In 2022 the state League emerged from our Covid cocoon to the new normal - a hybrid of online and in-person engagement. It has been a very active year. Out of the almost 5,000 bills that were introduced in the two-year legislative session we tracked 345 and took positions on 117. We also dove into an evaluation of the state and local redistricting process, worked to implement the restoration of voting rights to people on parole, continued to provide guidance to counties on the Voter’s Choice Act, and engaged in a plethora of other public policy issues. Our Advocacy Interest Groups are growing in the areas of Criminal Justice, Healthcare, Housing and Homelessness, Climate Change, Water, and Immigration - check the list to join one! And of course, none of this would be possible without the tireless work of our advocacy team and grassroots leaders. Thank you for helping us significantly impact the well-being of Californians.
In this year’s Advocacy Wrap-Up, you can read highlights of our hard-earned victories and a preview of our goals for next year. As always, detailed letters related to all the bills on which we took positions may be found in our Bill Status Report.
OUR BIGGEST WINS
Groundbreaking Anti-Racism Victory
Three years of intensive work have paid off with the League's co-sponsored AB 256 (Kalra), The Racial Justice Act for All. The bill adds retroactivity to the Racial Justice Act of 2020 that created a prospective cause of action for institutionalized and implicit racial bias in our criminal courts. The law empowers defendants to challenge charges, convictions, or punishment if they can show that anyone involved in their case — a judge, attorney, officer, expert witness, or juror — demonstrated racial bias during the process. Regardless of when it happened. As reported by the New York Times, the original Racial Justice Act (2020) is already changing lives for the better. Recently, a California Judge in Contra Costa County overturned the murder convictions of two men, and granted them new trials, citing that the use of rap lyrics in their convictions violated the Racial Justice Act. Ellen McDonnell, a public defender in Contra Costa County commented “This case realizes the promise of the California Racial Justice Act, which was designed to prohibit racial bias in policing, prosecution and sentencing.” Many thanks to volunteer Deputy Director for Social Policy Ashley Ravache, whose work with the coalition was instrumental to the bill’s successful passage.
California Voters Get the Protections they Deserve
We built in safeguards to prevent erroneous voter registration purges and protect the voting rights of people with disabilities under conservatorship with AB 2841 (Low), a bill we co-sponsored with the ACLU. Read more about the legislation in this CalMatters' opinion piece, co-authored by the LWVC and the ACLU. If you would like to watch LWVC testimony on two bills back to back (AB 2808 opposition and AB 2841 support), click the link and start the video at 1 hour 22 minutes.
Reproductive Rights Safeguarded
It has been a big year for reproductive rights in California. We are signatories to the ballot argument on Prop 1, the measure that will enshrine reproductive freedom as a state constitutional right. We supported numerous other bills, including ones to protect people from criminal prosecution for self-administered abortions, miscarriages, and stillbirths AB 2223 (Wicks), to expand the availability of providers of abortions in the first trimester SB 1375 Atkins, and to prohibit the enforcement of out-of-state fetal heartbeat abortion restriction laws and those that impose civil liability on a person seeking, receiving, performing, inducing, or aiding a person in obtaining an abortion AB 1666 (Bauer-Kahan).
Local Redistricting Reform for Fair Maps
Riverside, Fresno, and Kern counties will all have independent redistricting commissions in place for the next round in 2030. The bills, designed to prevent partisan gerrymandering and increase public participation, were League priorities. Check out LWVC testimony starting at 45 minutes into the video.
The state League is part of a coalition of organizations thinking through recommendations for legislation to improve and advance local-level independent redistricting more broadly.
A Natural Resources Team Triumph
The League of Women Voters of Marin County planted a seed with their Assemblymember that bloomed into legislation requiring local governments to consider sea level rise and other environmental factors when planning for new housing. Marc Levine, the author of AB 1445, noted that “[v]ast areas of California are increasingly vulnerable to wildfires, sea level rise, and severe drought. We must ensure that badly needed investments in housing are not placed at risk by the climate crisis.”
Win-Wins for Housing and the Environment
In exciting wins for both housing and the environment, AB 2011 (Wicks) allows affordable housing to be built through a ministerial, streamlined process in commercially zoned districts, keeping development close to city centers to avoid sprawl and achieve greenhouse gas reductions. And AB 2097 (Friedman) ends parking mandates in many California cities, which is expected to lower housing costs and reduce pollution.
YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL
Water’s Turbulent Year
It can’t always be smooth sailing. Lack of ongoing funding led to the Governor’s veto of SB 222 (Dodd), defeating efforts to provide water affordability assistance for drinking and wastewater services to low-income ratepayers. The absence of dedicated funding also led to the demise of AB 252 (Rivas), which would have taken land out of agricultural production in response to drought and the declining availability of surface and groundwater. Opposition from some agricultural organizations and water districts led to the failure of AB 2201 (Bennett) which would have brought well-permitting into line with the planning required by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Regulations on urban water use fared better, with the Governor signing SB 1157 (Hertzberg) tightening urban water use objectives.
MORE VICTORIES
The following are a few highlights from the nearly 80 pieces of legislation that the League advocated for in 2022.
- Education, immigrants, and equity are all served by SB 1141 (Limón), that will make college more accessible for undocumented students by removing the two-year cap on full-time enrollment in credit courses that can be counted toward qualifying for a non-resident tuition exemption. Furthermore, opportunities for high school students to take community college coursework were expanded by AB 102 (Holden).
- In a victory against cruel and unusual punishment, courts will be required to vacate the death sentences of people who have become “permanently incompetent” to be executed due to a mental illness or disorder making them unable to rationally understand either the punishment or the reason for it. AB 2657 (Stone).
- Turtles are happy! California will reduce single-use plastic pollution with the passage of the Plastic Pollution Producer Responsibility Act, SB 54 (Allen). The watershed legislation mandates significant reductions in single-use foodware and packaging and holds producers financially responsible for the plastic they put into our communities.
- Election officials across the nation are resigning due to threats and harassment. California officials have also been threatened. SB 1131 (Newman) allows all public employees experiencing intimidation to enroll in California’s Safe at Home address confidentiality program.
- Voting rights for people who have finished their prison sentences are advanced by improving the accuracy of conviction data that is reported to elections officials through the passage of SB 504 (Becker). The bill also clarifies the right of military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities to complete a same-day voter registration and cast a ballot.
- The practice of prison gerrymandering has been permanently ended by AB 1848 (Bryan) which requires that people who are incarcerated be counted as residents of their home community, and not where the prison is located, when drawing political boundaries.
- More Sheriff and District Attorney elections will occur in presidential election years due to AB 759 (McCarty). Holding those elections at times when we see the highest rates and broadest diversity of voter turnout will increase the legitimacy and accountability of the elected offices.
- Protections against frivolous recall elections will be accomplished through AB 2584 (Berman). The legislation will also help provide voters with accurate information, maximize community participation in government decision-making, increase transparency, and boost participation by consolidating special elections.
- Sometimes success means defeating a bill. That was the case with AB 2808 (O'Donnell) which would have prohibited the use of ranked choice voting in California state and local elections, including in numerous charter cities where it has been successfully used for over a decade. Lobbying by the LWVC was instrumental in ensuring this bill did not go forward. If you would like to watch LWVC testimony on two bills back to back (AB 2808 opposition and AB 2841 support), click the link and start the video at 1 hour 22 minutes.
BEYOND BILLS
Our work goes beyond legislation. Among other things we also advise the work of key state agencies to ensure they meet the needs of Californians, guide effective implementation of legislation, and provide education related to advocacy.
Motor Voter Task Force
Last year we passed AB 796 (Berman) to improve the voter registration process at the DMV and help more of the 3 million eligible, yet unregistered Californians register and vote. The bill builds on the success of California’s Motor Voter program, codifies best practices developed through the LWVC lawsuit and settlement agreement with the DMV, requires greater transparency and training, and removes impediments to equitable voter registration. This year the LWVC was chosen to sit on the Secretary of State’s Motor Voter Task Force, established pursuant to the legislation and charged with monitoring the DMV voter registration process.
State and Local Redistricting
Our LWVC Board Director Helen Hutchison and former LWVUS President Chris Carson lead our work on redistricting. With the active phase of state redistricting completed, they are now in the evaluation and recommendations phase. The LWVC, in partnership with Common Cause California, has commissioned an independent report being authored by Dr. Christian Grose of the Schwarzenegger Institute. He is conducting interviews with a wide variety of individuals and organizations and will include a case study of the process in the Los Angeles area.
As with state redistricting, local redistricting is in the assessment phase. The rules for city and county redistricting were changed by an LWVC co-sponsored bill, the Fair Maps Act of 2019 (see our toolkit). We are now working with our partners to determine further legislative changes that may be needed.
Housing and Homelessness Webinar Series
In order to advocate well, we need to learn about issues. The League has been hosting webinars centered around housing and homelessness issues in California. Our events so far have focused on establishing project funding and how climate change intersects with housing development. You can view past webinars on our YouTube channel. Join us for future webinars on some of the most pressing issues facing Californians and hear insights from some leading experts in the field. If you’re interested, please email Adrianna Champagne-Zamora at achampagne [at] lwvc.org.
LOOKING FORWARD
We have a big year planned ahead and rely on the generosity of League members to sustain our advocacy programs and services. The League is dependent on member donations and your support is what allows us to achieve these goals. Donate here.
Ballot Measures
The 2024 ballot will include SCA 2 (Allen), to repeal Article 34 of the California Constitution, thereby removing legal impediments to building low-income and public housing in our cities. Eradicating this antiquated 1950 provision will help California move past redlining and segregation and foster the construction of affordable housing.
Legislation
It’s still early days, but we have already begun coalition work on amendments to the Fair Maps Act to improve local redistricting. And watch out for the possibility of further legislation to require independent redistricting commissions in more counties.
Shrinking California’s Voter Participation Gap
Despite the fact that we are a state where underrepresented groups are a majority, and have recently passed laws designed to remove impediments and promote access to voting, there are significant disparities in participation among youth and voters of color compared to our older, non-Hispanic white population.
In 2022, the League led a coalition in a first-of-its-kind Voter Education & Outreach Legislative Budget Request, which was championed by a group of legislators. The idea is to use robust voter education and outreach as a tool to shrink the participation gap and create a more representative democracy. We worked with the Secretary of State, the Governor’s office, and other stakeholders to build support, and while we were unable to get the funding incorporated into last year’s budget, we developed some key relationships and a solid foundation on which to continue the advocacy in 2023.
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