The California Constitution grants the retirement board of a public employee retirement system plenary authority and fiduciary responsibility for investment of moneys and administration of the retirement fund and system. These provisions qualify this grant of powers by reserving to the Legislature the authority to prohibit investments if it is in the public interest and the prohibition satisfies standards of fiduciary care and loyalty required of a retirement board. Existing law prohibits the boards of the Public Employees' Retirement System and the State Teachers' Retirement System from making new investments or renewing existing investments of public employee retirement funds in a thermal coal company, as defined. Existing law requires the boards to liquidate investments in thermal coal companies on or before July 1, 2017, and requires the boards, in making a determination to liquidate investments, to constructively engage with thermal coal companies to establish whether the companies are transitioning their business models to adapt to clean energy generation. Existing law provides that it does not require a board to take any action unless the board determines in good faith that the action is consistent with the board's fiduciary responsibilities established in the California Constitution. This bill would prohibit the boards of the Public Employees' Retirement System and the State Teachers' Retirement System from making new investments or renewing existing investments of public employee retirement funds in a fossil fuel company, as defined. The bill would require the boards to liquidate investments in a fossil fuel company on or before July 1, 2031. The bill would temporarily suspend the above-described liquidation provision upon a good faith determination by the board that certain conditions materially impact normal market mechanisms for pricing assets, as specified, and would make this suspension provision inoperative on January 1, 2035. The bill would provide that it does not require a board to take any action unless the board determines in good faith that the action is consistent with the board's fiduciary responsibilities established in the California Constitution. This bill would require the boards, commencing February 1, 2025, and annually thereafter, to file a report with the Legislature and the Governor, containing specified information, including a list of fossil fuel companies of which the board has liquidated their investments. The bill would provide that board members and other officers and employees shall be held harmless and be eligible for indemnification in connection with actions taken pursuant to the bill's requirements, as specified.
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The California Constitution provides that the University of California constitutes a public trust, and requires the university to be administered by the Regents of the University of California, a corporation in the form of a board, with full powers of organization and government, subject to legislative control only for specified purposes. These provisions grant the regents all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of its trust. This measure would require employees of the Regents of the University of California to have the right to, and be covered by, certain basic state labor standards, as provided. The measure would require individuals who perform certain work for the regents to have the right to the payment of a prevailing wage. The measure would authorize the Legislature to enact laws that further these rights, establish, define, or specify the basic state labor standards applicable to the regents, or establish other health, safety, and labor protections for individuals performing work for the regents.
Maddy summaryThis Senate Resolution officially designates June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month in California. The measure serves to honor the history of the civil rights movement, which began with the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, and recognizes the significant contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals to the state and nation. It also highlights recent legal victories, such as marriage equality, and acknowledges the growing representation of LGBTQ+ people in public office. The resolution is a commemorative action that does not create new laws or alter existing policies.
This measure would proclaim May 6, 2024, as California Holocaust Memorial Day and would urge all Californians to observe this day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust in an appropriate manner.
This measure would acknowledge April 2024 as Child Abuse Prevention Month and encourage Californians to work together to support youth-serving child abuse prevention activities in their communities and schools.
Maddy summaryThis bill, Senate Concurrent Resolution 133, officially designates April 2024 as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month in California. The resolution aims to highlight the contributions of the state's Muslim community, which includes over one million residents, and to foster greater understanding among students and the public. By moving the observance from August to April, the measure ensures the event aligns with the K-12 school year to facilitate educational engagement. The text also acknowledges the historical and contemporary challenges faced by Muslims in California, including hate crimes and past government surveillance, while celebrating their diverse roles in society.
This measure would proclaim May 6, 2024, as California Holocaust Memorial Day and would urge all Californians to observe this day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust in an appropriate manner.
(1) Existing law creates the Metropolitan Transportation Commission as a local area planning agency for the 9-county San Francisco Bay area with comprehensive regional transportation planning and other related responsibilities. Existing law creates various transit districts located in the San Francisco Bay area, with specified powers and duties relating to providing public transit services. This bill would authorize the commission to raise and allocate new revenue and incur and issue bonds and other indebtedness, as specified. In this regard, the bill would authorize the commission, until January 1, 2041, to impose a retail transactions and use tax, a regional payroll tax, a parcel tax, and a regional vehicle registration surcharge in all or a subset of the 9 counties of the San Francisco Bay area, except as specified, in accordance with applicable constitutional requirements. The bill would prohibit a tax or surcharge described above from being imposed for a period of time of more than 30 years. The bill would require the parcel tax to be collected by counties and the other 3 taxes to be collected by specified state agencies, and would require the net revenues from those taxes to be remitted to the commission, as prescribed. The bill would require the commission, in consultation with county transportation authorities, to develop an expenditure plan for the expenditure of the revenues expected to be generated by the tax or surcharge, together with other federal, state, and local funds expected to be available for transportation improvements, as specified. The bill would require, before the election on the tax or surcharge, the expenditure plan to be approved by county transportation authorities representing counties meeting certain criteria, as provided. The bill would require the revenue generated pursuant to these provisions to be used for transportation improvements in the San Francisco Bay area, including for various transit purposes, and would require the commission to allocate those revenues in accordance with specified requirements. By adding to the duties of local officials with respect to elections procedures for revenue measures on behalf of the commission, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law establishes the Transportation Agency, consisting of various state agencies under the supervision of an executive officer known as the Secretary of Transportation, who is required to develop and report to the Governor on legislative, budgetary, and administrative programs to accomplish comprehensive, long-range, and coordinated planning and policy formulation in the matters of public interest related to the agency. This bill would require the Transportation Agency to select a transportation institute, as defined, to conduct an assessment that analyzes the benefits and disbenefits to riders, and the administrative, financial, legal, contractual, and governance feasibility, of various forms of consolidation and enhanced coordination, as defined, among transit agencies, as defined, that are located in the 9-county San Francisco Bay area. The bill would require that assessment to be completed on or before January 1, 2026, and would require, as part of that assessment, the transportation institute to identify specified information about each transit agency and to consider certain topics relating to consolidation and enhanced coordination. Based on the findings of the assessment, the bill would require the Transportation Agency, on or before January 1, 2027, to develop a report of recommendations that, among other things, identifies opportunities for the consolidation or enhanced coordination, or both, of 2 or more agencies and provides specific recommendations for the consolidation or enhanced coordination of transit agencies and their governing bodies without resulting in the elimination of programs and transportation services, as specified. The bill would establish the Bay Area Transit Consolidation and Coordination Technical Assistance Fund in the State Treasury for the deposit of moneys that can be used for specified purposes, including paying for the cost of conducting the assessment and preparing the report, as specified. The bill would require the assessment and the report to be submitted to the Legislature upon completion. (3) Existing law requires the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to adopt rules and regulations to promote the coordination of fares and schedules for all public transit systems within its jurisdiction, as specified. This bill would revise and recast this provision by, among other things, providing that the commission is responsible for implementing a seamless transit rider experience across the San Francisco Bay area and requiring those rules and regulations to also promote the coordination of mapping and wayfinding, real-time transit information, and other customer-facing operating policies, as specified. The bill would also declare that it is the intent of the Legislature that the commission implement and sustain specified outcomes in undertaking these responsibilities. The bill would require the commission to submit an annual report to the Legislature on the status of those outcomes and the status of transit ridership in the San Francisco Bay area. By imposing additional duties on the commission, the bill would create a state-mandated local program. (4) Under existing law, a transit operator within the jurisdiction of the commission is not eligible to receive funding allocated by the commission pursuant to the State Transit Assistance Program unless it has complied with the above-described rules and regulations adopted by the commission. This bill would also make a transit operator ineligible to receive an allocation from the commission of specified revenues generated by the new taxing authority authorized by the bill if the operator is not in compliance with those rules and regulations. (5) Existing law requires designated transportation planning agencies to prepare and adopt regional transportation plans directed at achieving a coordinated and balanced regional transportation system. Existing law requires that each regional transportation plan include a sustainable communities strategy prepared by each metropolitan planning organization in order to, among other things, achieve certain targets established by the State Air Resources Board for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks in the region for 2020 and 2035, respectively. Existing law also requires a regional transportation plan to include a financial element that summarizes the cost of plan implementation constrained by a realistic projection of available revenues and that contains recommendations for allocation of funds. This bill would require the commission, on or before April 1, 2025, to amend or update its regional transportation plan to include a specified project operated by the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District within the transportation network identified in the sustainable communities strategy and within the financial element. By imposing additional duties on a local agency, the bill would create a state-mandated local program. (6) Existing law authorizes the commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to jointly adopt a commute benefit ordinance that requires covered employers operating within the common area of the 2 agencies with a specified number of covered employees to offer those employees certain commute benefits, as specified. This bill would also authorize one of those commute benefit options to include an employer-provided regional transit pass. This bill would authorize the commission, as part of a measure to impose a tax described above, to propose a ballot measure that would require a covered employer that is located in proximity to transit to purchase a regional transit pass for each of its employees and to require a covered employer that is not located in proximity to transit to provide a subsidy to each of its employees corresponding in financial value to the regional transit pass, as specified. If the ballot measure is approved by the voters, the bill would require the commission and the district to update the ordinance accordingly. (7) 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.
Maddy summaryThis Senate Resolution establishes May 22 as Harvey Milk Day to honor the legacy of Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in a major U.S. city. The measure recognizes Milk's contributions to LGBTQ+ civil rights, including his work passing anti-discrimination laws and defeating Proposition 6, while also acknowledging his assassination in 1978. By adopting this resolution, the California Legislature formally commemorates Milk's life and impact on the state's history of equality and representation.
Maddy summaryThis bill establishes April 27 as Harvey Milk Day to honor the first openly gay man elected to public office in a major U.S. city. The resolution recognizes Milk's legacy as a civil rights leader who fought against discrimination and advocated for LGBTQ+ visibility and unity among minority communities. It recounts key events in his life, including his assassination in 1978 and the subsequent legal proceedings against his killer. The measure serves as a commemorative acknowledgment of Milk's impact on California and national history rather than creating new laws or policies.