Below is a brief summary of all the bills that the ACLU-NC is monitoring in 2008, including our position on each. For a list of our priority bills, visit our "Bills To Watch" section.
AB 2052 (Lieu, D-El Segundo)
Would allow a victim of domestic violence, stalking, or
sexual assault who has written proof of a valid protective order to terminate a
rental agreement early and quit the premises. The victim would be discharged
from paying rent for any period following 30 days from the date of notice to the
landlord.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending on Senate
Floor
AB 2279 (Leno, D-San Francisco)
Would prohibit discrimination
by an employer against an employee solely because the employee is a patient or
qualified caregiver of a patient who is authorized to possess or cultivate
marijuana.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed
Assembly; pending in Senate Appropriations Committee
SB 1113 (Migden, D-San Francisco)
Would provide for the reimbursement of expert witness fees in
cases that are in the public interest. Currently, attorney’s fees are awarded to
a successful party in a case that affects public interest; this bill would add
expert witness fees to the award.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending on Assembly
Floor
Criminal Justice
AB 1724 (Jones, D-Sacramento) /
AB 1751 (Fuentes, D-Arleta)
Would allow municipalities to adopt ordinances impounding a
motor vehicle when it is used in the commission of an act of prostitution or
illegal dumping. The authors accepted suggested amendments that require a prior
conviction for prostitution or illegal dumping in order for a vehicle to be
impounded, as well as numerous due process protections.
ACLU-NC Position:
Watch
Status: Passed
Assembly; pending in Senate Public Safety Committee
AB 1996 (Swanson,
D-Oakland)
Would remove ban on food stamps for people convicted of
certain drug-related felonies, and would instead require proof of completion, participation, or enrollment in a
government-recognized treatment program, placement on a waiting list, or other
evidence, acceptable to the Department of Social Services, that the food-stamp
recipient is no longer using illegal substances.
ACLU-NC Position: Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 2099 (Hancock, D-El Cerrito)
Would require the
Department of Corrections to issue California identification cards to inmates
upon their release or six months prior to when they will be eligible to be
released on parole. The bill originally applied to all institutions across the
state, but was amended to apply to only three institutions.
ACLU-NC Position: Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 2423 (Bass, D-Los Angeles)
Would require that when evaluating an individual’s criminal record for employment by specific boards governed by the Department of Consumer Affairs, certain factors be considered. Would require that when a person is denied a license, he or she must receive a specific statement of reasons for the denial, and, if applicable, a copy of the applicant’s criminal record. This bill seeks to promote a fairer and more effective background check process.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 2937 (Solorio, D-Anaheim)
Would ensure that exonerees have the same access to resources
that ex-offenders receive; clarify the statute of limitations to file damages
claims; ensure that criminal records relating to wrongful convictions are
sealed; and adjust the amount of compensation for wrongful convictions to
reflect federal standards. Also known as the Arthur Carmona Justice for the
Wrongfully Convicted Act.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
SB 110 (Romero, D-Los Angeles)
Would create a California Sentencing Commission chaired by
the chief justice of the state Supreme Court to develop and implement a new
sentencing system.
ACLU-NC Position:
Watch
Status: Passed
Senate; pending on Assembly Floor
SB 1019 (Romero,
D-Los Angeles)
Originally
sought to overturn the 2006 California Supreme Court decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court, which
effectively shut off public access to information about police misconduct. The
measure, a major focus of the ACLU-NC in 2007, stalled in the Assembly Public
Safety Committee last year and this year has been significantly narrowed.
Because the amended bill does not provide substantial relief in our region, the
ACLU-NC is neutral on the current version of the legislation. However, it is
possible that future modifications will improve it.
ACLU-NC
Position: Neutral
Status: Passed Senate; pending in
Assembly Public Safety Committee
SB 1199 (Yee,
D-San Francisco)
Would require the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation to conduct a study and submit a report to the Legislature
regarding the sentencing of juveniles – those who committed the crime for which
they were sentenced when they were under 18 years of age – to “Life without
Parole.” The study will review demographic information, costs of incarceration,
and the types of crimes committed, among other data.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending in Assembly
Appropriations Committee
SB
1589 (Romero, D-Los Angeles)
Would
prohibit conviction based on the uncorroborated testimony of an in-custody
informant.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending vote on
Assembly Floor
SB
1590 (Alquist, D-San
Jose)
Would
have required that police interrogations in cases involving homicides or other
violent felonies be recorded electronically.
ACLU-NC
Position: Support
Status: Placed on suspense in
Senate Appropriations Committee because of the state’s fiscal crisis and will
not move forward
SB 1591 (Ridley-Thomas,
D-Los Angeles)
Would have required the Department of Justice to develop voluntary
guidelines for eyewitness identification procedures for all California law
enforcement agencies.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Placed on suspense in Senate Appropriations
Committee because of the state’s fiscal crisis and will not move forward
Education
AB 2083 (Núñez, D-Los Angeles)/ SB 1301 (Cedillo, D-Los Angeles)
Both bills would allow students who qualify to pay in-state
tuition at California’s community colleges and state
universities under Section 68130.5 of the Education Code to also be eligible to
receive institutional financial aid made available to students by the colleges
and universities.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: AB 2083 passed Assembly and is pending
in Senate Appropriations Committee; SB 1301 passed Senate and is pending in
Assembly Appropriations Committee
AB 2994 (Lieber,
D-San Jose)
Would require a school district to include a notice in the
emergency information request form that informs the parent or guardian and pupil
of the right to request that the pupil’s name, address, and telephone number not
be released to military recruiters or institutions of higher education without
prior written consent.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending on Senate
Floor
SB
1600 (Kuehl, D-Santa Monica)
Would
have required charter schools that choose to teach sex education to follow the
same standards as public schools. (In 2003, the ACLU sponsored SB 71, which
required sexual health education in California’s public schools to be medically
accurate, age-appropriate, and unbiased.) Through negotiations with the charter
schools, we have reached a non-legislative agreement that will require the
charter schools to follow standards found in SB 71, which were recently adopted
by the Board of Education. As a result, legislation is no longer needed to
address this issue.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Per the agreement reached between
sex-ed advocates and the charter schools, this bill has been placed on the
inactive file
SB 1735 (Romero, D-Los Angeles)
Would require a school
district to accept any documents and representations from the parent or guardian
of a pupil that reasonably provide evidence that the pupil meets the residency
requirements for school attendance in a school district.
ACLU-NC Position: Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending on Assembly
Floor
First Amendment
AB 38 (Nava,
D-Santa Barbara)
Would
subsume the
Department of Homeland Security within a newly created Department of Emergency Services and
Homeland Security. The author has removed the definition of terrorism that was
opposed by the ACLU, and has also taken an amendment to protect the delivery of
emergency services to immigrant communities after these two departments are
combined.
ACLU-NC Position: Watch
Status:
Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 2433
(Krekorian, D-Burbank)
Would provide protections for a defendant who brings a motion
to quash against a subpoena invoked by an out-of-state litigant who seeks the
defendant’s personally identifying information due to some exercise of the
defendant’s free speech rights on the Internet. This bill is meant to protect
posters of anonymous speech on the Internet.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending on Senate
Floor
SB 1322
(Lowenthal, D-Long Beach)
Would repeal language related to the Communist Party in the
California Codes, and would provide for a religious exemption to the loyalty
oath required to be taken by state employees.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending in Assembly
Appropriations Committee
SB 1370 (Yee, D-San Francisco)
Would prohibit retaliation against school employees who act
to protect or refuse to infringe upon a student’s free speech rights.
Additionally, the bill would clarify the law to permit students who are expelled
or no longer enrolled in school at the time a lawsuit is filed to pursue civil
action against the school for violation of free speech.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending in Assembly
Appropriations Committee
Immigration
In addition to the
bills listed below, more than 20 anti-immigrant bills were introduced by members
of the Legislature in 2008. The
ACLU Legislative office, working with other immigrants’ rights organizations,
was able to defeat all of these bills.
AB 1930 (Torrico, D-Newark)
Would require the State Emergency Council to recommend
improvements for emergency preparedness, response, and recovery for persons with
limited English proficiency.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 2076 (Fuentes, D-Arleta)
Would prohibit the State of California, or any city, county, or special
district from requiring an employer to use “E-verify”-- the federal employment
verification database --unless compelled by federal law.
ACLU-NC Position: Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending on Senate
Floor
Privacy
AB 2747 (Berg,
D-Eureka)
Would require that when a physician determines that a patient
has a terminal illness and less than one year to live, the physician provide the
patient, at his or her request, information and counseling regarding
legal end-of-life options.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending on Senate
Floor
AB
3011 (Huffman, D-San Rafael)
Would
have amended the Public Utilities Code to extend the privacy protections for
residential land line consumers to cell phone users. Would have prohibited
telephone companies from disclosing the calling patterns, financial information,
and demographic information of consumers to other companies or persons without
first receiving the written consent of the consumer.
ACLU-NC
Position: Support
Status: Failed on Assembly
Floor
SB
29 (Simitian, D-Palo Alto)
Would
set a three-year moratorium on the use of RFID chips in school identity
documents while research is done to determine appropriate privacy
protections.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending on Assembly
Floor
SB
30 (Simitian, D-Palo Alto)
Would
set minimum standards and protections for the use of RFID chips in any type of
government-issued identity document.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Placed on the inactive file pending
completion of a study by the California Research Bureau on appropriate privacy
protections for the use of RFID chips
SB
31 (Simitian, D-Palo Alto)
Would
impose penalties for skimming, spoofing, and other unauthorized accessing of
information on the chip.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; passed Assembly Judiciary
Committee; pending in Assembly Appropriations Committee
SB 60 (Cedillo, D-Los Angeles)
Would require the DMV to issue licenses and ID cards that are
in compliance with specified requirements of the federal Real ID Act of 2005.
Also would permit the DMV to issue licenses to undocumented persons. The ACLU
opposes the Real ID portions of the bill.
ACLU-NC Position:
Oppose, unless amended
Status: Passed Senate; pending on Assembly
Floor
Formerly Assembly Joint Resolution 51 (Nava,
D-Santa Barbara)
Called on Congress to repeal the Real ID Act of 2005 -- a
law creating a de facto national ID card that concentrates the personal data of
all U.S. drivers into one giant DMV database.
ACLU-NC
Position: Support
Status: The author rewrote this
bill on June 26 and it is now a resolution on a different topic. We have no
position on the revised bill
Miscellaneous
AB 583 (Hancock, D-El Cerrito)
Would create a pilot program for the public financing of
candidates running for California secretary of state. Also known as
the California Clean Money and Clean Elections Act of 2007.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed
Assembly; pending in Senate Appropriations Committee
AB
2327 (Caballero, D-Salinas)
States
that those providing disaster-related assistance and services will strive to
provide all victims with the assistance and services they need and for which
they are eligible. Additionally, public employees who assist victims would not
be permitted to request information or documents that are not strictly necessary
to determine eligibility for services under state or federal law. During last
year’s wildfires in San Diego, evacuees were asked for
identification documents to access emergency services. Many people did not have
identity documents with them and were denied services.
ACLU-NC
Position: Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending
on Senate Floor
AB 2716 (Ma,
D-San Francisco)
Would require employers to allow all employees to earn paid
sick time. At a minimum, employers would be required to allow each employee to
earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly, pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
AB 3050 (Assembly
Judiciary Committee)
Would require an interpreter for any civil action or
proceeding in which a party is present and does not proficiently speak or
understand the English language.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Assembly; pending in Senate
Appropriations Committee
SJR 19
(Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles)
Would request relevant agencies to notify state‑licensed health
professionals about their professional obligations under international law
relating to torture and treatment of detainees. Those professionals who
participate in coercive interrogation, torture, or other forms of cruel, inhuman
treatment or punishment, may be subject to prosecution. Requests United States
Department of Defense and Central Intelligence Agency to remove such
professionals from participating in prisoner and detainee interrogations.
ACLU-NC Position:
Support
Status: Passed Senate; pending on Assembly
Floor
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