncated to its last 4 digits or in specified circumstances. This bill would instead require, as soon as feasible, but not later than January 1, 2023, a state agency to stop sending any outgoing United States mail that contains an individual's social security number unless the number is truncated to its last 4 digits or in specified circumstances. The bill, commencing on or before October 1, 2021, would prohibit, with exceptions, the Employment Development Department from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual containing the individual's social security number, unless that social security number is replaced with a modified unique identifier or the number is truncated to its last 4 digits. Existing law creates, in the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Employment Development Department, which is vested with the duties, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction with respect to job creation activities. Existing law requires the Director of Employment Development to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program to identify those policies and practices doing certain things, including, but not limited to, providing little or no value in identifying or preventing fraud or abuse in the unemployment insurance program. This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2022, to identify the fraud prevention efforts it can adjust to improve effectiveness during periods of high demand for benefits. The bill would also require the department, on or before January 1, 2022, using existing resources, to designate a single unit responsible for coordinating fraud prevention and align the unit's duties with best practices for detecting and preventing fraud. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

(1) The Uniform Parentage Act defines the parent and child relationship as the legal relationship existing between a child and the child's parents, and provides rebuttable presumptions as to the parentage of a child born under the circumstances of conception through assisted reproduction using donated ova, sperm, or both. The act defines "assisted reproduction" for these purposes to mean conception by any means other than sexual intercourse. This bill would establish that a provider of an embryo for use in assisted reproduction to an intended parent who is not the provider's spouse or nonmarital partner is treated in law as if the provider is not the natural parent of a child thereby conceived unless the court finds satisfactory evidence that the provider and the intended parent intended for the provider to be a parent. If a donated embryo includes ova or sperm from a person other than a provider of the embryo, the bill would require that person's consent to the donation unless the person has executed a writing to consent, waive, or relinquish their right to the embryo, or as otherwise ordered by a court of law. (2) Existing law permits a proceeding to be brought for the purpose of having a child under 18 years of age declared free from the custody and control of either or both parents when the child's parent or parents have been convicted of a felony of a nature that proves the unfitness of the parent or parents to have future custody and control of the child. Existing law authorizes the court to consider the parent's criminal record prior to the felony conviction for these purposes. This bill instead would require the court to consider the parent's criminal record, and would not restrict that consideration to the period prior to the felony conviction. Existing law authorizes specified individuals to provide the court with a written recommendation of the proper disposition to be made in the best interest of the child, and specifies the contents of that report. This bill would recast and revise those provisions and would add to the required contents of the report a summary of the child's past and current living circumstances and residence history, a background summary regarding each nonagency party to the case, and a recommendation whether granting or denying the petition would serve the child's best interest. The bill would require each party to cooperate with the investigation. (3) Existing law authorizes an adoption request for the adoption of a nondependent minor to be filed with the court in the county in which one of specified criteria applies and sets forth those individuals who may file an adoption request. Under existing law, an order of adoption is required to contain the child's adopted name, but not the name of the child before the adoption. This bill would add to the list of persons authorized to file an adoption request a person named in a court order terminating parental rights as the child's legal guardian or prospective adoptive parent. The bill would require the adoption order to include both the child's adopted name and the name of the child before the adoption. The bill would replace references to an adoption petition and refer instead to an adoption request. (4) Existing law declares that some adoptive children may benefit from contact with birth relatives, as specified, after being adopted, and that postadoption contact agreements are intended to ensure children of an achievable level of continuing contact when contact is beneficial to the children and the agreements are voluntarily executed by the parties. Existing law requires the Judicial Council to adopt rules of court and forms for motions to enforce, terminate, or modify postadoption contact agreements. This bill would, among other things, additionally find and declare that some adoptive children may benefit from contact with nonrelative extended family members. The bill would require the court, at the time an adoption decree is entered, to grant postadoption contact privileges, as specified. The bill would add a definition of birth relative, for purposes of these provisions. The bill would require that a petitioner inform the court in writing whether the petitioners have entered or plan to enter into a postadoption contact agreement, as specified. (5) Existing law prohibits any person who has not petitioned to adopt a child from removing the child from the county in which the child was placed without first obtaining the written consent of the licensed adoption agency. Existing law further prohibits the child proposed to be adopted from being concealed within the county in which the adoption proceeding is pending. This bill would, among other things, prohibit the child proposed to be adopted from being concealed from the agency that is investigating the adoption or from the court with jurisdiction over the adoption proceeding. (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.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations, and can establish its own procedures, subject to statutory limitations or directions and constitutional requirements of due process. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law requires the commission to exercise its regulatory authority to maintain the California High-Cost Fund-A program to provide universal service rate support to small independent telephone corporations, as defined, in amounts sufficient to meet the revenue requirements established by the commission through rate-of-return regulation in furtherance of the state's universal service commitment to the continued affordability and widespread availability of safe, reliable, high-quality communications services in rural areas of the state. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature that the commission adopt procedures to increase the efficiency of its ratemaking processes for small independent telephone corporations and allow, wherever reasonably possible, a small independent telephone corporation to request adjustments to its revenue requirement or rate design through either an advice letter or an application process. If a rate case is submitted by application by a small independent telephone corporation, the bill would require the parties to that rate case to participate in at least one day of facilitated mediation with a neutral administrative law judge pursuant to the commission's alternative dispute resolution program. The bill would require a moving party, before filing a motion in a small independent telephone corporation's rate case, to meet and confer in a good faith effort with all other parties to informally resolve the subject of the motion, and require that all motions include facts demonstrating the moving party's good faith effort to meet and confer before filing the motion. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. 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 federal law establishes the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) , which provides specified services for older individuals at a PACE center, defined, in part, as a facility that includes a primary care clinic, so that they may continue living in the community. Federal law authorizes states to implement the PACE program as a Medicaid state option. Existing state law establishes the California Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE program) to provide community-based, risk-based, and capitated long-term care services as optional services under the state's Medi-Cal State Plan, as specified. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Health Care Services to enter into contracts with various entities for the purpose of implementing the PACE program and fully implementing the single-state agency responsibilities assumed by the department in those contracts, as specified. This bill would exempt a Medi-Cal beneficiary who is enrolled in a PACE organization with a contract with the department from mandatory or passive enrollment in a Medi-Cal managed care plan, and would require persons enrolled in a PACE plan to receive all Medicare and Medi-Cal services from the PACE program. The bill would require, in areas where a PACE plan is available, that the PACE plan be presented as a Medi-Cal managed care plan enrollment option in the same manner as other Medi-Cal managed care plan options. In areas of the state where a presentation on Medi-Cal managed care plan enrollment options is unavailable, the bill would require the department or its contracted vendor to provide outreach and enrollment materials on PACE. The bill would require the department to establish a system to identify Medi-Cal beneficiaries who appear to be eligible for PACE based on age, residence, and prior use of services, and, with respect to that system, would require the department to conduct specified outreach and referrals.