It’s the time of year when California lawmakers face final reckoning on the bills they’ve introduced. Many fell by the wayside during committee hearings and floor votes. Of those that made it onto the governor’s desk, only a select group emerged as laws.
Here’s some of the last laws standing among the scores of bills introduced by San Diego senators and assembly members.
Plastic bag ban: State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, passed a bill to ban plastic bags statewide, which outlaws the chunky plastic bags offered at checkouts and requires fully reusable or paper bags instead.
Wait, you’re wondering, didn’t we already do that? Yes, sort of. California passed its first plastic bag ban 10 years ago. But the law failed to do what it promised. That’s because it didn’t really ban the bags at all, but replaced thin, flimsy plastic bags with thicker ones. They were theoretically reusable, but in reality almost none were reused or recycled. Most ended up in landfills instead. The result was a bump, rather than a cut to plastic bag waste.
The new law bans most plastic grocery bags, except those used for produce or other unwrapped food. It offers paper bags as an alternative, but specifies that they must be made from at least 50 percent recycled materials by 2028.
Blakespear also scored wins on her legislation to improve management of Southern California’s coastal rail line that runs from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. We chronicled some of the obstacles to smooth rail riding in August, when I encountered hours of delay on a 60 minute train ride to downtown San Diego. Blakespear also passed legislation to speed up development of accessory dwelling units in coastal areas.
Storm channel legislation: Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, passed a pair of bills to upgrade stormwater systems and prevent the kind of floods that devastated southeastern San Diego in January.
One aims to speed up stormwater work by letting the Regional Water Quality Control Board accept money from local governments for permits and technical tasks. The city of San Diego sponsored the bill, saying that funding and staff shortages at the water board led to costly delays. Letting the city and board coordinate funding could expedite that process, officials said.
Another law accelerates stormwater channel maintenance by exempting the process from certain conditions imposed by the California Environmental Quality Act. Alvarez said the law would help avoid delays that led to San Diego’s catastrophic floods in January and better prepare for future storms.
Salton Sea conservancy: State Sen. Seve Padilla passed a law creating a Salton Sea Conservancy to restore public health and ecology at the blighted inland lake. The law tasks the conservancy with managing projects to protect wildlife, improve water quality at the sea and reduce its health effects on nearby communities.
Despite the state budget deficit, the conservancy launches with big dollars attached, including $250 million from the federal Inflation Reduction Act, $60 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and another $170 million if California voters pass Proposition 4, a water and wildfire bond measure.
Another bill by Padilla, ensures that children and teens involved in creating video content get a share of the profits.
Reparations: Assemblymember Akilah Weber, D-La Mesa, passed a law that bans discrimination based on hairstyles, as part of a reparations package by the California Legislative Black Caucus. It expands protections against racial discrimination to include traits associated with race such as hair texture and protective hairstyles.
She was also one of 10 assembly members who authored a law requiring California to apologize for its role in slavery and racial discrimination.
Gun control: Amid his bid for San Diego city attorney, Assemblymember Brian Maienshchein passed two gun control laws. One prevents people charged with certain violent misdemeanors from possessing firearms while completing court-ordered diversion.
The law currently forbids them from owning firearms for 10 years after crimes including assault, battery, criminal threats, stalking child endangerment, elder abuse and others. That is, unless they complete court-ordered diversion. Maienshchein’s bill forbids firearm possession until the diversion program is done.
His other bill authorizes law enforcement to confiscate and destroy firearms that are illegally carried in public.
Crime Prevention: Assemblymember Chris Ward, D-San Diego, passed a law prohibiting doxing, the online release of personal information without consent, to cause harm or harassment of the target. It enables doxing victims to seek damages from the person who spilled their private information, and authorizes the court to keep the victim’s name confidential.
Another bill adds “hate littering” to state civil rights code, making it illegal to intimidate or threaten a person by distributing flyers targeting Jewish, LGBTQ and other communities. It was prompted by a surge in anti-semitic materials strewn through San Diego neighborhoods last year.
Ward also passed a law establishing guardrails around active shooter drills that schools conduct to prepare for actual emergencies involving gunfire. It prohibits the use of simulated gunfire in the drills, requires them to be age appropriate and ensures that parents are notified. Our Jakob McWhinney wrote about how this law would work in the Learning Curve in August.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday and is part of a partnership with CalMatters. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org