Government Relations Update: NASW-CA Supported Bills

By Rebecca Gonzales, Director of Government Relations and Political Affairs

The temperature is heating up in Sacramento and so are our bills! Back in March, our legislative committee met and chose our three Lobby Days bills and the other bills we are supporting this year. At this time of year bills must have passed their policy committee hearing to still be moving through the process. Bills that have a fiscal effect are in the fiscal committees and bills without a fiscal effect have moved onto the Assembly or Senate floor. Below you will see an update for a small sampling of our bills this year:

Lobby Days Bills
AB 1455 (Campos) Pupils: Bullying: Counseling Services

This bill authorizes a school superintendent, the principal or the principal’s designee to refer a victim or witness of bullying to school support personnel, including school social workers.
Status: Passed the Assembly. In the Senate.

AB 1554 (Skinner) Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFE)
This bill will strengthen the oversight of RCFEs by Community Care Licensing. This includes requiring investigations of complaints that involve abuse, neglect or serious harm to a RCFE resident to be made within 24 hours and that the investigations must be completed within 30 days.
Status: In Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 1005 (Lara) Health Care Coverage: Immigration Status
This bill will expand access to health care for all Californians, regardless of immigration status.
Status: In Senate Appropriations Committee.

Other Support Bills
AB 1517 (Skinner) DNA Evidence
This bill helps to reduce the backlog in untested rape kits by specifying guidelines for testing and entering DNA profile information into CODIS, the FBI’s national DNA database.
Status: In the Appropriation suspense file.

AB 1579 (Stone) CalWORKs: Pregnant Mothers
The bill will allow for a pregnant woman to receive aid each month that she is pregnant, beginning the month in which she submits verification of her pregnancy — rather than current law which only allows aid in the last four months of the pregnancy.
Status: In the Appropriation suspense file.

AB 1652 (Ammiano) Inmates: Prison Gangs
This bill attempts to reduce the overuse of solitary confinement by reserving its use for inmates who have committed a serious offense while incarcerated rather than using solitary confinement for being associated with a gang.
Status: In Assembly Appropriations suspense file.

AB 1653 (Garcia) CalWORKs: Victims of Domestic Violence
This bill seeks to ensure CalWORKs applicants and recipients who are present or past victims of domestic violence are provided appropriate and timely information regarding their rights to a waiver of program requirements if adherence to those requirements would unfairly penalize them or put them at risk of further abuse.
Status: In Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 1733 (Quirk-Silva) Public Records: Fee Waiver
This bill requires each county registrar or recorder to issue a certificated birth certificate, without a fee, to a homeless person or youth who has corroborating evidence that they are homeless.
Status: In Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 1929 (Chau) California Housing Finance Agency: MHSA Funding: Special Needs Housing for Persons with a Mental Illness
This bill authorizes the counties and specified state agencies to work together to develop permanent supportive housing for people with a mental illness using Mental Health Services Act funding.
Status: In Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 899 (Mitchell) CalWORKs Eligibility
Ends the use of the maximum family grant which prohibited an increase in a grant payment for a child born when a parent is on CalWORKs. Also prohibits conditioning eligibility based on questioning a woman about her method of birth control or if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest.
Status: Senate Appropriations suspense file.

SB 1135 (Jackson) Inmates: Sterilization
This bill prohibits the sterilization of inmates in prison or jails for birth control without their consent.
Status: Senate Appropriations Committee.

For more information on these bills, go to www.leginfo.ca.gov

To see a list of all the bills we have taken a position on this year go to the “advocacy” section on our website at www.naswca.org.