Sen. Loni Hancock

Existing law requires that any state or local initiative petition contain a statement, as described, notifying the public that the petition may be circulated by either a paid or a volunteer signature gatherer, and that the public has the right to ask. This bill would require an individual who receives compensation to circulate an initiative, referendum, or recall petition to wear a badge stating, in no smaller than 30‑point font print, that he or she is a "paid signature gatherer." The bill would require the individual circulating the initiative, referendum, or recall petition to wear the badge on his or her chest in clear view of all individuals signing or asked to sign the petition.

The California Constitution requires that a change in state statute, passed by the Legislature, that results in a taxpayer paying a higher tax be imposed in an act that is passed with the approval of not less than 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. This measure would alternatively allow a change in state statute, passed by the Legislature, that results in a taxpayer paying a higher tax to be imposed in an act passed by a majority of the membership of each house of the Legislature, where that change becomes effective only when submitted to the voters and approved by a majority of the voters voting on that measure at a statewide election. This measure would make related findings and declarations.

Under existing law, the State Department of Public Health licenses and regulates hospitals, as defined. Violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing law requires hospitals, not less than annually, to conduct a security and safety assessment and, using the assessment, develop a security plan with measures to protect personnel, patients, and visitors from aggressive or violent behavior. Existing law provides that the plan may include, but is not limited to, prescribed considerations. This bill would, instead, require the plan to include these considerations, as well as other considerations prescribed by the bill. It would also require the hospital to adopt specified security policies as part of the plan. The bill would also require the hospital to evaluate and treat an employee who is involved in a violent incident and to provide specified followup care. The bill would prohibit a hospital from prohibiting an employee from, or taking punitive or retaliatory action against an employee for, seeking assistance from local emergency services or law enforcement when a violent incident occurs. Under existing law, an act of assault that results in injury or involves the use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon against on-duty hospital personnel is required to be reported to law enforcement within 72 hours of the occurrence of the incident. This bill would, instead, require reporting to law enforcement within 24 hours. This bill would also require a hospital to report incidents of assault or battery to the department, as specified. This bill would allow the imposition of a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $100 per day for each day that certain incidents are not reported, as prescribed. The bill would require the department to make an onsite inspection or investigation when it receives a report from a hospital that indicates an ongoing, urgent, or emergent threat of imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to patient, personnel, or visitors. The bill would require the department to report to the Legislature, as prescribed, beginning on January 1, 2014, and annually thereafter until January 1, 2018, certain information regarding incidents of violence at hospitals. Under existing law, all hospital employees who are regularly assigned to the emergency department are required to receive, on a continuing basis as provided by the security plan, specified training. This bill would require training to be provided annually, and would include in the required training hospital employees who provide direct care to patients. Because this bill expands the definition of a crime, it would impose a state-mandated local program. Under existing law, the Corrections Standards Authority is required to establish minimum standards for state and local correctional facilities. This bill would require the standards to include a safety and security plan to protect health care personnel who provide care to persons confined in state and local correctional facilities, as specified. 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 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. Commencing January 1, 2014, the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires every individual to be covered under minimum essential coverage, as specified, and requires every health insurance issuer issuing individual or group health insurance coverage to accept every employer and individual who applies for coverage. Existing law establishes the California Health Benefit Exchange to facilitate the purchase of qualified health plans through the Exchange by qualified individuals and small employers by January 1, 2014. 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 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, subject to appropriation by the Legislature, and would authorize the collection of penalty moneys for deposit into the Healthcare Fund, which the bill would create. The bill would create 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, 2014, 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, 2013, with its remaining provisions becoming operative on the earlier of 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 and the date the secretary receives the necessary federal waiver under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 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, and independent medical review. 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 Political Reform Act of 1974 regulates mass mailings, known as slate mailers, that support or oppose multiple candidates or ballot measures for an election. The act requires that each slate mailer identify the slate mailer organization or committee primarily formed to support or oppose one or more ballot measures that is sending the slate mailer, and to contain other specified information in specified formatting. The act requires that each candidate and each ballot measure that has paid to appear in the slate mailer be designated by an asterisk. This bill would instead require that a candidate or ballot measure appearing in the slate mailer be designated by an asterisk if the slate mailer organization or committee primarily formed to support or oppose one or more ballot measures that is sending the slate mailer has received payment to include the candidate or ballot measure in the slate mailer. The bill would also recast the language of the prescribed notice to voters that must be included on a slate mailer. The act also regulates advertisements, which are defined as any general or public advertisement that is authorized and paid for by a person or committee for the purpose supporting or opposing a candidate for elective office or a ballot measure or ballot measures. The act places certain disclosure requirements on advertisements for or against any ballot measure, including that the advertisement disclose any person who has made cumulative contributions of $50,000 or more, as prescribed. The act places more specific disclosure requirements on broadcast or mass mailing advertisements that are paid for by independent expenditures that support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure. This bill would repeal provisions relating to disclosures for advertisements paid for by an independent expenditure and required disclosures of persons who have made cumulative contributions of $50,000 or more. This bill would, instead, impose specified disclosure requirements on radio, television, and video advertisements, and certain mass mailing and print advertisements that support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure or solicit contributions in support of those purposes. The bill would require advertisements that are authorized by a candidate or agent of the candidate to include a statement in which the candidate identifies himself or herself and states that he or she approves the message. The bill would require advertisements that are not authorized by a candidate or an agent of the candidate to disclose, in a prescribed format, the 3 largest identifiable contributors, as defined, of the committee that paid for the advertisement. The bill would require mass mailings or print advertisements that are paid for by certain persons who are not committees to disclose the name of that person as the funder of the mass mailing or print advertisement. The bill would also require that certain committees establish and maintain a committee disclosure Internet Web site, as defined, which discloses the top 5 identifiable contributors and provides a link to the Internet Web site maintained by the Secretary of State for campaign finance disclosures of the committee. The bill would require these advertisements to identify the address for the committee disclosure Internet Web site. Existing law makes a knowing or willful violation of the Political Reform Act of 1974 a misdemeanor and subjects offenders to criminal penalties. This bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating additional crimes. 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 Political Reform Act of 1974, an initiative measure, provides that the Legislature may amend the act to further the act's purposes upon a 23 vote of each house and compliance with specified procedural requirements. This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the act.

Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, requires an action or proceeding against local zoning and planning decisions of a legislative body to be commenced and the legislative body to be served within a year of accrual of the cause of action if it meets certain requirements. Where the action or proceeding is brought in support of or to encourage or facilitate the development of housing that would increase the community's supply of affordable housing, a cause of action accrues 60 days after notice is filed or the legislative body takes a final action in response to the notice, whichever occurs first. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to these provisions of law.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 requires the State Air Resources Board to adopt regulations to require the reporting and verification of emissions of greenhouse gases and to monitor and enforce compliance with the reporting and verification program, and requires the state board to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020. This bill would create the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Offset Program Fund, and would provide that funds received by the state on a voluntary basis from the federal government, individuals, businesses, organizations, industry, or other sources for the mitigation of climate change impacts related to greenhouse gas emissions be deposited in this fund. The moneys in the fund would be available, upon appropriation, for expenditure by the Natural Resources Agency for specified projects through a competitive grant process. The bill would require that moneys from the fund be directed to the California Conservation Corps and local conservation corps for specified projects. The Natural Resources Agency would be required, by January 1, 2013, to adopt guidelines for the distribution of moneys from the fund and to develop strategies for the sale of voluntary greenhouse gas emission offsets by the state and other opportunities for contributions by the public to the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emission Offset Program Fund.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Existing law requires the department to amend the Medicaid state plan with respect to the billing option for services by local educational agencies to ensure that schools are reimbursed for all eligible services that they provide that are not precluded by federal requirements. Existing law also requires the department to perform various activities, including, among others, an annual comparison of the school-based Medicaid systems in comparable states and efforts to improve communications with the federal government, the State Department of Education, and local educational agencies. This bill would additionally require the department to develop, jointly with the State Department of Education, a plan for identifying and providing assistance to districts that are underutilizing the Medi-Cal administrative activities (MAA) billing option, and would require the plan to address ways to collect information about how districts are reinvesting dollars generated through MAA billing and to promote promising strategies.

Existing law, the California Early Intervention Services Act, is administered jointly by the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with the State Department of Developmental Services as the lead agency responsible for administration and coordination of the statewide system of services for the enhancement of the development of children who have disabilities or who are at risk of having disabilities and to minimize the potential for delays in their development. Under existing law, these provisions are in effect only until the state terminates its participation in prescribed components of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This bill would require the secretary and the superintendent to develop either an integrated assessment instrument or a process to consolidate assessments to be used to coordinate multiple agency assessments, and to report to the Legislature by January 1, 2013.

This bill would urge the United States Patent and Trademark Office to place a satellite office in California.