The Assembly and Senate faced deadlines this week to pass bills introduced in 2026, out of the house in which they were introduced (known as the “House of Origin”). Policy Committee hearings in the second house will commence next week and conclude at the end of the month, ahead of the July legislative recess. Lawmakers will return in August for another round of Appropriations suspense hearings, and the final deadline on August 31st when the two-year legislative session will conclude.
Below is a summary of notable legislative proposals that have passed off of the floor of the House of Origin during the last two weeks, and continue to advance. Among them are two RCRC sponsored measures, SB 936 (Blakespear) and AB 2667 (Hadwick).
AB 1564 (Ahrens) would restrict public employer ability to conduct internal investigations by essentially mirroring attorney-client privilege protections for communication between an employee and their union rep. Reintroduction of a bill that has failed 6 times previously. (OPPOSE)
AB 1576 (Ortega) competing proposal on Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund (SIBTF) reform parallel to the Budget Trailer Bill Language advancing that public agencies are supporting. Unlike the Budget Bill language, this bill does not go far enough to make necessary changes to a program that has inadvertently been expanded far beyond its original intent. (OPPOSE)
AB 1679 (Gonzalez) would require a jurisdiction to allow temporary commercial activation for a pop-up small business. (PENDING)
AB 1710 (Solache) would include materials requirements, post entitlement permit standards, and any rules, regulations, determinations, and other requirements adopted by public agencies in the Housing Accountability Act. (PENDING)
AB 1711 (Connolly) would allow money in the Fair and Exposition Fund to be used on emergency services improvement projects at fairgrounds. (SUPPORT)
AB 1738 (Carrillo) would require a jurisdiction to offer remote building inspections. (PENDING)
AB 1859 (Ortega) would create a new mandate on local agencies to allow representatives of a joint labor-management committee (JLMC) to access active public works job sites to ensure compliance with existing prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements. (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
AB 1883 (Bryan) would restrict workplace surveillance tools used for security and basic operations, intended to defend employee rights that existing remedies already protect. (OPPOSE)
AB 1923 (Soria) would allocate an additional $300 million to continue the Distressed Hospital Loan Program and now carries an urgency clause. (SUPPORT)
AB 1961 (Ahrens) would authorize an employer to seek a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of all employees at the employer’s workplace. (SUPPORT)
AB 1964 (Bennett) would require a county recorder to maintain construction records related to home hardening and to share, upon request, construction records related to home hardening in a state or local responsibility area with the Office of the State Fire Marshal. (PENDING)
AB 2026 (Aguiar-Curry) would make changes to permitting processes for groundwater recharge projects, including changes related to diversion of “floodflows” for groundwater recharge without a permit and minor applications to divert water to underground storage within or upstream of the Delta. (PENDING)
AB 2218 (Kalra) would impose broad new requirements for government-to-government tribal consultation on water issues. (OPPOSE)
AB 2310 (Carrillo) would allow for prosecution of those dumping on property where a permit for those activities was required but not obtained. Would also impose significant consequences on landowners and transporters who illegally dump more than 25 cubic yards of construction debris. (SUPPORT)
AB 2494 (Rogers) would redefine “management” for purposes of state demonstration forests, in a way that would change the intent of the program and shift away from sustainable timber operations. (OPPOSE)
AB 2605 (Arambula) would require each county to collect and report certain information about public defender services. (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
AB 2656 (Petrie-Norris) would create a broad new mandate for public agencies to serve 45 days notice to employee organizations about the use of Generative AI tools. (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
AB 2667 (Hadwick) would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control to evaluate opportunities to increase the safety and convenience related to the management of vapes confiscated by schools from students. Would also allow local household hazardous waste management collection facilities to safely disassemble vapes and separately manage the individual components, and would ban the sale of disguised vapes and video game vapes. (SPONSOR)
SB 877 (Pérez) would require home insurers to provide all documents related to a fire insurance claim upon policy holder request (SUPPORT)
SB 894 (Allen) would establish the California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program to administer projects and activities for wildfire mitigation. (SUPPORT)
SB 899 (Grove) would require the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force to study the health costs and impacts of wildfire smoke. (SUPPORT)
SB 936 (Blakespear) would ban the sale of all flavored nitrous oxide and unflavored nitrous oxide in cylinders larger than 8 grams, with limited exemption for legitimate business and medical purposes. (SPONSOR)
SB 947 (McNerney) would limit the use of automated decision systems to inform disciplinary and/or termination actions, reintroduction of a bill vetoed by the Governor last year. (OPPOSE)
SB 951 (Reyes) would impose new notice requirement on job changes due to new technology adoption, with steep civil penalties for violations. Duplicative of existing meet and confer requirements for job changes. (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
SB 1016 (Blakespear) would allow a CARE court petitioner to initiate an LPS Act proceeding if the subject is unwilling or unable to participate in the CARE court process, duplicating a power that county behavioral health workers already have. (OPPOSE)
SB 1075 (Reyes) would restrict a local government’s land use planning authority and require the environmental justice element of the general plan to comply with an applicable community emissions reduction program (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
SB 1116 (Caballero) would prohibit a local agency from imposing front or internal setbacks, or height limits based on floors rather than the physical height of a building. (PENDING)
SB 1135 (Blakespear) would create the Wildlife Coexistence Program, which would fund a Wolf-Livestock Coexistence and Compensation Program. At least 50 percent of program funding would go to providing equipment and information on practices used to proactively and nonlethally deter wolf attacks on livestock. (SUPPORT IF AMENDED)
SB 1230 (Valladares) would increase the maximum penalties for second and subsequent violations of illegal dumping laws, requires CalRecycle to develop a website with resources to help local governments combat illegal dumping, including educational materials, best practices, enforcement tools, and grant opportunities. (SUPPORT)
SB 1305 (Richardson) would create a pathway for reintroducing the Grizzly Bear in California, preemptively bans take on Grizzlies for property damage and livestock predation. (OPPOSE)
SB 1326 (Wahab) would expand the universe of tribal cultural resources for purposes of tribal consultation under CEQA and requirements for mitigation of impacts on those resources. (OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED)
SB 1329 (McNerney) would establish a new assessment process for certain solar energy systems for purposes of calculating property tax revenues owed to local schools, counties, cities, and special districts. (OPPOSE)
SB 1382 (Alvarado-Gil) would require Caltrans officials to notify local officials about their proposed schedule for reopening mountain pass state highways by April 1 of each year. (SUPPORT)
For more information, contact the RCRC Government Affairs Team.