Existing law, the End of Life Option Act, authorizes an adult who meets certain qualifications, and who has been determined by his or her attending physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, as defined, to make a request for an aid-in-dying drug for the purpose of ending his or her life. Prior to prescribing an aid-in-dying drug, existing law requires the attending physician to make certain determinations and verify, immediately before writing the prescription for an aid-in-dying drug, that the qualified individual is making an informed decision. Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to create a report with information collected from attending physician followup forms and to post that report to its Internet Web site. Existing law requires that information to include, among other things, the underlying illness of the qualified individual. Existing law authorizes the Medical Board of California to update the attending physician checklists and forms required under these provisions. This bill would require the report described above to further include the areas of practice of each physician who wrote a prescription for an aid-in-dying drug, the motivating reason or reasons behind a patient's decision to request the aid-in-dying drug, as specified, and the number of patients who received a mental health specialist assessment prior to receiving the aid-in-dying drug. The bill would require the Medical Board of California to make any necessary changes to the applicable forms to conform with these requirements.
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Existing law subjects a person to no more than 3 years of postrelease community supervision after release from prison or after the person's term of imprisonment has been deemed to have been served, unless the person was released from prison after serving a term of imprisonment for a specified crime. Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to, among other things, inform each prisoner subject to postrelease community supervision of his or her responsibility to report to the county probation department. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those provisions.
Existing law authorizes a community choice aggregator, as defined, 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 Public Utilities Commission. This bill would make a nonsubstantive revision to the definition of a community choice aggregator.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. The Public Utilities Act requires the commission to review and accept, modify, or reject a procurement plan for each electrical corporation based on whether it includes specified elements or incentive mechanisms, and whether it accomplishes certain objectives. The California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program, within the act, requires retail sellers, defined as including electrical corporations, and local publicly owned electric utilities to purchase specified minimum quantities of electricity products from eligible renewable energy resources, as defined, for specified compliance periods. The program requires the commission to direct each electrical corporation to annually prepare a renewable energy procurement plan to satisfy its procurement requirements pursuant to the program. To the extent feasible, the renewable energy procurement plan is to be proposed, reviewed, and adopted as part of, and pursuant to, the general procurement plan process. This bill would make a nonsubstantive revision to the provision that requires, to the extent feasible, that the renewable energy procurement plan be proposed, reviewed, and adopted as part of, and pursuant to, the general procurement plan process.
Existing law generally protects employees who disclose illegal or improper workplace activities by prohibiting interference with, and retaliation for, making such disclosures. Existing law provides procedures for a person to file a complaint alleging violations of legislative ethics. Existing law also authorizes each house of the Legislature to adopt rules for its proceedings and to select committees necessary for the conduct of its business. This bill would impose criminal and civil liability on a Member of the Legislature or legislative employee, as defined, who interferes with, or retaliates against, a legislative employee's exercise of the right to make a protected disclosure, which is defined as a good faith allegation made by a legislative employee to specified entities that a Member of the Legislature or a legislative employee has engaged in, or will engage in, activity that may constitute a violation of law, including sexual harassment, or a violation of a legislative standard of conduct. The bill would also impose civil liability on an entity that interferes with, or retaliates against, a legislative employee's exercise of the right to make a protected disclosure, as specified. By creating new crimes, 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, generally, imposes a minimum franchise tax of $800, except as provided, on every corporation incorporated in this state, qualified to transact intrastate business in this state, or doing business in this state, and a minimum annual tax on every limited partnership, limited liability partnership, and limited liability company registered, qualified to transact business, or doing business in this state, as specified. This bill would, for the first 6 taxable years of a corporation, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, and limited liability company that is a small business, as defined, and that first commences business operations on or after January 1, 2018, and before January 1, 2024, reduce that minimum tax, as provided. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Under existing law, as amended by Proposition 35, an initiative measure approved by the voters at the November 6, 2012, statewide general election, a person who causes, induces, or persuades a person who is a minor at the time of the commission of the offense to engage in a commercial sex act, as specified, is guilty of human trafficking, a felony punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 5, 8, or 12 years and a fine of not more than $500,000. If the offense involves force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, the crime is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 15 years to life and a fine of not more than $500,000. Proposition 35 provides that it may be amended by a statute in furtherance of its objectives by a majority of the membership of each house of the Legislature concurring. This bill would impose an additional term of imprisonment in the state prison of 3, 4, or 5 years for the above-specified offenses if the victim was less than 16 years of age at the time of the offense. The bill would require the additional term to be served consecutively to the above-specified punishment. By increasing the punishment for a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law makes solicitation for purposes of prostitution a crime, except as specified. Under existing law, if the person who was solicited was a minor at the time of the offense, and if the defendant knew or should have known that the person who was solicited was a minor at the time of the offense, the violation is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than 2 days and not more than one year, or by a fine of $10,000, or by both that imprisonment and fine. This bill would make solicitation for prostitution, if the person who was solicited was a minor at the time of the offense, and if the defendant knew or should have known that the person who was solicited was a minor at the time of the offense, punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for not less than 6 months and not more than one year, or by a fine not exceeding $15,000, or both that imprisonment and fine, or as a felony subject to incarceration for 2, 3, or 4 years. By increasing the punishment for a 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 establishes the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, as the 3 segments of public postsecondary education in this state. Existing law, known as the Donahoe Higher Education Act, among other things, sets forth the missions and functions of these 3 segments. This bill would express legislative findings and declarations relating to the costs of public postsecondary education. The bill would require that the amount of tuition charged to eligible students of the California State University, and the amount of the enrollment fee charged to eligible students of the California Community Colleges, not be increased from the amounts that were charged as of December 31, 2016, until the completion of the 2019–20 academic year. Notwithstanding this provision, the bill would not be operative in a fiscal year for which the Governor has issued a proclamation declaring a fiscal emergency pursuant to a specified provision of the California Constitution. The bill would define "eligible students" as students exempt from payment of nonresident tuition either because they are California residents, as defined, or are exempted from payment of nonresident tuition pursuant to any of several specified provisions of existing law. The bill would also urge the regents to adopt policies that are consistent with this provision.
The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities Commission, with regulatory jurisdiction over all public utilities. The Public Utilities Act provides that every person, either individually, or acting as an officer, agent, or employee of a corporation other than a public utility, violating any provision of the act or failing to comply with any part of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission, or procuring, aiding, or abetting any public utility in a violation or noncompliance, in a case in which a penalty has not otherwise been provided, is guilty of a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment. This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to this provision.