Sen. Ricardo Lara

Existing law requires, whenever any person donates any money to the state, the Treasurer to receive it upon the receipt of a certificate from the Controller. Existing law requires, if the donor at the time of making the donation files with the Controller a written designation of the fund or appropriation the person desires to benefit thereby, that donation to be credited accordingly. Under existing law, if a designation is not made, the donation is required to be credited to the State School Fund. The California Constitution requires the calculation, as specified, of a minimum amount of state funding to be provided each fiscal year for allocation to school districts and community college districts. This bill would create the California Excellence Fund in the General Fund to accept monetary contributions to the State of California for exclusively public purposes. This bill would allow the donor to designate, when making the monetary contribution, which of several specified purposes for which the contribution could be used. This bill would require amounts in the California Excellence Fund to be first transferred to the General Fund and second, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes designated by donors, as provided. This bill would require that the funds transferred to the General Fund be considered for purposes of the calculation of a minimum amount of state funding to be provided each fiscal year for allocation to school districts and community college districts. This bill would require the Treasurer to establish a procedure for the public to make monetary contributions to the California Excellence Fund and to provide to the Department of Finance information about the aggregate amount of monetary contributions made to the fund and the aggregate amounts available for each purpose designated by donors, as specified. This bill would become operative only if SB 227 of the 2017–18 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2019.

Existing sales and use tax laws impose taxes on retailers measured by the gross receipts from the sale of tangible personal property sold at retail in this state, or on the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of tangible personal property purchased from a retailer for storage, use, or other consumption in this state. The Sales and Use Tax Law provides various exemptions from those taxes, including a partial exemption from those taxes, on and after July 1, 2014, and before July 1, 2030, for the gross receipts from the sale of, and the storage, use, or other consumption of, qualified tangible personal property purchased by a qualified person for purchases not exceeding $200,000,000, for use primarily in manufacturing, processing, refining, fabricating, or recycling of tangible personal property, as specified; qualified tangible personal property purchased for use by a qualified person to be used primarily in research and development, as provided; qualified tangible personal property purchased for use by a qualified person to be used primarily to maintain, repair, measure, or test any qualified tangible personal property, as provided; and qualified tangible personal property purchased by a contractor purchasing that property for use in the performance of a construction contract for the qualified person, that will use that property as an integral part of specified processes. Existing law, on and after January 1, 2018, and before July 1, 2030, additionally exempts from those taxes the sale of, and the storage, use, or other consumption of, qualified tangible personal property purchased for use by a qualified person to be used primarily in the generation or production, as defined, or storage and distribution, as defined, of electric power. This bill, on and after January 1, 2019, would eliminate those partial exemptions for the gross receipts from the sale of, and the storage, use, or other consumption of, qualified tangible personal property purchased for use by, and for use in the performance of a construction contract for, any qualified person who is a person that contracts or subcontracts to build, maintain, or provide materials for a specified border wall, as defined. Existing law establishes the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority to provide financial assistance for projects that promote the use of alternative energies. Existing law, until January 1, 2021, authorizes the authority to approve a project for financial assistance in the form of a sales and use tax exclusion for a participating party, as defined. The Sales and Use Tax Law, for the purposes of the taxes imposed pursuant to that law, excludes the lease or transfer of title of tangible personal property constituting a project to a participating party. This bill, on and after January 1, 2019, would prohibit the authority from approving a project for that financial assistance for any applicant who is a person organized for profit that contracts or subcontracts to build, maintain, or provide materials for a specified border wall, as defined. The bill, on and after January 1, 2019, would eliminate that sales and use tax exclusion for any participating party who is a person organized for profit that contracts or subcontracts to build, maintain, or provide materials for the border wall. The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws, including, (1) in modified conformity to a credit allowed under federal income tax law, a credit for increasing research expenses; (2) for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2014, and before January 1, 2021, a credit for hiring qualified full-time employees within specified economic development areas in an amount equal to 35% of the qualified wages paid to those employees multiplied by the applicable percentage for that taxable year; and (3) for each taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2014, and before January 1, 2025, in an amount as provided in a written agreement between the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and the taxpayer, agreed upon by the California Competes Tax Credit Committee, and based on specified factors, including the number of jobs the taxpayer will create or retain in the state and the amount of investment in the state by the taxpayer. This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2019, would disallow those credits to a taxpayer that contracts or subcontracts to build, maintain, or provide materials for a specified border wall, as defined. 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 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.

Existing law prescribes various duties for the Department of General Services in connection with the development and maintenance of the park around the State Capitol Building. Existing law also authorizes the construction of various memorial monuments in the Capitol Historic Region. This bill would authorize the California Legislative LGBT Caucus Foundation, in consultation with the California Legislative LGBT Caucus and the department, to plan and undertake construction of a monument honoring California's LGBT movement's civil rights history within the State Capitol Park. The bill would require the California Legislative LGBT Caucus Foundation and the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, if they undertake responsibility to construct a monument pursuant to these provisions, to establish a schedule for the design, construction, and dedication of the monument. The bill would require the department to meet specified goals. The bill would also require the planning, construction, and maintenance of the monument to be funded exclusively through private donations.

Existing law imposes an additional 3-year sentence for each prior separate prison term served by a defendant where the prior and current offense was a violent felony, as defined. If that provision does not apply, existing law instead imposes a one-year term for each prior separate prison term or county jail felony term under the law, except under specified circumstances. This bill would delete the provision that requires an additional one-year term. The bill would make additional technical, nonsubstantive changes.

The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016 (AUMA) , an initiative measure approved as Proposition 64 at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, authorizes a person who obtains a state license under AUMA to engage in commercial adult-use cannabis activity pursuant to that license and applicable local ordinances. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA) , among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities. MAUCRSA authorizes a licensee who obtains a retailer, microbusiness, or a specified type of nonprofit to deliver cannabis or cannabis products, and imposes requirements on the delivery of cannabis or cannabis products. MAUCRSA prohibits a local jurisdiction from preventing the delivery of cannabis or cannabis products on public roads by a licensee who is acting in compliance with MAUCRSA as well as any local law adopted pursuant to MAUCRSA. MAUCRSA generally authorizes a local jurisdiction to adopt and enforce local ordinances to regulate licensed businesses located within the local jurisdiction. This bill would prohibit a local government from adopting or enforcing any ordinance that would prohibit a licensee from delivering cannabis within or outside of the jurisdictional boundaries of the local jurisdiction. The bill would include findings that the changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern, rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, an initiative measure, authorizes the Legislature to amend the act to further the purposes and intent of the act with a 23 vote of the membership of both houses of the Legislature. This bill would declare that its provisions further specified purposes and intent of the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act.

This measure would recognize the month of May 2018 as Foster Care Month as an opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges that children, and particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, face in the foster care system, as specified.

(1) Existing law exempts a student, other than a nonimmigrant alien, as defined, from nonresident tuition at the California State University and the California Community Colleges if the student has a total of 3 or more years of attendance, or attainment of equivalent credits earned while in California, at California high schools, California adult schools, campuses of the California Community Colleges, or a combination of those schools, as specified, or if the student completes 3 or more years of full-time high school coursework, and a total of 3 or more years of attendance in California elementary schools, California secondary schools, or a combination of California elementary and secondary schools. Notwithstanding the exclusion of nonimmigrant aliens from the exemption from paying nonresident tuition, the bill would provide that any student enrolled at the California State University or the California Community Colleges shall remain eligible for the exemption from nonresident tuition if the nonimmigrant alien met the requirements for the exemption from nonresident tuition as a dependent of an individual with an E-2 nonimmigrant classification as long as the student remains continuously enrolled, irrespective of any change in the student's visa or immigration status. Because the bill would impose new duties on community college districts with respect to determining eligibility for exemptions from paying nonresident tuition, the bill would constitute a state-mandated local program. The bill would request the Regents of the University of California to enact exemptions for its students from requirements to pay nonresident tuition that are equivalent to those applicable to students of the California Community Colleges and the California State University pursuant to this bill. (2) 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.

Existing law requires the California Victim Compensation Board, in cases in which evidence shows that a crime with which a claimant was charged was either not committed at all, or not committed by the claimant, to report the facts of the case and its conclusions to the Legislature with a recommendation that the Legislature make an appropriation for the purpose of indemnifying the claimant for the injury. This bill would appropriate $1,958,740 from the General Fund to the Executive Officer of the California Victim Compensation Board for the payment of the claim of a specific individual accepted by the board, as specified. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.