With the final adjournment of the Legislature on August 31, hundreds of bills were forwarded to the Governor, who now has until September 30 to decide their fate.

There’s often lots of controversy in Sacramento, but contrary to what may be a common impression, many bills pass with overwhelming support from both parties. This session was no different. For example, we passed AB 1710 (Wood) to allow pharmacists to administer FDA-approved COVID-19 Vaccines. We also passed AB 1577 (Burke) conforming state law to federal law to exclude CARES Act and Paycheck Protection Program loans from state income taxes. SB 1447 (Bradford) provides tax credits for small businesses that hire new employees, and in another effort to help workers and small businesses, we passed AB 1731 (Boerner Horvath) to ease the availability of the work sharing program so that workers can remain on the job. And SB 872 (Dodd) expands homeowners’ insurance protections during states of emergencies.

Bills impacting animal welfare included SB 573 (Chang) which requires microchipping of shelter dogs and cats, along with AB 1974 (Gray & Chau) to help protect and advance the health, safety, welfare and aftercare of race horses.

We passed SB 803 (which I co-authored with Senator Jim Beall), to support a mental health peer specialist certification program for counties that wish to help workers dealing with mental health or substance abuse issues. Other bi-partisan bills included AB 2421 (Quirk) a bill to speed installation of stand-by generators for cell towers in hard-pressed rural areas, and AB 1138 (Gallagher), to require parental consent before an online user account can be created for a child.

It’s now up to the Governor to decide the fate of these bills. If you’d like to request than any bill be signed or vetoed, the Governor’s office can be reached at: Contact the Governor