The California Constitution provides that the electors may propose statutes or amendments to the state constitution through the initiative process by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution and is certified to have been signed by a certain number of electors. This measure would prohibit an initiative measure that would result in a net increase in state or local government costs other than costs attributable to the issuance, sale, or repayment of bonds, from being submitted to the electors or having any effect unless and until the Legislative Analyst and the Director of Finance jointly determine that the initiative measure provides for additional revenues in an amount that meets or exceeds the net increase in costs.
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Existing law does not provide a system of universal health care coverage for California residents. Existing law provides for the creation of various programs to provide health care services to persons who have limited incomes and meet various eligibility requirements. These programs include the Healthy Families Program administered by the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, and the Medi‑Cal program administered by the State Department of Health Care Services. Existing law provides for the regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and health insurers by the Department of Insurance. This bill would establish the California Healthcare System to be administered by the newly created California Healthcare Agency under the control of a Healthcare Commissioner appointed by the Governor and subject to confirmation by the Senate. The bill would make all California residents eligible for specified health care benefits under the California Healthcare System, which would, on a single-payer basis, negotiate for or set fees for health care services provided through the system and pay claims for those services. The bill would provide that a resident of the state with a household income, as specified, at or below 200% of the federal poverty level would be eligible for the type of benefits provided under the Medi-Cal program. The bill would require the commissioner to seek all necessary waivers, exemptions, agreements, or legislation to allow various existing federal, state, and local health care payments to be paid to the California Healthcare System, which would then assume responsibility for all benefits and services previously paid for with those funds. The bill would create the Healthcare Policy Board to establish policy on medical issues and various other matters relating to the system. The bill would create the Office of Patient Advocacy within the agency to represent the interests of health care consumers relative to the system. The bill would create within the agency the Office of Health Planning to plan for the health care needs of the population, and the Office of Health Care Quality, headed by a chief medical officer, to support the delivery of high quality care and promote provider and patient satisfaction. The bill would create the Office of Inspector General for the California Healthcare System within the Attorney General's office, which would have various oversight powers. The bill would prohibit health care service plan contracts or health insurance policies from being issued for services covered by the California Healthcare System. The bill would create the Healthcare Fund and the Payments Board to administer the finances of the California Healthcare System. The bill would create the California Healthcare Premium Commission (Premium Commission) to determine the cost of the California Healthcare System and to develop a premium structure for the system that complies with specified standards. The bill would require the Premium Commission to recommend a premium structure to the Governor and the Legislature on or before January 1, 2013, and to make a draft recommendation to the Governor, the Legislature, and the public 90 days before submitting its final premium structure recommendation. The bill would specify that only its provisions relating to the Premium Commission would become operative on January 1, 2011, with its remaining provisions becoming operative on the date the Secretary of California Health and Human Services notifies the Legislature, as specified, that sufficient funding exists to implement the California Healthcare System. The bill would require that system to be operative within 2 years of that date and would provide for various transition processes for that period. The bill would extend the application of certain insurance fraud laws to providers of services and products under the system, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program by revising the definition of a crime. The bill would enact other related provisions relative to budgeting, regional entities, federal preemption, subrogation, collective bargaining agreements, compensation of health care providers, conflict of interest, patient grievances, independent medical review, and associated matters. 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 measure would urge the President and the Congress of the United States to consider the removal of commercial, economic, and financial restrictions relating to agricultural sales to Cuba.
This measure would memorialize the Legislature's support of legislation currently pending in the United States Congress that would protect the Pacific Coast from new offshore oil drilling. This measure would also memorialize the Legislature's opposition to the proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling off the Pacific Coast and any federal energy policies and legislation that would weaken California's role in energy siting decisions due to those policies.
Existing law creates the South Coast Air Quality Management District with jurisdiction over air quality within the South Coast Air Basin, including in the Counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino. This bill would authorize the south coast district to sponsor, coordinate, and promote projects that will lead to the prevention, mitigation, or cure of the adverse effects of air pollution, including the adverse health effects of air pollution. The bill would authorize the south coast district to determine what share, if any, of the intellectual property, or benefits resulting from intellectual property, developed from the use of district funds, including funds discharged as grants, will accrue to the south coast district.
(1) Existing law generally prohibits the state, or a county, city, district, or other political subdivision, or any public officer or body acting in its official capacity on behalf of any of those entities, from being required to pay any fee for the performance of an official service. Existing law exempts from this provision any fee or charge for official services required pursuant to specified provisions of law relating to water use or water quality. This bill would expand the exemption to other provisions relating to water use, including provisions that require the payment of fees to the State Water Resources Control Board (board) for official services relating to statements of water diversion and use. (2) Existing law authorizes the board to investigate all streams, stream systems, lakes, or other bodies of water, take testimony relating to the rights to water or the use of water, and ascertain whether water filed upon or attempted to be appropriated is appropriated under the laws of the state. Existing law requires the board to take appropriate actions to prevent waste or the unreasonable use of water. Under existing law, the board makes determinations with regard to the availability of recycled water. This bill would authorize the board, in conducting an investigation or proceeding for these purposes, to order any person or entity that diverts water or uses water to submit a technical or monitoring report related to the diversion or use of water by that person or entity, if the report is in that person's or entity's possession or control, and would authorize the board to require specified persons and entities to prepare and submit technical and monitoring reports. The bill would authorize the board, in connection with the investigation or proceeding, and with the consent of the owner or possessor of the facilities or pursuant to a warrant, to inspect the facilities of any person or entity to determine compliance with specified water use requirements. (3) Existing law declares that the diversion or use of water other than as authorized by specified provisions of law is a trespass. Existing law authorizes the administrative imposition of civil liability by the board for a trespass in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which the trespass occurs. Moneys generated by the imposition of civil liability under these provisions are deposited in the Water Rights Fund. This bill would provide that, for a first enforcement proceeding, a person or entity committing a trespass may be liable either in an amount not to exceed the sum of $1,000 for each day in which the trespass occurs, if the unauthorized diversion or use does not exceed 1,000 acre feet, or, if the unauthorized diversion or use exceeds 1,000 acre feet, in an amount not to exceed the sum of either $1,000 for each day in which the trespass occurs or the economic benefit of the violation, as specified, whichever is the greater amount. For a subsequent enforcement proceeding, the bill would provide that the person or entity committing the trespass may be liable in an amount not to exceed either $5,000 for each day in which the trespass occurs, as specified, or the economic benefit of the violation, as defined, whichever is the greater amount. The moneys would be required to be deposited in the Water Rights Fund, as specified. (4) Existing law, with certain exceptions, requires each person who diverts water after December 31, 1965, to file with the board a prescribed statement of diversion and use. Existing law requires a statement to include specified information, including, on and after January 1, 2012, monthly records of water diversions. This bill would establish a rebuttable presumption, as specified, in any proceeding before the board in which it is alleged that a right to appropriate water has ceased or is subject to prescribed action, that no use required to be included in a statement of diversion and use occurred unless that use is included in a statement that is submitted to the board within a specified time period. The bill would require certain statements submitted to the board, that are canceled for nonpayment of fees, to be deemed submitted for purposes of that presumption. The bill would require a person who files a statement of diversion and use, and certain petitions involving a change in a water right, to pay an annual fee, for deposit in the Water Rights Fund. The bill would include as recoverable costs, for which the board may be reimbursed from the fund upon appropriation therefor, costs incurred in connection with carrying out requirements relating to the statements of diversion and use and the performance of duties under provisions that require the reasonable use of water. (5) Existing law authorizes the board to issue a cease and desist order against a person who is violating, or threatening to violate, certain requirements, including requirements set forth in a decision or order relating to the unauthorized use of water. Any person who violates a cease and desist order may be liable in an amount not to exceed $1,000 for each day in which the violation occurs. Revenue generated from these penalties is deposited in the Water Rights Fund. This bill would increase, as specified, the civil penalties that apply to a person who violates a cease and desist order. The bill would impose civil liability, in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for a failure to comply with various reporting or monitoring requirements. The bill would authorize the board to impose additional civil liability, in an amount not to exceed $500 for each day in which a violation occurs, for the violation of a permit, license, certificate, or registration, or an order or regulation involving the unreasonable use of water. The board would be required to establish a schedule of penalties that applies to small farms for de minimis water right violations. Funds derived from the imposition of these civil penalties would be deposited in the Water Rights Fund, as specified.
The California Constitution conditions the imposition of a special tax by a city, county, or special district upon the approval of 23 of the voters of the city, county, or special district voting on that tax, and prohibits these entities from imposing an ad valorem tax on real property or a transactions or sales tax on the sale of real property. This measure would alternatively condition the imposition, extension, or increase of a parcel tax, as defined, by a school district, community college district, or county office of education upon the approval of 55% of its voters voting on the proposition, if the proposition meets specified requirements. This measure would also make conforming changes to related provisions.
Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998 (the Greene Act) , requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school districts prescribed per-unhoused-pupil state funding for construction and modernization of school facilities, including hardship funding and supplemental funding for site development and acquisition and requires the board to adopt rules and regulations for the administration of the Greene Act. The Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2006 (2006 bond act) sets aside $100,000,000 of the proceeds of the bonds sold under that act for incentive grants under the Greene Act to promote the use of design and materials in new construction and modernization projects that include the attributes of high performance schools. Existing law authorizes a grant for new construction to be used for the costs of design and materials that promote the efficient use of energy and water, the maximum use of natural lighting and indoor air quality, the use of recycled materials and materials that emit a minimum of toxic substances, the use of acoustics conducive to teaching and learning, and other characteristics of high performance schools. A school district is required to certify, as part of its application for funding under the Greene Act, that it has considered the feasibility of using these characteristics of high performance schools. This bill would increase the amount of a modernization grant by $250,000 per schoolsite and the amount of a new construction grant by $150,000 per schoolsite if a school district incorporates the use of high performance design and materials, and if the project is able to achieve one of 2 specified objectives. This increase would be provided from the $100,000,000 set aside for this purpose in the 2006 bond act. The bill would require the State Allocation Board to adopt, and the Office of Administrative Law to process, emergency regulations to implement these provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law defines marriage as a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary. This bill would instead define the term civil marriage as a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, established pursuant to a State of California marriage license issued by the county clerk, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary. The bill would also make conforming related changes by changing certain references to marriage to civil marriage. Existing law enumerates persons who are authorized to solemnize a marriage, including, but not limited to, any priest, minister, rabbi, or authorized person of any religious denomination. The bill would specify that no priest, minister, rabbi, or authorized person of any religious denomination, or his or her religious denomination, would be required to solemnize a marriage that is contrary to the tenets of his, her, or its faith. The bill would state that any refusal to solemnize a marriage under that provision shall not affect the tax exempt status of any entity.
This measure would urge various state and private entities to withhold financial support of Arizona businesses in response to recent Arizona state laws relating to illegal immigration.