Legislative Bulletin

Both the Assembly and Senate this week voted to send labor bills to the other house for consideration: AB 171 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) adds sexual harassment protections for workers into the Labor Code (protections already exist in the Government Code as part of FEHA) and creates a new rebuttable presumption of retaliation…

The Media Law Resource Center (MLRC) recently published an excellent article that discusses some of the most difficult aspects for businesses that have to comply with California’s new privacy law—the California Consumer Privacy Act. Following is the article, originally published in the Media Law Resource Center Bulletin, “Legal Frontiers in Digital Media” (Spring 2019): Tricky…

Legislation sponsored by CNPA to repeal the sales tax on newspapers was held yesterday by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on its suspense calendar, effectively killing the bill for this year. Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-Marin County) introduced AB 1776 on behalf of CNPA. The bill was previously approved by the 11-member Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee…

Legislation that would have allowed any consumer to sue a business that used the consumer’s personal information without his or her consent was held on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s suspense file yesterday. SB 561 by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) is sponsored by California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra. SB 561 would have allowed individuals to…

AB 5 introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), is a bill that would codify the California Supreme Court’s holding in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, a decision which makes it more difficult for businesses to classify their workers as independent contractors, was passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee yesterday on a…

This week CNPA joined news organizations throughout the nation in an amicus brief filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press supporting the effort by Brian Carmody, the San Francisco journalist whose home and office were illegally searched by police, to quash the search warrants that were issued and require the return of…

A measure introduced by Senator Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) that would prohibit the use of settlement offers in Public Records Act litigation was unanimously voted out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 4-2 vote. SB 518 would clarify that offers to compromise made under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 998 shall not be effective…

Legislation that would prohibit agencies from destroying electronically held documents for at least 2 years took on hostile amendments at the 11th hour before it was sent to the Assembly floor by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on a 14-4 vote. After the amendments, AB 1184, by Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) would apply only to…

Senator Connie Leyva’s (D-Chino) bill to address deepfake videos depicting sexual conduct failed to pass out of the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday. SB 564 would have created a new civil cause of action for the creation or distribution of such videos without the consent of the depicted individual. It also would have created a minimum…

A number of labor bills made it out of the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees and will now advance to the floors of their respective houses: AB 196 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) would increases the wage replacement rate for paid family leave (PFL) claims to 100% a worker’s highest quarterly earnings in the…