Existing law provides for the licensing, regulation, and inspection of various types of health facilities by the State Department of Public Health, including general acute care hospitals. Existing law imposes certain requirements on licensed general acute care hospitals, including, among others, maintaining a medical records system and complying with the standards for the examination and treatment of victims of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault, as specified. Existing law generally makes a violation of these provisions a misdemeanor. Existing law makes it a crime of human trafficking for a person to deprive or violate the personal liberty of another with the intent to obtain forced labor or services, or with the intent to effect or maintain any violation of specified crimes. Existing law sets forth provisions for the prevention of domestic violence, including procedures for the issuance of protective orders. This bill would require all general acute care hospitals with an emergency department to adopt and implement policies and procedures to facilitate the self-identification of an emergency department patient as a victim of human trafficking or domestic violence, as defined, to hospital personnel. The bill would require the policies and procedures to meet certain minimum requirements, including, among others, providing for patient confidentiality and facilitating a reasonably prompt, private, and voluntary interview of the patient by medical personnel, as defined, for the purpose of providing certain information to the patient relating to local services and resources for victims of human trafficking or domestic violence, if any. The bill would authorize general acute care hospitals subject to these provisions to track specified information related to the use of the self-identification procedure. The bill would limit the liability of a general acute care hospital, including its directors, officers, employees, medical staff, contracted health care providers, agents, and specified licensed persons, acting in compliance with provisions described above for any injuries or damages arising from, or related to, a patient who is offered or receives the information described above or who self-identifies, as specified, so long as the hospital has acted in good faith. By creating new requirements for certain health facilities, thereby expanding the scope of an existing crime, 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
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Existing law, the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976, affords all persons within the jurisdiction of this state the right to be free from any violence, or intimidation by threat of violence, committed against their persons or property because of political affiliation, any specified personal characteristic, or position in a labor dispute, or because another person perceives them to have one or more of those characteristics. Existing law specifies that whoever denies this right, or aids, incites, or conspires in that denial, is liable for each and every offense for the actual damages suffered by any person denied that right and, in addition, exemplary damages, a civil penalty of $25,000, and attorney's fees. Existing law authorizes a person claiming to be aggrieved by an alleged unlawful practice in violation of this right to also file a verified complaint with the Civil Rights Department. Existing law defines the phrase "intimidation by threat of violence" for purposes of this provision. This bill would expand the definition of "intimidation by threat of violence" for purposes of these provisions to also include terrorizing the owner or occupant of private property with the distribution of materials on the private property, without authorization, with the purpose of terrorizing, as defined, the owner or occupant of that private property. The bill would prohibit speech alone from supporting an action brought pursuant to the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976 unless there is a showing that the speech itself threatens violence against a specific person or group of persons, the person or group of persons against whom the threat is directed reasonably fears that, because of the speech, violence will be committed against them or their property, and the person threatening violence is acting in reckless disregard for the threatening nature of their speech and has the apparent ability to carry out the threat. The bill would prohibit that restriction on speech alone supporting an action from being construed to negate or otherwise abrogate the requirements set forth in other specified provisions of the Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976 to bring an action pursuant to that act. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act, defines and regulates consumer credit reports and consumer credit reporting agencies. The act prohibits a consumer credit reporting agency from making any consumer credit report containing specified items of information, including accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss that antedate the report by more than 7 years. Existing law, the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act, defines and regulates investigative consumer reports and investigative consumer reporting agencies. The act prohibits an investigative consumer reporting agency from making or furnishing any investigative consumer report containing specified items of information, including accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss that antedate the report by more than 7 years. This bill would prohibit a consumer credit reporting agency or an investigative consumer reporting agency from making a consumer credit report or an investigative consumer report containing information about medical debt, as defined. The bill would prohibit a person who uses a consumer credit report in connection with a credit transaction from using medical debt listed on the report as a negative factor when making a credit decision. The bill would prohibit a person from furnishing information regarding a medical debt to a consumer credit reporting agency, make a medical debt void and unenforceable if a person knowingly violates this provision by furnishing information regarding the medical debt to a consumer credit reporting agency, require a contract creating a medical debt entered into on or after July 1, 2025, to include a term describing these requirements, as specified, and make a violation of these provisions by a person holding a license or permit issued by the state to be deemed to be a violation of the law governing that license or permit. By providing that a violation of these provisions is deemed a violation of a licensing statute, and because the violation of some licensing statutes is a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law requires the Department of Health Care Access and Information to review a hospital's policies regarding, among other things, charity care or debt collection for compliance with the law whenever a significant change is made and submitted to the department, as specified. Existing law, among other things, prohibits a hospital from selling patient debt to a specified debt buyer unless several conditions are met and requires a hospital to have a written policy concerning patient debt, as specified. This bill would require a hospital to maintain all records relating to money owed to the hospital by a patient or a patient's guarantor, as specified. The bill would require any contract entered into by a hospital related to the assignment or sale of medical debt to require the assignee or buyer and any subsequent assignee or buyer to maintain records related to litigation for 5 years. Existing law provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law authorizes a noncontracting individual health professional to advance to collections only the in-network cost-sharing amount that an insured has failed to pay, and prohibits reporting adverse information to a consumer credit reporting agency for a minimum of 150 days after the initial billing to the insured. This bill would require a health insurer to send notices, with specified information, to an insured and provider if the insurer sends payment directly to the insured and not to the provider for services provided. If the provider does not receive the payment from the insured within 60 days of the notice to the insured, or within one year after initial billing for the service, whichever is later, the bill would authorize the insurer's share of cost in possession of the insured that has not been paid to the provider to be reported to a credit reporting agency as medical debt. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 1788.14 of the Civil Code proposed by SB 1286 to be operative only if this bill and SB 1286 are enacted and this bill is enacted last, and to Section 127425 of the Health and Safety Code proposed by AB 2297 to be operative only if this bill and AB 2297 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. 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 requires that specified disclosures be made upon any transfer by sale, exchange, real property sales contract, lease with an option to purchase, any other option to purchase, or ground lease coupled with improvements, of any single-family residential property. This bill would, on or after January 1, 2026, require a seller of a single-family residential property to deliver a specified disclosure statement to the prospective buyer regarding the electrical systems of the property, except as specified, and to disclose, in writing, the existence of any state or local requirements relating to the future replacement of existing gas-powered appliances that are being transferred with the property, as specified.
Existing law regulates healing arts practitioners by various boards under the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing federal regulations, known as the "Three Day Rule," authorize a practitioner who is not specifically registered to conduct a narcotic treatment program to dispense not more than a 3-day supply of narcotic drugs, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws, to one person or for one person's use at one time for the purpose of initiating maintenance treatment or detoxification treatment while arrangements are being made for referral for treatment, as specified. This bill, with certain exceptions, would require each board that licenses a prescriber, as defined, to develop and annually disseminate to each licensee informational and educational material regarding the "Three Day Rule," and to post that material on their internet website. The bill would require the Medical Board of California to also annually disseminate the material it develops to each acute care hospital in the state.
Existing federal law provides for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. Existing federal law generally prohibits a resident of an institution from receiving supplemental nutrition assistance benefits. Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services, if the department deems it necessary to maximize CalFresh enrollment outcomes or employment placement success rates for individuals reentering the community from the state prison or a county jail, to submit to the United States Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service a request to waive that prohibition to allow for preenrollment of applicants prior to their release. Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Under existing law, subject to implementation of the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, a qualifying inmate of a public institution is eligible to receive targeted Medi-Cal services for 90 days, or the number of days approved in the CalAIM Terms and Conditions, before the date they are released from the institution, if otherwise eligible for Medi-Cal services. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services to establish a CalFresh workgroup by February 1, 2026, composed of members with specified backgrounds, to meet no less than quarterly. The bill would require the workgroup to create and submit a report to the department and to the Legislature by August 31, 2027, and by August 31 annually thereafter, through 2030, with its recommendations for a state reentry process incorporating the necessary resources for transition from state prison or county jail to obtaining CalFresh benefits upon reentry into the community. The bill would require the department, by January 1, 2026, to seek a certain federal waiver to allow for preenrollment of applicants prior to their release from the state prison or county jail. The bill would require the department to partner with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and county jails to allow for preenrollment of otherwise eligible applicants for the CalFresh program to ensure that an applicant's benefits may begin as soon as possible upon reentry of the applicant into the community from the state prison or county jail. The bill would condition implementation of that partnership in a given county on notification to the State Department of Health Care Services that the corresponding county has implemented the Justice-Involved Initiative that is developed pursuant to the above-described CalAIM provisions. By creating new duties for county eligibility workers and county jail officials, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would make the provisions above operative on the date that the department notifies the Legislature that the Statewide Automated Welfare System can perform the necessary automation to implement those provisions. 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.
Existing law entitles a person detained in custody on a criminal charge for want of bail to an automatic review of the order fixing the amount of bail by the judge or magistrate. This bill would require the court at that review to also review, among other things, whether there exists clear and convincing evidence of a risk to public safety or the victim, or a risk of flight, and that no less restrictive alternative can address that risk. Existing law authorizes a court, after the defendant has been admitted to bail, to, upon good cause shown, either increase or reduce the amount of bail. Existing law authorizes the court, if the amount of bail is increased, to order the defendant be committed to actual custody unless the defendant gives bail in the increased amount. The bill would make a defendant who has a nonmonetary condition of release, other than a protective order or statutorily mandated condition, entitled to an automatic review of those conditions at the next regularly scheduled court date after the defendant has been in compliance with those conditions for 60 full days. The bill would create a rebuttable presumption at that review that the conditions are no longer necessary and shall be removed if the person has remained in compliance with the condition or conditions for 60 days, and would make that presumption rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence that the conditions remain necessary to mitigate risk to public safety or to the victim, or to mitigate risk of flight, and that no less restrictive alternative can address that risk.
(1) Existing law, the State Housing Law, establishes statewide construction and occupancy standards for buildings used for human habitation. Existing law requires, for those purposes, that any building, including any dwelling unit, be deemed to be a substandard building when a health officer determines that any one of specified listed conditions exists to the extent that it endangers the life, limb, health, property, safety, or welfare of the public or its occupants. This bill would instead specify that a building be deemed a substandard building when a health officer determines that any of those listed conditions exist to the extent that it endangers the life, limb, health, property, safety, or welfare of the occupants of the building, nearby residents, or the public. The bill would clarify that the term "substandard building" for purposes of the State Housing Law means a residential building or any other building or portion thereof that is deemed to be substandard pursuant to the provisions described above, and would clarify that standard applies regardless of the zoning designation or approved use of the building. The bill would make conforming changes to this effect. By imposing new inspection requirements on local entities, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) The State Housing Law provides for relocation assistance to a tenant displaced from a residential rental unit as a result of an order to vacate by a local enforcement agency under specified conditions. This bill would define the term "residential rental unit" for those purposes to mean any unit rented by a tenant for human habitation that is located in a building or portion thereof that is deemed or found to be a substandard building. (3) The State Housing Law requires the housing or building department or, if there is no building department, the health department, of every city or county or a specified environmental agency to enforce within its jurisdiction all of the State Housing Law, the building standards published in the California Building Standards Code, and other specified rules and regulations. If there is a violation of these provisions or any order or notice that gives a reasonable time to correct that violation, or if a nuisance exists, an enforcement agency is required, after 30 days' notice to abate the nuisance, to institute appropriate action or proceeding to prevent, restrain, correct, or abate the violation or nuisance. This bill would state that violations of municipal codes are included within these provisions. The bill would define the term "petition" for those purposes to include a complaint. If an enforcement agency determines that a building or portion thereof is substandard under these provisions based solely on the building or portion thereof being illegally occupied, then the bill would prohibit the enforcement agency from commencing proceedings to abate the violation by repair if specified conditions are met, including that the owner declares under penalty of perjury that the occupant is not a legal tenant. By expanding the crime of perjury, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (4) The State Housing Law authorizes the enforcement agency, a tenant, or tenant association or organization to seek, and the court to order, the appointment of a receiver for the substandard building if the owner of a property with substandard conditions fails to comply within a reasonable time period with the terms of a specified order or notice to repair or abate a violation that results in a substantial endangerment of the health and safety of residents or the public. Existing law authorizes the court to retain jurisdiction for up to 18 months after discharging the receiver. This bill would specify that the appointment of a receiver for the substandard building pursuant to another provision of law does not prevent an enforcement agency from seeking, or the court from appointing or replacing, a receiver pursuant to these provisions. The bill would authorize the court to extend the 18-month time period for retaining jurisdiction to ensure continuing compliance. The bill would provide that an appeal of a court order or judgment issued pursuant to this article shall not stay proceedings upon the order or judgment, absent an extraordinary writ being issued by the appropriate appeals court upon a properly filed petition, as defined. (5) Under the State Housing Law, a person who obtains an ownership interest in property after the recording of a notice of pendency of an action or proceeding brought pursuant to the State Housing Law with respect to the property or a notice of a violation of that law, and if there is no withdrawal or expungement of the notice, is subject to the order to correct a violation and any other recorded notice of a violation of the State Housing Law. This bill would specify that a person described above is subject to any costs and fees of any receiver appointed or enforcement agency, as applicable. (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 no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.
Existing law declares the intent of the Legislature to set broad minimum standards and guidelines for educational programs, and to encourage local districts to develop programs that will best fit the needs and interests of the pupils, pursuant to stated philosophy, goals, and objectives. Existing law requires, in each public school, that daily appropriate patriotic exercises be conducted, as specified. This bill would authorize an employee at a public school to conduct a brief period of quiet reflection, with the participation of pupils in attendance. The bill would prohibit an individual from requiring a pupil to participate in a period of quiet reflection. The bill would prohibit the governing board of a school district, a county board of education, or the governing body of a charter school from requiring a certificated or classified employee at a public school to conduct a brief period of quiet reflection. The bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to these provisions.
Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to develop contingency plans to deal with possible shortages of electricity or fuel supplies to protect public health, safety, and welfare. Existing law establishes the Clean Energy Job Creation Program for purposes of funding projects for, among other things, energy efficiency retrofits and clean energy installations, and related improvements and repairs that contribute to reduced operating costs and improved health and safety conditions, on public schools. Existing law requires certain moneys appropriated for purposes of the program to be allocated to local educational agencies, as specified. Existing law authorizes the commission to adjust the funding allocation to local educational agencies and requires the commission, in allocating grants to local educational agencies, to give priority to certain local educational agencies, as provided. This bill would require the commission to develop a Master Plan for Healthy, Sustainable, and Climate-Resilient Schools on or before March 31, 2026. The bill would require the commission to consult with specified state agencies and engage with a diverse group of stakeholders and experts regarding the development of the master plan, as provided. The bill would require the master plan to include specified elements, including, but not limited to, assessments of a representative sample of the state's public elementary and secondary school buildings and grounds, as provided, and a set of priorities, benchmarks, and milestones for health, resilience, and decarbonization of public school campuses and support facilities.