Sen. María Elena Durazo

Existing law authorizes the Employment Development Department to administer the state disability insurance program, which provides for the partial compensation for the wage losses suffered by eligible individuals unemployed because of disability in the form of disability benefits. Existing law establishes, within the state disability insurance program, a family temporary disability insurance program, also known as the paid family leave program, for the provision of wage replacement benefits to workers who take time off work to care for a seriously ill family member, to bond with a minor child within one year of birth or placement, or to participate in a qualifying exigency related to the covered active duty or call to covered active duty of the individual's spouse, domestic partner, child, or parent in the United States Armed Forces, as specified. Under existing law, workers are required to pay contributions to the Unemployment Compensation Disability Fund, and those funds are continuously appropriated for the purpose of providing disability benefits and making payment of administrative expenses. This bill would require the department to collect demographic data for individuals who claim disability benefits under those programs, including race and ethnicity data and sexual orientation and gender identity data. The bill would require the department to adopt and update demographic data collection standards, procedures, and processes to implement the bill, as prescribed. The bill would require the department to develop, make available online, and update quarterly a public-facing dashboard that publishes disaggregated demographic data pertaining to program participation by individuals, as specified. The bill would require the department to implement these demographic data collection and dashboard requirements on or before July 1, 2026. Because this bill would require the expenditure of funds from the fund for a new administrative purpose, the bill would make an appropriation.

This measure would designate the East End Complex-Block 171 in Sacramento as the Mario Obledo Building, and would request the Department of General Services to determine the cost of erecting appropriate plaques and markers showing the designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources, to cover that cost to erect signage.

Existing law establishes an Office of Health Equity in the State Department of Public Health for purposes of aligning state resources, decisionmaking, and programs to accomplish certain goals related to health equity and protecting vulnerable communities. Existing law requires the office to develop department-wide plans to close the gaps in health status and access to care among the state's diverse racial and ethnic communities, women, persons with disabilities, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning communities, as specified. Existing law requires the office to work with the Health in All Policies Task Force to assist state agencies and departments in developing policies, systems, programs, and environmental change strategies that have population health impacts by, among other things, prioritizing building cross-sectoral partnerships within and across departments and agencies to change policies and practices to advance health equity. Existing law establishes the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, with a Special Consideration for African Americans Who are Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States to, among other things, identify, compile, and synthesize the relevant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the institution of slavery that existed within the United States and the colonies. Existing law requires the task force to submit a written report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature. This bill, until January 1, 2030, would establish in state government a Racial Equity Commission. The bill would require the commission to be staffed by the Office of Planning and Research. The bill would require the commission to develop resources, best practices, and tools for advancing racial equity by, among other things, developing a statewide Racial Equity Framework that includes methodologies and tools that can be employed to advance racial equity and address structural racism in California. The bill would require the commission to prepare an annual report that summarizes feedback from public engagement with communities of color, provides data on racial inequities and disparities in the state, and recommends best practices on tools, methodologies, and opportunities to advance racial equity and to submit that report, on or after December 1, 2025, and annually thereafter, to the Governor and the Legislature, as specified.

Existing law, the California Values Act, prohibits a California law enforcement agency from providing a person's release date, or responding to a request for notification of a release date, unless that information is available to the public, and prohibits the transfer of an individual to immigration authorities, as specified, unless the person has been convicted of specified crimes or arrested for a serious or violent felony. This bill would prohibit any state or local agency from arresting or assisting with the arrest, confinement, detention, transfer, interrogation, or deportation of an individual for an immigration enforcement purpose, except as specified. The bill would additionally prohibit state or local agencies or courts from using immigration status as a factor to deny or to recommend denial of probation or participation in any diversion, rehabilitation, mental health program, or placement in a credit-earning program or class, or to determine custodial classification level, to deny mandatory supervision, or to lengthen the portion of supervision served in custody. The bill would authorize a person to bring an action for equitable or declaratory relief in a court of competent jurisdiction against a state or local agency or state or local official that violates these provisions, and would make those agencies or officials liable for actual and general damages and reasonable attorney's fees. Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to implement and maintain procedures to identify inmates serving terms in state prison who are undocumented felons subject to deportation. Existing law requires the department to annually report to the Legislature the number of persons identified as undocumented aliens, as specified. This bill would repeal those provisions. Existing law requires all basic information stored in state or local criminal offender record information systems to be recorded in the form of specified standard data elements, including, among other things, place of birth. This bill would no longer require that information to include place of birth.

Existing law establishes the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) Grant Program, administered by the Board of State and Community Corrections, to award competitive grants for the purpose of violence intervention and prevention. Existing law imposes various taxes, including taxes on the privilege of engaging in certain activities. The Fee Collection Procedures Law, the violation of which is a crime, provides procedures for the collection of certain fees and surcharges. This bill, the Gun Violence Prevention, Healing, and Recovery Act, would, commencing July 1, 2023, impose an excise tax in the amount of 10% of the gross receipts from the retail sale in this state of a handgun and 11% of the gross receipts from the retail sale in this state of a long gun, rifle, firearm precursor part, and ammunition, as specified. The tax would be collected by the state pursuant to the Fee Collection Procedures Law. The bill would require that the revenues collected be deposited in the Gun Violence Prevention, Healing, and Recovery Fund, which the bill would establish in the State Treasury. The bill would require that 12 of the moneys received in the fund be used to fund gun violence prevention programs, gun violence prevention education, and gun violence prevention research, upon appropriation by the Legislature, and would continuously appropriate the other 12 of the moneys received in the fund to the Board of State and Community Corrections for the CalVIP Grant Program, thereby making an appropriation. The bill would require the Director of Finance to transfer, as a loan, $2,400,000 from the General Fund to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to implement these provisions, as specified. This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIII A of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. Because this bill would expand the scope of the Fee Collection Procedures Law, the violation of which is 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law, the Ralph C. Dills Act (Dills Act) , governs collective bargaining between the state and recognized state public employee organizations. Existing law excludes certain employees from coverage under the Dills Act, including, among others, managerial employees, supervisory employees, and confidential employees, as defined. Existing law creates the Public Employment Relations Board and authorizes it, among other things, to determine appropriate state employee bargaining units, as specified. This bill would enact the Legislature Employer-Employee Relations Act, to provide employees of the Legislature the right to form, join, and participate in the activities of employee organizations of their own choosing for the purpose of representation on all matters of employer-employee relations. The bill would prescribe rights, duties, and prohibitions in this context that parallel those in the Dills Act. The bill would prohibit the Public Employment Relations Board from including employees of the Legislature in a bargaining unit that includes employees other than those of the Legislature. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for any person to willfully resist, prevent, impede, or interfere with any member of the board, or any of its agents, in the performance of duties pursuant to its provisions. By expanding the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would provide that the provisions of the Legislature Employer-Employee Relations Act are severable. The bill would become operative on July 1, 2024. 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.

The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including a credit for qualified renters in the amount of $120 for spouses filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses if adjusted gross income is $50,000, as adjusted, or less, and in the amount of $60 for other individuals if adjusted gross income is $25,000, as adjusted, or less. This bill would require the Franchise Tax Board to prepare a written report by April 1, 2023, on the number of taxpayers claiming the credit, and the average credit amount on returns claiming the credit.

This measure would proclaim December 8, 2022, as Latina Equal Pay Day in California, in recognition of the need to eliminate the gender gap in earnings by women and to promote policies to ensure equal pay for all.

(1) Existing law defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought. Existing law classifies a murder as murder in the first degree if it is willful, deliberate, and premeditated, is committed by specified means including poison, explosive, or torture, or if it is committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate specified felonies, including robbery, carjacking, and rape. Existing law holds a person, who is not the actual killer, criminally liable for murder in the first degree if that person either, with intent to kill, aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, solicits, requests or assists the actual killer in the commission of the murder, or is a major participant in the underlying felony and acts with reckless indifference to human life. Under existing law, murder in the first degree is punishable by death, imprisonment in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole, or imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 25 years to life. Existing law, added by Proposition 115 of the June 5, 1990, statewide primary election, provides that a person, not the actual killer, who is found guilty of first degree murder, and who, with reckless indifference to human life and as a major participant in certain specified violent felonies, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, solicited, requested, or assisted in the commission of that felony, shall be punished by death or imprisonment in the state prison without the possibility of parole. Existing law provides for amendment of these provisions by a23 vote of each house of the Legislature. This bill would repeal the aforementioned provision requiring punishment by death or imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole for a person convicted of murder in the first degree who is not the actual killer, but acted with reckless indifference for human life as a major participant in certain specified violent felonies. (2) Existing law provides for various specified special circumstances, including the murder of a peace officer, firefighter, or witness, which, if found true as specified, require a defendant found guilty of murder in the first degree to be sentenced to death or imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole. Existing law, added by Proposition 115 of the June 5, 1990, statewide primary election, prohibits a judge from striking or dismissing any special circumstance which is admitted by plea or found true by a jury or court, as specified. Existing law provides for amendment of these provisions by a 23 vote of each house of the Legislature. This bill would repeal the provision prohibiting a judge from striking a special circumstance. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws, including a motion picture credit for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2020, to be allocated by the California Film Commission on or after July 1, 2020, and before July 1, 2025, in an amount equal to 20% or 25% of qualified expenditures for the production of a qualified motion picture in this state, with additional credit amounts allowed, including for amounts equal to specified qualified expenditures and qualified wages relating to original photography outside the Los Angeles zone, as specified. Existing law limits the aggregate amount of credits that may be allocated to specified amounts per fiscal year, and sets forth allocation percentages for various productions under the motion picture credit. This bill, for credit allocations made on or after July 1, 2023, would revise the definition of qualified motion picture for purposes of the credit to require an applicant to provide a diversity workplan that includes goals that are broadly reflective of California's population, as specified, and would require the commission to approve or reject each diversity workplan, to the extent allowed by federal and state law. The bill would prohibit the commission from certifying the tax credit for an applicant required to provide a diversity workplan until the commission receives the applicant's final diversity report, and would authorize the commission to increase the applicant's credit percentage if the commission determines that the applicant has met or made a good faith effort to meet the diversity goals in its diversity workplan. This bill, if legislation relating to the 2023 Budget Act and making changes to the application criteria for the motion picture credit is enacted, would extend the period during which the commission allocates the above-described motion picture credits through July 1, 2030. The bill would also extend the application of the limit on the aggregate amount of credits that may be allocated through the 2029–30 fiscal year and would make conforming changes. Existing law also allows a credit for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2022, and before January 1, 2032, in an amount equal to 20% or 25%, or as modified, of qualified expenditures paid or incurred during the taxable year by a qualified motion picture produced in this state at a certified studio construction project. This bill would instead allow the credit for qualified expenditures paid or incurred by a qualified taxpayer in all taxable years during the production of a qualified motion picture produced in this state at a certified studio construction project. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would provide findings to comply with the additional information requirement for any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIIIA of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 2/3 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.