A Win for Team Stern: Stern 5 Appropriations Committee 3
A Win for Team Stern: Stern 5 Appropriations Committee 3
SACRAMENTO- Senator Stern achieves a significant milestone as five bills advance out of the Senate Appropriations Committee to the floor, while three bills are set aside due to fiscal implications.
"I'm incredibly proud that we were able to move five significant pieces of legislation forward, including SB 1277, SB 1400, and SB 1504, which will enhance education, mental health support, and online safety. These bills represent crucial steps towards protecting our youth and promoting equality in our schools. While I am sad to leave SB 1421 and 1444 behind, I am optimistic that we will continue to build on this progress and get these bills to the Governor’s desk in August."
-Senator Henry Stern (SD27)
Bills Passed:
SB 1277: Establishes the Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education as a statewide teacher professional development program. Led by the California Department of Education, the Collaborative will focus on educating teachers about the Holocaust and genocides of various peoples, including Armenian, Bosnian, Indigenous American, Cambodian, and Uyghur communities. It will also address contemporary issues such as hate and antisemitism.
SB 1400: Improve upon Stern’s prior SB 317, removing the option for automatic dismissal in Medically Incompetent to Stand Trial (M.I.S.T.) cases and instead, mandating a hearing to determine diversion eligibility. It further requires hearings to assess alternative treatment options for those ineligible for diversion, permits MIST defendants facing DUI charges to access mental health diversion programs, and necessitates misdemeanor dismissals when defendants are committed to mental health treatment while facing felony charges.
SB 1504: The bill mandates social media platforms to institute a formal procedure enabling individuals to request the permanent removal and blocking of cyberbullying content. Additionally, it obligates platforms to either remove reported material or provide a transparent explanation for their decision, empowering users to hold platforms accountable for non-compliance.
SB 1508: Updates the state’s ongoing energy storage target setting process to reflect current clean energy and climate change goals, and incorporate a broader array of energy storage technologies that will likely be needed to achieve state energy goals effectively.
SB 1509: This legislation, aimed at addressing negligent driving behaviors on California's roads, seeks to enhance road safety and prevent future tragedies in the community. Among its proposed amendments to existing law, SB 1509 would classify convictions for driving over 26 miles per hour over the speed limit as a two-point violation against a driver's license on roadways with speed limits 55 mph and under. This measure comes in response to concerning statistics, with 34% of the state's yearly traffic fatalities being speed-related according to data from the CalTrans.
Bills Not Advancing:
SB 1444: Would have mandated large social media platforms to transfer a child's data to a parent-selected third-party safety software upon request, facilitating alerts to parents about potentially harmful content. Additionally, the bill introduces protections for users of these safety software providers, encompassing disclosure requirements to children, data protection standards, and privacy safeguards.
SB 1421: Would have established the "Office of Civil Rights" within the California Department of Education (CDE) to investigate hate incidents such as discrimination, harassment, and bullying in local educational agencies (LEAs) based on various factors, and to address complaints regarding access to quality education and instructional materials.
SB 1311- Would have enhanced the reliability planning assessment and integrated energy policy report processes in California. This bill was a reintroduction of SB 664 (Stern) from 2023. The bill requires the California Energy Commission (CEC) to provide additional grid planning information when quarterly updating the joint Reliability Planning Assessment. The bill also requires the CEC to publish and update this information on its website using an online “energy dashboard”.
Bills on the Assembly floor: SB 1136, SB 1169
Bills on the Senate floor: SB 1251, SB 1252, SB 1277, SB 1283, SB 1301, SB 1399, SB 1400, SB 1471, SB 1504