This measure would declare October 28, 2025, as First Responders' Day and would urge all Californians to observe and promote the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities that promote awareness of the contributions of first responders in California.
This measure would proclaim the month of October 2025 as California Firefighter Appreciation Month and October 4, 2025, as California Firefighters Memorial Day.
Maddy summarySenate Resolution 61 expresses the California Senate's support for improving building resiliency to reduce risks from wildfires and other climate-related hazards. It encourages the adoption of noncombustible materials and resilient construction practices in high-risk areas, particularly in Wildland-Urban Interface zones. The resolution urges state agencies like the Building Standards Commission and Department of Insurance to review and update building codes and policies to enhance safety and reduce economic losses from disasters. As a non-binding resolution, it does not create new laws but formally declares legislative support for these measures.
This measure would urge the administration of President Donald J. Trump and the Congress of the United States to rescind the National Institutes of Health funding cuts. This measure also affirms the Legislature's commitment to postsecondary educational institutions.
Existing law authorizes the Labor Commissioner to investigate employee complaints and to provide for a hearing in any action to recover wages, penalties, and other demands for compensation. Existing law requires the Labor Commissioner to determine all matters arising under the commissioner's jurisdiction. Existing law makes any employer or other person acting on behalf of an employer who violates or causes to be violated specified provisions regulating hours and days of work in any order of the Industrial Welfare Commission to be subject to a civil penalty, as specified. This bill would revise and recast the provisions relating to the process for the Labor Commissioner to investigate, hold a hearing, and make determinations relating to an employee's complaint. The bill would set forth timelines for the Labor Commissioner to notify parties of an employee complaint, as provided, and for the defendant to respond, as provided. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner, if the Labor Commissioner determines to prosecute the action or that no action will be taken, to notify the parties within 30 days of receipt of the defendant's answer. If the Labor Commissioner does not make either of those determinations, the bill would require the Labor Commissioner, within 90 days of receipt of the defendant's answer, to conduct an investigation of the employee complaint, make an estimated appraisal of the amount of wages, damages, penalties, expenses, and other compensation owed, and to determine all the parties liable for the assessment. The bill would set forth a process for the Labor Commissioner's investigation, assessment, and determination, including authorizing the Labor Commissioner to issue a subpoena for records and requiring the Labor Commissioner to issue a formal complaint. This bill would require the Labor Commissioner, within 90 days of the issuance of the formal complaint, to set a hearing date and would set forth procedures for the hearing. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner, within 15 days of the hearing, or upon a failure of the defendant to answer or appear, to file in the office of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement a copy of the order, decision, or award. This bill would authorize the Labor Commissioner, in an order, decision, or award granted pursuant to specified provisions to impose an administrative fee of up to 30% of the award, as provided. The bill would require the administrative fee to be deposited into the Wage Recovery Fund, which would be created by the bill. The bill would require the money in the fund, upon appropriation, to be disbursed by the Labor Commissioner only to persons determined by the Labor Commissioner to have been damaged by the failure to pay wages and penalties and for other damages by an employer. The bill would require a disbursement to be made pursuant to a claim for recovery from the fund in accordance with procedures prescribed by the Labor Commissioner and would require any disbursed funds subsequently recovered by the Labor Commissioner from a liable party, as provided, to be returned to the fund. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner to waive any or all of the administrative fee upon request by a defendant, if specified conditions are met. This bill would classify an appeal filed in a superior court relating to the Labor Commissioner's order, decision, or award as an unlimited civil case. The bill would grant a court hearing the action jurisdiction over the entire wage dispute, including related wage claims not raised in front of the Labor Commissioner, but would prohibit the court from consolidating the action with any other actions not arising out of, or related to, the underlying order, decision, or award, absent an executed agreement in writing by all parties.
The California Constitution establishes certain conditions of employment for state officers and employees. Existing law, the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act, grants specified employment rights to firefighters, as defined, including temporary, seasonal firefighters employed by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) . This bill would require the Department of Human Resources, the State Personnel Board, and any other relevant state agency to take the necessary actions to transition the Firefighter I classification within CAL FIRE to a permanent firefighter employment classification.
This measure would encourage all Californians to participate in the High School Voter Education Weeks of April 14 to 25, 2025, and September 15 to 26, 2025.
Existing law governs the hiring of residential dwelling units and requires a landlord to provide specified notice to tenants prior to an increase in rent. Existing law, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, prescribes statewide limits on the application of local rent control with regard to certain properties. That act, among other things, authorizes an owner of residential real property to establish the initial and all subsequent rental rates for a dwelling or unit that meets specified criteria, subject to certain limitations. This bill would make it unlawful for any person to sell, license, or otherwise provide to 2 or more persons a rental pricing algorithm, as defined, with the intent or reasonable expectation that it be used by 2 or more persons, as specified, to set rental terms, as defined, for residential premises. The bill would make it unlawful for a person to set or adopt rental terms based on the recommendation of a rental pricing algorithm if the person knows or should know that the rental pricing algorithm processes nonpublic competitor data, as defined, to set rental terms and that the pricing algorithm or the recommendation of the algorithm was used by another person to set or recommend a rental term for residential premises in the same market. Existing law establishes the Attorney General as the head of the Department of Justice, with charge of all legal matters in which the state is interested, except as specified. Existing law imposes various requirements on the Attorney General related to consumer protection, including, among others, the supervision of charitable trusts and the enforcement of antitrust laws. This bill would authorize the Attorney General, and the city attorney or county counsel in the jurisdiction in which the rental unit is located, to file a civil action for a violation of the bill, as specified, and would authorize a person who is harmed by a violation of the bill to file a civil action, as specified.
Existing law exempts a student, other than a nonimmigrant alien, as defined, from paying nonresident tuition at the California State University and the California Community Colleges if the student meets certain requirements. Existing law makes a student who meets these requirements for exemption from nonresident tuition, or who meets equivalent requirements adopted by the Regents of the University of California, eligible to apply for, and participate in, any student financial aid program administered by the state to the full extent permitted by federal law. Existing law requires the Student Aid Commission to establish procedures and forms that enable these students to apply for, and participate in, those student financial aid programs. This bill would require the commission, by the start of the 2026–27 financial aid cycle, to amend the California Dream Act application, and any of its grant processing systems, to clarify and ensure that the application can be used by any student eligible for state financial aid programs, regardless of their eligibility for federal financial aid. The bill would also require the commission to consult with California's public and private colleges and universities to promote the California Dream Act application effectively and inform students and their families of their available financial aid application options, as provided.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, while local publicly owned electric utilities are under the direction of their governing boards. Existing law requires electrical corporations, electrical cooperatives, and local publicly owned electric utilities to construct, maintain, and operate their electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire, as specified. Existing law requires electrical corporations to annually prepare and submit wildfire mitigation plans to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety for review and approval. Existing law also requires local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives to annually prepare wildfire mitigation plans and submit the plans to the California Wildfire Safety Advisory Board, as specified. Existing law requires that each wildfire mitigation plan include, among other things, a description of the preventive strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, and a description of the appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, as provided. This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2027, to update a general order to require each electrical corporation to remove all permanently abandoned facilities, as specified. The bill would require an electrical corporation, for areas affected by wildfire that require electrical distribution infrastructure to be rebuilt, to consider the undergrounding of electrical distribution infrastructure if it is determined to be cost effective compared to other wildfire mitigation strategies. This bill would require an electrical corporation, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the preventative strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, to include consideration of risks related to the wildland-urban interface. The bill would require an electrical corporation, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the electrical corporation's appropriate and feasible procedures for notifying a customer who may be impacted by the deenergizing of electrical lines, to include consideration of enabling residents within a household who are not the customer of record to subscribe to receive notifications related to deenergization events and of communications with public safety partners, as provided. The bill would require that an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan also include a description of the processes and procedures that the electrical corporation use to coordinate communications with local governments within the service area of the electric corporation, and include an accounting of all transmission facilities, including permanently abandoned facilities, and include a plan for how and when each permanently abandoned facility will be removed and the wildfire mitigation measures that are being implemented to prevent hazards, as provided. This bill would require local publicly owned electric utilities and electrical cooperatives, for the description in the wildfire mitigation plan of the preventative strategies and programs to minimize the risk of its electrical lines and equipment causing catastrophic wildfires, to include consideration of risks related to the wildland-urban interface. The bill would require a local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative's wildfire mitigation plan to include a description of the processes and procedures by which the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative coordinates communication with local governments within the service area of the local publicly owned electric utility or electrical cooperative, as specified. Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes, within the office of the Governor, the Office of Emergency Services (OES) under the supervision of the Director of Emergency Services. Existing law requires OES to establish a standardized emergency management system for use by all emergency response agencies. This bill would require certain electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities, in cooperation with OES and other emergency service agencies, to establish procedures for the coordination of efforts between electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities and their representatives and those of emergency response agencies. The bill would require these electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities to assign liaison representatives to work within each local operations center, as provided. Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because a violation of a commission action implementing certain of this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Additionally, by imposing new duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, 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 specified reasons.
