Existing law creates the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which is headed by the Labor Commissioner, and vests it with various powers for the purpose of enforcing orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission and labor laws. Existing law prescribes requirements and establishes prohibitions that are applicable to contracts and applications for employment. Existing law makes certain violations of employment laws crimes. This bill would enact the Minor League Baseball Players' Bill of Rights. The bill would define a minor league baseball player as a person who is employed to play baseball for a minor league team that is affiliated with a major league baseball team and who plays, resides, or is employed in the state. The bill would prohibit an employment contract with a minor league baseball player to play baseball that is first entered into on and after January 1, 2023, from having a term in excess of 4 years. The bill would require, for these employment contracts, that they may not prohibit the player from using the player's own name, image, or likeness as the player sees fit, or from receiving compensation for that use, and any such provision would be void and unenforceable. Among other things, the bill also would prohibit a player's exercise of the right to use the player's own name, image, or likeness from affecting the player's league eligibility and would prohibit retaliation in any form against a player as a consequence of the exercise of this right. 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.
Sponsored bills
The California Constitution and the Public Utilities Act vest the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the PUC, in consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission and the State Air Resources Board, to direct electrical corporations to file applications for programs and investments to accelerate widespread transportation electrification to reduce dependence on petroleum, meet air quality standards, achieve the goals set forth in the Charge Ahead California Initiative, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Existing law requires that those programs proposed by electrical corporations seek to minimize overall costs and maximize overall benefits. Existing law requires the PUC to approve, or modify and approve, programs and investments in transportation electrification, including those that deploy charging infrastructure, through a reasonable cost recovery mechanism, if they are consistent with the above-described purposes, do not unfairly compete with nonutility enterprises, include performance accountability measures, and are in the interests of ratepayers. Existing law authorizes a community choice aggregator to aggregate the electrical load of interested electricity consumers within its boundaries and requires a community choice aggregator to file an implementation plan with the PUC, to register with the PUC, and to enter into an operating service agreement with an electrical corporation. This bill would, as part of the PUC's program described above, authorize community choice aggregators to file applications for programs and investments to accelerate widespread transportation electrification, as specified. The bill would prohibit the programs and investments proposed by community choice aggregators from deploying infrastructure in front of a meter. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of a PUC action implementing the bill's requirements 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.
(1) Existing law requires elections officials to mail a ballot to every registered voter for each election. Existing law permits a person to apply for permanent vote by mail status while registering to vote, and requires elections officials to include an application for a vote by mail ballot with each voter information guide mailed to voters. This bill would repeal these provisions regarding applications to vote by mail to account for the requirement that every registered voter receive a vote by mail ballot for each election. (2) Existing law authorizes an individual who is eligible to register to vote to complete and deliver to a county elections official a conditional voter registration application that is deemed effective after the elections official determines the individual's eligibility to vote and validates the information on the application. Existing law authorizes a voter who has conditionally registered to cast a provisional or nonprovisional ballot during the 14 days immediately preceding an election or on the day of the election, as specified. Existing law authorizes military and overseas voters, as defined, to register for, and to vote a vote by mail ballot in, any election within the state or within the precinct in which the voter last resided within the territorial limits of the United States, as specified. This bill would clarify that otherwise qualified military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities may complete a conditional voter registration and cast a provisional ballot or nonprovisional ballot under these provisions. The bill would authorize the Secretary of State to adopt emergency regulations to implement provisions relating to conditional voter registration and would make related findings. (3) Existing law requires the clerk of the superior court of each county to periodically furnish the Secretary of State and the county elections official with certain information regarding persons who have been committed to state prison for a felony conviction. Existing law requires the Secretary of State or the county elections official to cancel the affidavit of voter registration of persons who are currently imprisoned for the conviction of a felony. This bill would repeal those provisions and instead require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, on a weekly basis, to provide the Secretary of State with specified identifying information for persons imprisoned for the conviction of a felony and persons on parole or otherwise released from that imprisonment. The bill would require the Secretary of State to compare the identifying information received from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with the statewide voter registration database developed in compliance with the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, and to provide county elections officials with information regarding any matching registration records. The bill would require county elections officials to cancel the affidavits of voter registration of persons who are imprisoned and to notify persons who have been released from imprisonment that their voting rights are restored, that they may register to vote, and of the procedures for registering to vote. The bill would require the Secretary of State to prepare a form for county elections officials to provide this notice. The bill would immunize counties and county elections officials from liability based on actions taken in accordance with this bill based on erroneous information received from the Secretary of State or the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would create a presumption that a person who is ineligible to vote but receives a notice that their voting rights have been restored under these provisions, and then becomes registered or preregistered to vote and votes or attempts to vote in a subsequent election, is not guilty of fraudulently voting or attempting to vote, except as specified. (4) By increasing the duties of local officials on matters relating to voter registration, 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, 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. (5) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Reproductive Privacy Act, prohibits the state from denying or interfering with a person's right to choose or obtain an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the person. The act defines "abortion" as a medical treatment intended to induce the termination of a pregnancy except for the purpose of producing a live birth. Existing law also establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services through, among other things, managed care plans licensed under the act that contract with the State Department of Health Care Services. Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, requires the Department of Managed Health Care to license and regulate health care service plans and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law also requires the Department of Insurance to regulate health insurers. Existing law requires group and individual health care service plan contracts and disability insurance policies to cover contraceptives, without cost sharing, as specified. This bill would prohibit a health care service plan or an individual or group policy or certificate of health insurance or student blanket disability insurance that is issued, amended, renewed, or delivered on or after January 1, 2023, from imposing a deductible, coinsurance, copayment, or any other cost-sharing requirement on coverage for all abortion and abortion-related services, as specified. The bill would prohibit a health care service plan and an insurer subject to these requirements from imposing utilization management or utilization review on the coverage for outpatient abortion services. The bill would require that for a contract, certificate, or policy that is a high deductible health plan, the cost-sharing prohibition would apply once the enrollee's or insured's deductible has been satisfied for the benefit year. The bill would not require an individual or group contract or policy to cover an experimental or investigational treatment. The bill's requirements would also apply to Medi-Cal managed care plans and their providers, independent practice associations, preferred provider groups, and all delegated entities that provide physician services, utilization management, or utilization review. The bill would require the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to adopt related regulations on or before January 1, 2026. Because a violation of the bill 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 authorizes the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to prescribe, by regulation, energy efficiency standards, including appliance efficiency standards, to reduce the wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy, including the energy associated with the use of water, as specified. This bill would provide that it is the intent of the Legislature to later enact legislation to create building performance standards for improvements in water and energy efficiency and reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases in large buildings and to create a set of related financial support programs and tenant protection measures, as specified.
Existing law, the Alatorre-Zenovich-Dunlap-Berman Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, grants agricultural employees the right to form and join labor organizations and engage in collective bargaining with respect to wages, terms of employment, and other employment conditions, and authorizes employees to elect exclusive bargaining representatives for these purposes. Existing law requires the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to certify the results of an election conducted by secret ballot of employees in a collective bargaining unit to designate a collective bargaining representative, unless the board determines there are sufficient grounds to refuse to do so. Existing law further provides that if the board refuses to certify an election because of employer misconduct that would render slight the chances of a new election reflecting the free and fair choice of employees, the labor organization shall be certified as the bargaining representative for the bargaining unit. This bill would refer to the secret ballot election as a polling place election. This bill would also permit agricultural employees, as an alternative election procedure, to select their labor representatives through a representation ballot card election by submitting a petition to the board supported by representation ballot cards signed by a majority of employees in the bargaining unit. This bill would require the board to conduct an immediate investigation regarding the validity of the petition and the supporting representation ballot cards and, within 5 days after receiving a petition, to make an administrative decision as to whether the petition meets certain requirements and as to whether the labor organization submitted the requisite number of cards. The bill would require the board to certify the labor organization as the exclusive bargaining representative if the board determines that the labor organization has submitted the required number of representation ballot cards and the cards meet specified criteria. Existing law authorizes a person aggrieved by the final order of the board granting or denying in whole or in part the relief sought for an unfair labor practice, to obtain a review of the order in a specified court of appeal by filing in the court a written petition requesting that the order of the board be modified or set aside. This bill would require an employer who appeals or petitions for a writ of review of any order of the board involving make-whole, backpay, or other monetary awards to employees, to post an appeal bond in the amount of the entire economic value of the order, as specified, and would provide for the bond to be forfeited under specified conditions. This bill would state that its provisions are severable.
Existing law requires the driver of any vehicle, including a person riding a bicycle, when approaching a stop sign at the entrance of an intersection, to stop before entering the intersection. A violation of this requirement is an infraction. This bill would, until January 1, 2028, require a person riding a bicycle, when approaching a stop sign at the entrance of an intersection, to yield the right-of-way to any vehicles that have either stopped at or entered the intersection, or that are approaching on the intersecting highway close enough to constitute an immediate hazard, and to pedestrians, as specified, and continue to yield the right-of-way to those vehicles and pedestrians until reasonably safe to proceed. The bill would require other vehicles to yield the right-of-way to a bicycle that, having yielded as prescribed, has entered the intersection. The bill would state that these provisions do not affect the liability of a driver of a motor vehicle as a result of the driver's negligent or wrongful act or omission in the operation of a motor vehicle. The bill would also require the Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol to submit a report to the Legislature, as specified, regarding the effects of this bill. By changing the elements 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.
Existing law required the Department of Housing and Community Development, in response to a state of emergency proclaimed by the Governor on January 17, 2014, to provide housing rental-related subsidies to individuals who were unemployed or underemployed because agricultural or other businesses were affected by drought conditions and to other persons who suffered economic losses due to drought conditions. This bill would create a pilot program, from January 1, 2023, to January 1, 2026, that would require the department to implement, upon appropriation by the Legislature, a program to provide housing rental-related subsidies to skilled nursing facility patients who, but for a lack of housing, would be discharged from the facility. The bill would authorize the department to administer the housing rental-related subsidies or to contract with qualified local government agencies or nonprofit organizations to administer the subsidies. The bill would also require the department to adopt guidelines establishing criteria for the subsidies, including, but not limited to, eligibility, income limits, and subsidy amounts.