Since 2019, the CA legislature passed and Governor Gavin Newsom signed over 100 bills that improve California healthcare and conditions for healthcare workers.

These victories are only possible because SEIU-UHW members are contributing to a better future by giving to the COPE political fund. This fund allows us to work to elect healthcare champions who will put the needs of workers, our families, and our communities first.

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Click on any bill name to read the description.

Take a look at the full list of bills and how they will help you.

Bonus

    • AB 204: Health Omnibus Bill: Retention bonuses for health care workers.

      Full-time workers will receive a one-time bonus of $1,000. Full-time is defined as anyone who is either designated a full-time employee working onsite or who was paid for at least 400 in-person hours between July 29 and October 28, 2022. Part-time workers will receive a one-time bonus of $750. Part-time is defined as someone who is not designated a full-time employee and who was paid for between 100 and 400 in-person hours between July 29 and October 28, 2022. There are additional matching funds of up to $500 for healthcare workers who receive a bonus from their employer in calendar year 2022. Get the details.

    • AB 204: Health Omnibus Bill: Clinic funding: $75 million secured for all FQHC clinic workers to receive a one-time bonus of $1000.

      All community clinic workers, or employees of a Federally Qualified Health Center, rural health centers, FQHC look-a-likes, Indian health centers and intermittent health centers, in California who are not in management or in supervisory positions will receive the retention bonus of $1000. Get the details.

COVID-19

    • SB 114 Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review. Employment: COVID-19: supplemental paid sick leave.

      Extends the COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave provisions that were extended earlier in 2022 and were set to expire on September 30, 2021, including: Reestablishing the COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave for employers who have more than 25 employees and reestablishing that a covered employee is entitled to COVID19 supplemental paid sick leave if the employee is unable to work or telework because they are in quarantine or isolation, were advised by a healthcare provider not to work, needs time to receive the vaccine, or is experiencing covid-19 symptoms. Get the details.

    • SB 275    Health Care and Essential Workers: personal protective equipment.

      Requires DPH to establish guidelines for the procurement, management, and distribution of PPE, taking into account, among other things, the amount of each type of PPE that would be required for all health care workers and essential workers in the state during a 90-day pandemic or other health emergency.

    • AB 89 & SB 89    Budget Act of 2020.

      The Budget Act of 2020 made appropriations for the support of state government for the 2020–21 fiscal year. This bill would amend the Budget Act of 2020 by amending items of appropriation and making other changes.

    • AB 2043 Occupational safety and health: agricultural employers and employees: COVID-19 response.

      Requires Cal/OSHA and DIR to disseminate, in both English and Spanish, information on best practices for COVID-19 infection prevention, targeted at agricultural workers.

      AB 685 COVID-19: imminent hazard to employees: exposure: notification: serious violations. Requires employers to notify all workers of a potential exposure to COVID-19 within one business day and to notify the local public health agency within 48 hours of outbreaks in certain worksites.

    • SB 1159 Workers’ compensation: COVID-19: critical workers.

      Defines “injury” for an employee to include illness or death resulting from COVID-19 and creates a disputable presumption that the injury arose out of and in the course of the employment and is compensable. Also requires an employee to exhaust their paid sick leave benefits and meet specified certification requirements before receiving any temporary disability benefits or, for police officers, firefighters, and other specified employees, a leave of absence and makes a claim relating to a COVID-19 illness presumptively compensable after 30 days or 45 days, rather than 90 days.

    • SB 117 Education finance: average daily attendance and timeline waivers: protective equipment and cleaning appropriation: COVID–19.

      Senate version of emergency COVID-19 education budget trailer bill. Adjusts funding apportioned by average daily attendance for the 2019-2020 school year for local educational agencies that comply with Executive Order N–26–20.

    • SB 932 Communicable diseases: data collection.

      Requires any electronic tool used by a health officer to report cases of communicable diseases to include the capacity to collect and report data relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.

    • AB 2537 Personal protective equipment: health care employees.

      Requires public and private employers of workers in a general acute care hospital to supply those employees who provide direct patient care or provide services that directly support personal care with PPE necessary to comply with DIR regulations.

    • AB 1710 Pharmacy practice: vaccines.

      Authorizes a pharmacist to independently initiate and administer any COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized by the FDA without needing to go through the normal ACIP/CDC process.

Dialysis

  • AB 290 Health care service plans and health insurance: third-party payments.

    Requires a health care service plan or an insurer that provides a policy of health insurance to accept payments from specified third-party entities, including an Indian tribe or a local, state, or federal government program.
  • AB 1223 Living organ donation

    Requires a public employee to first exhaust all available sick leave before taking unpaid leave for the purpose of organ donation.

Elections

  • AB 17 Elections: vote by mail ballots.

    Prohibits an employer from requiring or requesting that an employee bring the employee’s vote by mail ballot to work or vote the employee’s vote by mail ballot at work.

  • AB 860 Elections: vote by mail ballots.

    Requires county elections officials to mail a ballot to every registered voter for the November 3, 2020 statewide general election.

  • AB 201 Political Reform Act of 1974: campaign disclosure: text messages.

    Authorizes a committee to include the words “Paid for by” or “With” in an advertisement that is a text message.

  • AB 49 California Voter Protection Act of 2019.

    Requires elections officials to begin mailing vote by mail ballots no later than 29 days before an election and requires that the mailing be complete within 5 days.

  • AB 571 Political Reform Act of 1974: contribution limits.

    Establishes default campaign contributions limits of $4700 for local city and county elections.

  • AB 59 Elections: polling places: college and university campuses.

    Directs county elections officials conducting an all-mailed ballot election to consider vote center location on a public or private university or college campus.

  • AB 698 Elections: initiative and referendum petitions: signature verification.

    Prohibits the invalidation of a signature on an initiative or referendum petition because of a variation of the signature caused by the substitution of initials for the first or middle name, or both, of the person signing the petition.

  • AB 849 Elections: city and county redistricting.

    Aligns local redistricting laws with state laws in an effort to reduce discriminatory gerrymandering.

  • AB 864 Political Reform Act of 1974: disclosures.

    Allows candidates and committees to send mass electronic mailing communications if the communications were solicited by the recipients.

  • SB 27 Primary elections: ballot access: tax returns.

    Requires candidates for President and Governor to file income tax returns for the 5 most recent taxable years with the Secretary of State in order be on a primary election ballot.

  • SB 300 Elections: ballot measures.

    Calls a special election to be consolidated with the statewide general election scheduled for November 3, 2020. Notwithstanding the 131-day ballot qualification deadline and other related provisions regarding ballot measures, the bill would require the Secretary of State to submit Assembly Constitutional Amendments 4, 5, 6, 11, and 25, if passed by the Legislature on or before July 1, 2020, to the voters for their approval at the November 3, 2020, statewide general election.

  • SB 47 Initiative, referendum, and recall petitions: disclosures.

    Requires that an Official Top Funder and any top contributors are publicly disclosed for a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition that requires voter signatures and for which the circulation is paid for by a committee.

  • SB 681 Local referenda and charter amendments: withdrawal.

    Authorizes the proponent of a county, municipal, or district referendum to withdraw the referendum at any time before the 88th day before the election, whether or not a petition has already been found sufficient by the elections official, and grants the same authority to withdraw to the proponent of an amendment of a city or county charter.

  • AB 646 Elections: voter eligibility.

    Allows a person on parole to preregister, register, and vote.

Health Coverage

  • AB 1130 (Wood): California Health Care Quality and Affordability Act.

    Establishes the Office of Health Care Affordability within the California Department of Health Care Access and Information ). The goal of the newly established office is to find ways to control costs in healthcare.

  • AB 731 Health care coverage: rate review.

    Expands existing requirements on individual or small group market health plans to apply to large group health care service plan contracts and health insurance policies, and imposes additional rate filing requirements on large group contracts and policies.

  • SB 260 Automatic health care coverage enrollment.

    Requires the Exchange to enroll an individual in the lowest cost silver plan or another plan upon receiving the individual’s electronic account from an insurance affordability program before coverage through the insurance affordability program is terminated.

  • AB 174 Health care.

    Requires the Covered California board to develop and prepare biannual public reports about the enrollment process for the individual market assistance program.

  • AB 414 Health care coverage: minimum essential coverage. AB 414 Health care coverage: minimum essential coverage.

    Requires the Franchise Tax Board to report to the Legislature on the Minimum Essential Coverage Individual Mandate, the Individual Shared Responsibility Penalty, and state financial subsidies paid for health care coverage.

  • AB 2118 Health care service plans and health insurers: reporting requirements.

    Requires a health care service plan and health insurer, excluding for a specialized health care service plan or specialized health care policy, to report to the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance, for products in the individual and small group markets, and for rates effective during the 12-month period ending January 1 of the following year, including premiums, cost sharing, benefits, enrollment, and trend factors.

  • AB 2157 Health care coverage: independent dispute resolution process.

    Requires dispute resolution procedures established by Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to include a process for each party to submit into evidence information that will be kept confidential from the other party, in order to preserve the confidentiality of the source contract.

  • AB 929 California Health Benefit Exchange: data collection.

    Requires Covered California to publicize plan-specific data on cost reduction efforts, quality improvements, and disparity reductions if it requires or has previously required a qualified health plan to report this information.

  • AB 567 Long-term care insurance.

    Establishes the Long Term Care Insurance Task Force in the Department of Insurance, and requires the task force to report on the design and implementation of a statewide long-term care insurance program.

Hospitals

  • SB 1436 (Roth): Respiratory Care Board Sunrise.

    Extends until January 1, 2027, the provisions establishing the Respiratory Care Board, revises mandatory reporting requirements, and permits licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) to perform specified respiratory care services.

  • AB 1882 (R. Rivas): Hospitals: seismic safety.

    Requires owners of general acute care hospital buildings that are not compliant with the January 1, 2030, seismic safety requirement that they be capable of remaining operational following a major earthquake, to submit annual status updates to various entities, including any labor union that represents workers in a building that is not January 1, 2030 compliant; and requires hospitals to post a notice that the hospital is not in compliance in any lobby or waiting area of a hospital building that is not compliant with the January 1, 2030, seismic requirement.

  • AB 204 Hospitals: community benefits plan reporting.

    Requires uniform standards for ‘community benefit’ reporting by nonprofit hospitals.

  • AB 713 California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.

    Excepts from the CCPA information that was deidentified in accordance with specified federal law, or was derived from medical information, protected health information, individually identifiable health information, or identifiable private information.

  • SB 227 Health and care facilities: inspections and penalties.

    Requires the periodic inspections of general acute care hospitals, acute psychiatric hospitals, and special hospital health facilities to include reviews of compliance with the nurse-to-patient ratios and staff assignment regulations established in current law.

  • SB 322 Health facilities: inspections: employee reporting.

    Aligns DPH inspections to CalOSHA standards of allowing DPH to meet with employees separate from management.

  • SB 156 Health facilities: emergency medical services.

    Allows Adventist Health and Rideout, a sister hospital to Adventist Health Feather River, to temporarily operate a standalone emergency department in Paradise to care for local residents in the aftermath of the Camp Fire.

Immigration

  • SB 225 Citizens of the state.

    Makes resident immigrants, regardless of status, eligible to be appoint4ed to state boards and commissions.

  • AB 2113 Refugees, asylees, and special immigrant visa holders: professional licensing: initial licensure process.

    Requires boards under DCA to expedite licensure applications for refugees, asylum seekers, and special immigrant visa holders.

Kaiser

  • SB 343 Health care data disclosure.

    Eliminates alternative reporting requirements for a plan or insurer that exclusively contracts with no more than 2 medical groups or a health facility that receives a preponderance of its revenue from associated comprehensive group practice prepayment health care service plans and would instead require those entities to report information consistent with any other health care service plan, health insurer, or health facility.

Labor

  • AB 2849 (Bonta): The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act.

    Enacts the Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery (POWER) Act that establishes a panel, within state government, to conduct a study regarding the creation of an Association of Cooperative Labor Contractors for the purpose of facilitating the growth of democratically run high-road cooperative labor contractors. Also requires the study to be complete and publicly available by June 30, 2024. This will help healthcare worker cooperatives like AlliedUp.

  • AB 378 Childcare: family childcare providers: bargaining representative.

    Allows self-employed child care workers to unionize.

Medi-Cal

  • AB 715 Richard Paul Hemann Parkinson’s Disease Program.

    Extends the sunset of the Richard Paul Hemann Parkinson’s Disease Program by one year to January 1, 2021.

  • AB 577 Health care coverage: maternal mental health.

    Extends Medi-Cal postpartum care from 60 days to one year for people diagnosed with a maternal or postpartum mental health disorder, ensuring no gap in coverage and maintaining continuity of care.

  • AB 744 Health care coverage: telehealth.

    Specifies that face-to-face contact between a health care provider and a patient is not required under the Medi-Cal program for any health care services provided by store and forward.

Mental Health

  • SB 40 Conservatorship: serious mental illness and substance use disorders.

    Makes technical amendments to Senator Wiener’s SB 1045 from 2018, which created a new conservatorship for seriously addicted and mentally ill people on our streets. The legislation ensures that San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego counties can better help individuals living with serious mental health and substance abuse issues get stabilized and find housing.

  • SB 855 Health coverage: mental health or substance use disorders.

    Requires a health care service plan contract or disability insurance policy issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2021, provide coverage for medically necessary treatment of mental health and substance use disorders under the same terms and conditions applied to other medical conditions.

Public Good

  • AB 2011 (Wicks): Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022.

    Creates a ministerial, streamlined approval process for 100% affordable housing projects in commercial zones and for mixed-income housing projects along commercial corridors. The bill would also impose specified labor standards on those projects, including requirements that contractors pay prevailing wages, participate in apprenticeship programs, and make specified healthcare expenditures.

  • SB 22 Rape kits: testing.

    Requires law enforcement agencies to either submit sexual assault forensic evidence to a crime lab or ensure that a rapid turnaround DNA program is in place, and requires a crime lab to either process the evidence or transmit the evidence to another crime lab for processing.

  • SB 228 Master Plan on Aging.

    Requires the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency in coordination with the Director of the California Department of Aging, to lead the development and implementation of the master plan on aging requested by the Governor in an executive order.

  • SB 714 Immunizations.

    Prohibits a governing authority from unconditionally admitting, readmitting, or advancing any pupil to 7th grade level, unless the pupil has been immunized or has a medical exemption through a procedure that includes the completion of a compliant statewide form.

Racial Justice

  • AB 1185 County board of supervisors: sheriff oversight.

    Authorizes a county to establish a sheriff oversight board to assist the board of supervisors with those duties as they relate to the sheriff, either by action of the board of supervisors or through a vote of county residents.

  • AB 1196 Peace officers: use of force.

    Prohibits a law enforcement agency from authorizing the use of a carotid restraint or a choke hold.

  • AB 1215 Law enforcement: facial recognition and other biometric surveillance.

    Prohibits a law enforcement agency or law enforcement officer from installing, activating, or using any biometric surveillance system in connection with an officer camera or data collected by an officer camera.

  • AB 1460 California State University: graduation requirement: ethnic studies.

    Requires the California State University to provide courses in ethnic studies at each of its campuses and requires as an undergraduate graduation requirement the completion of a minimum of one 3-unit course in ethnic studies.

  • AB 1497 Hosting platforms.

    Includes a building, structure, or portion thereof that is occupied, or intended to be occupied, through a transaction facilitated by a hosting platform (such as Air BnB) within the definition of “housing accommodation” under Fair Employment and Housing Act protections.

  • AB 1506 Police use of force.

    Creates a division within the Department of Justice to investigate use-of-force, review the use-of-force policies, and make recommendations upon the request of a law enforcement agency.

  • AB 1573 Collegiate athletes: Student Athlete Bill of Rights.

    Requires colleges, universities, and college athletic organizations to provide college athletes protection for their physical, emotional, financial, and academic wellbeing. Allows colleges to create degree completion fund.

  • AB 1775 False reports and harassment.

    Makes it a crime to knowingly and recklessly make a false report to law enforcement that another person has committed, or is in the act of committing, a criminal act or is engaged in an activity requiring law enforcement intervention, and increases the fines for harassing someone through a call or request to law enforcement.

  • AB 1950 Probation: length of terms.

    Restricts the period of probation for a misdemeanor to no longer than one year, except when the period of the maximum sentence imposed by law exceeds 3 years, in which case the terms of probation may be imposed for a longer period than 3 years, but not to exceed the time for which the person may be imprisoned.

  • AB 242 Courts: attorneys: implicit bias: training.

    Makes a defendants’ inability to pay a fine a compelling and extraordinary reason for a court to not impose a restitution fine upon a conviction of a misdemeanor or felony.

  • AB 2542 Criminal procedure: discrimination.

    Prohibits the state from seeking or obtaining a conviction or sentence on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.

  • AB 3070 Juries: peremptory challenges.

    Prohibits a party from using a peremptory challenge to remove a prospective juror on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and other specified characteristics, and outlines a court procedure for objecting to, evaluating, and resolving improper bias in peremptory challenges.

  • AB 3121 Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.

    Establishes an eight-member task force to do the following: study the issue of reparations for African Americans; propose ways to educate the California public about its findings; make recommendations on the forms that reparations might take; and submit a report of its findings to the Legislature.

  • AB 32 Detention facilities: private, for-profit administration services.

    Prohibits CDCR from entering into or renewing a contract with a private, for-profit prison to incarcerate state prison inmates, but would not prohibit the department from renewing or extending a contract to house state prison inmates in order to comply with any court-ordered population cap.

  • AB 392 Peace officers: deadly force.

    Redefines the circumstances under which a homicide by a peace officer is deemed justifiable to include when the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, that deadly force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person, or to apprehend a fleeing person for a felony that threatened or resulted in death or serious bodily injury, if the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or serious bodily injury to another unless the person is immediately apprehended.

  • AB 701 Prisoners: exoneration: housing costs.

    Provides a person who is exonerated of a crime $5,000 upon release from prison, to be used to pay for housing, and entitles the exonerated person to receive direct payment or reimbursement for reasonable housing costs for between up to four years thereafter.

  • AB 703 Public postsecondary education: fee waivers for exonerated persons.

    Prohibits the University of California , the California State University, and the California Community Colleges from collecting mandatory systemwide fees or tuition to exonerated persons.

  • AB 846 Public employment: public officers or employees declared by law to be peace officers.

    Requires that evaluation of a peace officer include bias against race or ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, disability, or sexual orientation.

  • AB 979 Corporations: boards of directors: underrepresented communities.

    Requires a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive office is located in California to have a minimum of one director from an underrepresented community.

  • ACA 5 Government preferences.

    Puts to voters the question of whether or not to permit the use of race, gender, and ethnic diversity as factors (but not decisive factors) in college admissions, government hiring, and government contracting by repealing Prop 209.

  • ACA 6 Elections: disqualification of electors.

    Puts to voters the question of whether or not to restore voting rights to individuals upon completion of a prison term.

  • SB 188 Discrimination: hairstyles.

    Defines descrimiation based on race to include traits historically associated with race, including hair texture and protective hairstyles.

  • SB 203 Juveniles: custodial interrogation.

    Expands and extends protections for minors prior to a custodial interrogation by a law enforcement officer.

  • SB 206 Collegiate athletics: student athlete compensation and representation.

    Allows college student athletes to earn compensation for the use of their own name, image, or likeness (athletic endorsements) and allows student athletes to obtain professional legal representation, such as that provided by a sports agent, in relation to their college athletics.

  • SB 269 Wrongful convictions.

    Extends the statute of limitations for when a wrongfully convicted individual can file a claim with the California Victim Compensation Board from two years to ten years after exoneration or release.

  • SB 310 Jury service.

    Permits a person with a felony conviction, who is not incarcerated in prison or jail, to serve on a jury. Permits a person with a felony conviction, who is not incarcerated in prison or jail, to serve on a jury.

  • SB 464 California Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act.

    Requires a hospital that provides perinatal care, and an alternative birth center or a primary clinic that provides services as an alternative birth center, to implement an evidence-based implicit bias program for all health care providers involved in perinatal care of patients within those facilities and requires ongoing training.

  • SB 534 Insurers: minority, women, LGBT, veteran, and disabled veteran business enterprises.

    Requires insurers to report to the commissioner on their minority, women, LGBT, veteran, and disabled veteran-owned business procurement efforts. Under the bill, a failure to report the information by the reporting deadline would subject the admitted insurer to civil penalties to be fixed and enforced by the commissioner.

  • SB 716 Juveniles: delinquency: postsecondary academic and career technical education.

    Improves access to higher education opportunities for youth involved with the juvenile justice system.

Reproductive Rights

    • SB 1375 (Atkins): Nursing: nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives: abortion and practice standards.

      Expands training options for Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs) for purposes of performing abortion by aspiration techniques (AAT).

    • SCA 10 (Atkins & Rendon): Constitutional Right to Abortion and Contraception.

      Enacts a constitutional amendment, expressly providing that the state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.

Wages

  • $25 Healthcare Worker Minimum Wage.

    Sets a minimum wage of $25 per hour for healthcare workers throughout California, on a schedule of four tiers based on employer type and size. Once each of those tiers reaches $25 per hour, the minimum wage will be annually adjusted for inflation or 3.5%, whichever is less. This is the first $25 minimum wage in the country and also the first healthcare-specific minimum wage, and will lead to wage increases for more than 400,000 healthcare workers in California. The law covers all healthcare workers who provide services that directly or indirectly support patient care, including contracted workers. This includes clinicians, nurses, certified nursing assistants, aides, technicians, maintenance workers, janitorial or housekeeping staff, groundskeepers, guards, food service workers, laundry workers, and pharmacists, but does not include managers or supervisors.

    Group 1 — Large health systems and hospitals and all dialysis clinics
    Facilities that have more than 10,000 full time equivalent employees, or are part of an integrated health system with that many. All dialysis
    clinics.

    Group 1 Timeline for minimum wage increases
    July 2024: $23
    July 2025: $24
    July 2026: $25

    Group 2 — Smaller health facilities
    Facilities that have fewer than 10,000 full time equivalent employees, or are part of an integrated health system with fewer than 10,000.

    Group 2 Timeline for minimum wage increases
    July 2024: $21
    July 2026: $23
    July 2028: $25

    Group 3 — Truly financially distressed
    Hospitals with high Medi-Cal and Medicare payor patient populations (over 90%) and small rural independent hospitals.

    Group 3 Timeline for minimum wage increases
    July 2024: $18
    July 2026: Annual Increase of 3.5% until $25/hour is reached

    Group 4 — Community clinics
    All community and primary care clinics, including federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, free clinics and intermittent clinics.

    Group 4 Timeline for minimum wage increases
    July 2024: $21
    July 2026: $22
    July 2027: $25

Workforce

  • Expanding the Care Economy Workforce Package.

    Community Health Workers $300 million General Fund to recruit, train, and certify 25,000 new community health workers by 2025, in partnership with the Department of Health Care Access and Information and the Department of Health Care Services, with specialty certifications in areas that include climate health, homelessness, and dementia.
    High Road Training Program $135 million General Fund for training and career advancement programs for people with barriers to employment, in alignment with the Workforce Council for Healthcare Training priorities. Funding supports collaborations and training programs among community-based organizations, local workforce boards, labor unions, educational institutions, and employers to build partnerships and pathways into family-sustaining healthcare jobs.
    Comprehensive Nursing Initiative $100-175 million General Fund to increase the number of registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, certified nurse midwives, certified medical assistants, family nurse practitioners, and other health professions.
    Expanding Social Workers $200 million General Fund to support social work training programs and provide stipends and scholarships to create a new pipeline for diverse social workers who cannot otherwise afford the financial or time investment required to complete full-time programs.
    English Learners Health Careers $130million one-time Proposition 98 General Fund through the Adult Education program to support, healthcare-focused vocational pathways for English language learners at multiple levels of English proficiency, to increase language and cultural diversity in these settings.
    Healthcare Workforce Advancement Fund $25 million General Fund for the Employment Training Panel to support job entry and career advancement for entry-level and other workers in health and human service settings
    Multilingual Health Initiative $60 million General Fund to expand scholarships and loan repayment programs in healthcare and social work for multilingual applicants, with the goal of increasing language and cultural competencies throughout the care workforce.

  • AB 690 Pharmacies: relocation: remote dispensing site pharmacy: pharmacy technician: qualifications.

    Authorizes relocation of a pharmacy that is destroyed or severely damaged as a result of a natural disaster or due to events that led to a declared federal, state, or local emergency, if no changes are made to the management and control, or ownership, of the pharmacy, and all applicable laws and regulations are followed, and requires that the Pharmacy Board be notified of the relocation immediately upon identification of the new location. Also specifies the qualifications for a registered pharmacy technician to work at a remote dispensing site pharmacy, relating to licensing, certification, education, and minimum work experience, including completion of at least 2,000 hours of experience within the previous 2 years.

  • AB 2273 Physicians and surgeons: foreign medical graduates: special faculty permits.

    Authorizes the holder of a special faculty permit, a visiting fellow, and a holder of a certificate of registration to practice medicine at an academic medical center (Cedars Sinai).

  • AB 547 Janitorial workers: sexual violence and harassment prevention training.

    Amends existing laws on sexual violence and harassment prevention for janitorial workers by requiring DLSE to issue 2 types of registrations, one for registrants without employees and one for registrants with employees, and prohibits DLSE from approving a registration if the employer does not include the name of any subcontractor or franchise servicing contracts affiliated with branch locations and the name of any subcontractor on franchise servicing the contracts. Also creates a “promotoras” peer-to-peer training program for janitorial workers.

  • AB 890 Nurse practitioners: scope of practice: practice without standardized procedures.

    Authorizes qualified nurse practitioners to provide certain services without supervision, including ordering, performing, and interpreting diagnostic procedures, certifying disability, and prescribing, administering, dispensing, and furnishing controlled substances, and requires the BRN to set standards.

  • AB 1340 Private postsecondary education: California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009: labor market outcome data reporting.

    Requires institutions subject to the California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009 to collect and retain individual identifying information for each graduate completing a program, including the program the graduate was enrolled in, and student loan debt information.

  • AB 1344 Private postsecondary education: California Private Postsecondary Act of 2009.

    Requires out-of-state private postsecondary educational institutions to provide the bureau with specified information regarding whether the institution, a controlling officer or investor, or the parent entity of the institution, has been subject to certain adverse state or federal actions in the previous 5 years before seeking authorization to operate in California.

  • AB 1346 Postsecondary education: California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009: Student Tuition Recovery Fund.

    Allows California students of Corinthian Colleges, Inc. institutions to receive payment from the Student Tuition Recovery Fund by expanding the definition of economic loss to include all cash or other consideration paid by the student to an institution, all expenses related to private or government student loans in connection with the student’s attendance, and all third-party payments paid to the student or to the institution in connection with the student’s attendance at the institution.

  • AB 1544 Community Paramedicine or Triage to Alternate Destination Act.

    Authorizes a local EMS agency to develop a community paramedicine or triage to alternate destination program to provide community paramedicine services.

  • AB 2199 Healing arts: clinical laboratories.

    Extends the sunset to January 1, 2023 of the pilot program authorizing a person with specified qualifications to perform a total protein test using a digital refractometer in a licensed plasma collection center in this state if specified circumstances are met, as determined by the department, including that the person meets certain education and training requirements, performs the total protein test under the supervision of certain individuals, and records the results of the test in a federally approved computer system.

  • AB 593 Unemployment insurance: use of information: public workforce development programs.

    Adds a chief elected official of local workforce investment areas to the list of entities permitted to use information obtained in the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Code to evaluate and demonstrate workforce program performance outcomes as required by local laws.

  • AB 595 Community colleges: apprenticeship programs.

    Authorizes a student enrolled in a community college class or classes pursuant to an apprenticeship training program or an internship training program who does not have a social security number to use an individual tax identification number for purposes of any background check required by the class or program.

  • AB 709 School districts: governing boards: pupil members.

    Requires the governing board of a school district maintaining one or more high schools to appoint to its membership one or more pupil members if pupils submit a petition.

  • SB 1237 Nurse-midwives: scope of practice.

    Authorizes qualified certified nurse-midwives to attend without supervision cases of low-risk pregnancy and childbirth and to provide prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum care, including family-planning services, interconception care, and immediate care of the newborn, as approved by the Board of Registered Nursing.

  • SB 1474 Business and professions.

    Renames the Contractors’ State License Board as the Contractors State License Board and renames the associated Fund.

  • SB 334 Healing arts: clinical laboratories.

    Requires DPH to establish a pathway program by January 1, 2022, that would authorize a licensed medical laboratory technician (MLT) to apply their work experience and training from a department-approved MLT training program towards the completion of a CLS training program.

  • SB 480 Law enforcement uniforms.

    Prohibits law enforcement agencies from authorizing or allowing employees to wear a uniform that is made from a camouflage printed or patterned material or a uniform that is substantially similar to a uniform of the United States Armed Forces or state active militia.

  • SB 653 Dental hygienists: registered dental hygienist in alternative practice: scope of practice.

    Authorizes a registered dental hygienist to provide fluoride varnish to a patient without supervision. Also authorizes a registered dental hygienist to provide dental hygiene preventive services and oral screenings at certain sponsored events and nonprofit organizations.

  • SB 655 Pharmacy.

    Requires pharmacy technician externships to be for a period of no fewer than 120 hours and no more than 140 hours.

  • SB 697 Physician assistants: practice agreement: supervision.

    Removes the requirement that the Physician Assistant Board make recommendations to the Medical Board of California concerning the formulation of guidelines for the consideration and approval of applications by licensed physicians and surgeons to supervise physician assistants.

  • SB 878 Department of Consumer Affairs: license: application: processing timeframes.

    Requires licensing boards under DCA to display on their websites processing timeframes for license applications and renewals.

  • AB 2288 Nursing programs: state of emergency.

    Allows the BRN to revise clinical experience requirements for approved nursing programs, including reducing the required direct patient hours and using preceptorships without maintaining specified written policies, for enrolled students until the end of the 2020–21 academic year and whenever the Governor declares a state of emergency in the county.