October 26, 2023
Golden State Republican Women
Janet Price, President
Submitted by the GSRW Legislative Analyst Committee
Karen Contreras, Lou Ann Flaherty and Elaine Freeman,
The governor has completed his bill review by the required October 14th deadline and has left California for interesting travels to Israel and China.
SAMPLE OF BILLS SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR
AB 421 by Assembly Member Isaac Bryan (D – Culver City) Elections: referendum measures.
This bill clarifies language for voters on state initiative and referendum ballot measures and took effect immediately. The purpose of the bill is to make ballot measures easier to understand by posting the titles and summaries in the form of a question, and to disclose the largest funders of the petition. The new law requires that voters be asked to choose between “Keep the law” or “overturn the law” as opposed to the current verbiage that offers choices of “YES” or “NO”. Hopefully, this will eliminate the situation where a “no” vote is actually a “yes” vote. The law also requires the top funders of such petitions to be disclosed in the state voter information guide. The State Attorney General is responsible for determining the largest funders from those who contributed $50,000 or more at least 31 days before the election. Unfortunately, the new law does not include the requirement to list funders who are in opposition. There are also some time-line requirements should the proponents want to withdraw the initiative extending up to 131 days before the election, with exceptions for those qualified by signatures later. This law is for state initiatives and does not apply for local issues.
Specific Bill detail below:
(1) Existing law imposes ballot layout specifications, including, among other things, the content of the ballot label, defined as that portion of the ballot containing the names of the candidates or the statement of a measure. Existing law requires the ballot label to include, among other things, a condensed version of the ballot title and summary and a list of the names of supporters and opponents, as specified. Existing law defines the ballot title and summary and requires that it include a summary of the chief purpose and points, including the fiscal impact, of any measure that appears in the state voter information guide.
Existing law requires the ballots used when voting on a statute referred to the voters as a referendum measure to use words asking the voter whether the statute that is the subject to referendum should be adopted, followed by the choices “Yes” and “No.”
This bill would revise the ballot title and summary and ballot label requirements for statewide referendum measures by instead requiring that the ballot title and summary be posed in the form of a question asking whether the state should keep or overturn the law that is proposed to be overturned, followed by a summary of the chief purposes and points of the law. The bill would require this question and a condensed version of the summary to be included on the ballot label.
The bill would require the ballot title and summary that appears in the state voter information guide for a statewide referendum measure to be followed by the measure’s top funders, as specified. Commencing January 1, 2025, the bill would additionally require the names of supporters and opponents in the ballot arguments printed in the state voter information guide to be listed on the ballot label, as specified. The bill would require the ballot label for statewide referendum measures to be followed by the choices “Keep the law” and “Overturn the law.”
(2) Existing law requires the Secretary of State, upon receipt of a referendum measure petition certified to have been signed by the requisite number of qualified voters to issue a certificate of qualification certifying that the referendum measure is qualified for the ballot, notify the proponents of the referendum measure and the elections official of each county that the measure is qualified for the ballot, and include the referendum measure in a list of all statewide referendum measures that have qualified for the ballot, as specified.
This bill would, for a referendum measure, require the Secretary of State to identify the date of the next statewide general election or the next special statewide election that will occur not less than 31 days after the date the Secretary of State receives a petition certified to have been signed by the requisite number of qualified voters. The bill would, on the 131st day prior to the date of the identified election, or upon receipt of a certified petition described above, require the Secretary of State to take the steps described above.
This bill would require any judicial action or proceeding to challenge, review, set aside, void, or annul this bill or any portion of this bill to be commenced within 45 days after the date this bill would become effective, and would prohibit relief granted by the court from interfering with the November 5, 2024, statewide general election or any special election held after the date this bill would become effective.
(3) Existing law requires the state voter information guide to contain, as to each state measure to be voted upon, the official summary prepared by the Attorney General, among other things.
This bill would require, in the state voter information guide for a statewide referendum measure, that the official summary prepared by the Attorney General be followed by a blank horizontal line and a listing of the top funders of the petition to overturn the law, as specified. The bill would require the Secretary of State to determine the list of top funders no later than the date a referendum qualifies for the ballot.
AB 5 by Assembly Member Zbur (D Los Angeles) The Safe and Supportive Schools Act.
This bill requires the State Department of Education, no later than 7/1/25 to finalize an on-line training program called LGBT Cultural Competency Training for teachers. The bill requires 7-12 grade teachers to undergo at least one hour of on-line training per year. The curriculum includes training on the creation of “safe and supportive learning environments” for LGBT pupils, including those with multiple intersecting identities such as those who are members of the LGBT community, members of communities of color, immigrants, or people living with the human immunodeficiency virus. The training is to help teachers identify LGBT youth who may be at risk of bullying and lack of acceptance at home or in their communities and will offer how to proceed in such situations.
Specific Bill detail below:
Existing law establishes the system of public elementary and secondary schools in this state and provides for the establishment of local educational agencies to operate these schools and provide instruction to pupils. Existing law states the policy of the State of California to afford all persons in public schools, regardless of their disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other specified characteristic, equal rights and opportunities in the educational institutions of the state.
Existing law requires, no later than July 1, 2021, the State Department of Education to develop resources or, as appropriate, update existing resources for in-service training on schoolsite and community resources for the support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) pupils, and strategies to increase support for LGBTQ pupils, as specified
This bill would require the State Department of Education, on or before July 1, 2025, to finalize the development of an online training delivery platform and an online training curriculum to support LGBTQ cultural competency training for teachers and other certificated employees, as specified. The bill would delete the above-described encouragement and instead would require, commencing with the 2025–26 school year and ending with the completion of the 2029–30 school year, each local educational agency, as defined, serving pupils in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, to use the online training delivery platform and curriculum, or an in-service alternative, to provide at least one hour of required training annually to teachers and other certificated employees at those schools, as provided.
The bill would require the department to monitor compliance with the training requirement as part of the department’s annual compliance monitoring of state and federal programs. This bill would make these requirements inoperative on July 1, 2031, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2032.
Legislative Portal links- Express your support or opposition to a bill or directly to the Legislative committee currently reviewing it (as an individual, not as a member of RW or GSRW) – click here, or the bill’s author – click here, enter your bill # and look for tab at top of the bill page labeled “Comments to Author”.
