It was make or break for bills in the California Legislature last week.
The deadline for bills to be passed out of their house of origin was Friday, June 6, meaning that was the day Assembly bills needed to clear the Assembly and be sent to the Senate and vice versa.
That also meant there was a flurry of activity in Sacramento last week, with legislators giving the down-to-the-wire OK for bills pertaining to housing, worker safety, public transit projects and more.
Sacramento Snapshot
Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
Here’s a brief look — a snapshot — of seven bills that have received early approval from legislators.
Protections for stalking victims and their pets: A bill that expands the definition of stalking to include a credible threat to a person’s pet, service or emotional support animal, or horse, got unanimous support in the Senate last week.
The bill would change California’s law to consider threats against a person’s pet as part of the intimidation and psychological abuse that comes with stalking, said Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Yucaipa, who authored the bill. Stalkers, Ochoa Bogh said, “often use pets as a way to terrorize their victims.”
Sens. Steven Choi, R-Irvine; Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta; and Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, are among the coauthors.
Housing approval standards: From Assemblymember Matt Haney is an effort to streamline the approval process for building new houses, something the San Francisco Democrat said can be quite cumbersome. The bill would create a “universal application for home building” that all local governments must use.
This bill received unanimous support in the Assembly last week.
eMotos classification: Another bill that saw broad support is one that officially classifies electric motorcycles, or eMotos, as off-highway motorcycles. That classification would subject eMotos to regulations for other off-highway vehicles, including safety rules and limits on where they can be operated.
The bill ensures “a safe and legal place for eMoto riders to operate,” helping law enforcement, according to the bill fact sheet, while it also “promotes responsible recreation by directing eMoto riders toward designated trails rather than public roads or non-motorized areas, reducing conflicts with other land users.” The bill from Sen. Brian Jones, R-San Diego, also noted that eMotos have less of an environmental impact, given their zero emissions and quieter sound.
Modified firearms restrictions: A divided Assembly passed legislation that would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic handguns that are designed so that they can be easily modified and converted into automatic weapons.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, who authored the bill, said automatic firearms are already illegal in California, but gun companies have not fixed a design issue for some handguns that are “exceptionally easy to modify.” The bill is intended, Gabriel said, “to protect communities from mass shootings and gun violence by preventing easy conversion of semi-automatic firearms to fully automatic machine guns.”
“Most handgun designs don’t have this flaw, and this legislation will ensure the limited number of gun manufacturers who refuse to address this begin to do their part to keep deadly automatic weapons off our streets,” the legislator said in the bill analysis.
But opponents, including the Gun Owners of California, argued that the bill could impart “a dangerous precedent for future gun bans and further erosion of Second Amendment rights.”
No Republican voted for the bill.
Mandated reporters: An apparently popular idea is a push to add talent agents, managers and coaches who work with minors in the entertainment industry to the list of people who are considered mandated reporters, meaning they are required to report suspected child abuse or neglect. No Assembly member voted against the bill, authored by Assemblymember Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale.
One well-known backer of the idea is celebrity heiress and actress Paris Hilton, who in recent years has been a champion for child protection measures.
Public transit projects: If you ask San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener — and his colleagues in the Senate — an exemption carved out in California’s landmark environmental law for active transportation and public transit infrastructure projects is working. They would argue that exempted projects are being completed quickly and at lower costs to taxpayers.
The upper chamber unanimously greenlit a bill last week that removes a planned sunset on the exemption for some of these projects and extends the exception for others. The bill ensures the exemption covers other projects as well, including bus shelters, ferry terminals and infrastructure maintenance, according to Wiener’s office.
Protections for stone fabrication workers: Sen. Caroline Menjivar, D-San Fernando Valley, is behind a bill meant to help stone fabrication workers, who are seeing an increase in cases of silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in tiny particles found in quartz, sand and other rocks, according to the American Lung Association.
The bill, which passed out of the Senate unanimously, would instruct the Department of Industrial Relations to adopt training programs for best practices for stone fabrication workers and develop a certification process with safety and training standards. It is “very much needed to fill in the oversight gaps that allow shops to slip through the cracks and exploit vulnerable workers,” said Menjivar.
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