General Government

Significant Senate legislation relative to general government which were signed into law included: SB 14 (Negrete-McLeod) allowing members of the California National Guard to qualify for membership in the Public Employees' Retirement System; SB 86 (Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee), SB 90 (Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee), AB 192 (Assembly Budget Committee), and AB 199 (Assembly Budget Committee) enacting general government trailer bills to the 2007 State Budget; SB 162 (Negrete-McLeod) requiring local agency formation commissions to add the consideration of environmental justice to the list of factors to consider when acting on proposed boundary changes for cities and special districts; SB 206 (Cox) allowing all counties with populations of less than 500,000 to participate in the Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act; SB 233 (Cox) broadening the definition of projects that counties can build with design-build contracting methods to include building and county sanitation wastewater treatment infrastructure; SB 234 (Corbett) providing that California's "Lemon Law" applies to the purchase of any motor vehicle in the United States purchased by a member of the Armed Forces, regardless of the state in which the motor vehicle is purchased or registered; SB 250 (Corbett) allowing any gift card, as defined, with a cash value of less than $10 to be redeemed in cash for its cash value; SB 282 (Cox) establishing the State Fair Leasing Authority; SB 289 (Vincent) allowing the California Gambling Control Commission to deem a person suitable to hold a state gambling license even if the person has a specified financial interest in a business that conducts gambling activities outside the state that violates California law if conducted within the state; SB 339 (Scott) allowing a domestic incorporated insurer to invest its excess funds in a wider variety of investments than allowed under current law; SB 343 (Negrete-McLeod) enhancing the Ralph M. Brown Act by guaranteeing last minute agenda materials are available; SB 354 (Margett) providing that the Contractors' State License Board licensees may be held financially accountable for financial damages when they aid and abet unlicensed contractors; SB 379 (Denham) adding the Dubai World Cup Race to a specified list of races that would be exempted from the 23 race per day limit on imported races for satellite wagering in the state; SB 416 (Ashburn) allowing all counties to use the design-build method until January 1, 2011; SB 428 (Dutton) requiring investor-owned utilities to expand the availability of interruptible programs on all customer classes; SB 430 (Machado) creating a new assessment authority for the California Earthquake Authority to replace an assessment authority that is sunsetting; SB 500 (Corbett) prohibiting credit service organizations from engaging in various lending-related activities; SB 556 (Wiggins) creating the Light Brown Apple Moth Program, until January 1, 2010; SB 582 (Corbett) creating a procedure for law enforcement personnel, firefighters, and other public safety employees of a local agency to obtain approval from a city, county, or city and county to engage in charitable solicitation activities on public roadways, notwithstanding any local ordinance that restricts such activity; SB 625 (Padilla) establishing a $100 reinstatement fee upon retailers that engage in the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products in this state but fail to renew the necessary licenses; SB 639 (Harman) repealing the current Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act (enacted in 1967) and enacting the new Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act; SB 729 (Padilla) creating a Consumer Motor Vehicle Recovery Corporation and a Consumer Recovery Fund, to compensate consumers when vehicle dealers fail to make certain required payments; and SB 921 (Vincent) increasing from $50,000 to $100,000 the monetary penalty for violating the prohibition on administering unauthorized substances to horses entered in a horse race.

Significant Assembly general government legislation chaptered into law included: AB 7 (Lieu) providing that deferred deposit transaction licensees and California Finance Lender licensees must comply with federal regulations relating to the extension of credit to members of the armed services; AB 67 (Dymally) standardizing and defining language in the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, clarifying the State Personnel Board's responsibility to establish bilingual fluency standards, and expanding the Board's ability to grant exemptions to the language survey and implementation plan; AB 136 (Emmerson) authorizing the construction and maintenance of a search-and-rescue memorial in the Capitol Historic Region; AB 162 (Wolk) requiring cities and counties to increase their attention to flood-related matters in the land use, conservation, safety, and housing elements of their general plans, and update specified elements; AB 220 (Bass) enacting the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act; AB 221 (Anderson) prohibiting the state pension systems from investing in companies that have energy or defense-related operations in Iran; AB 236 (Lieu) revising current policies regarding the purchase of vehicles for state and local government fleets in order to increase fuel efficiency and the use of alternative fleets; AB 241 (Price) increasing up to 45 mini-satellite wagering sites throughout the state; AB 243 (Nakanishi) requiring the Contractors' State License Board to file a disciplinary action against a licensee convicted of crimes related to the qualifications, functions, and duties of a contractor within two years after discovery of the conviction; AB 244 (Nakanishi) providing that if a licensed or unlicensed person performs home improvement or service and repair work, without a written contract, that an indictment or information be brought, or a criminal complaint filed, within a specified amount of time from the date the buyer makes the first payment; AB 246 (Torrico) prohibiting anyone who sells investment products to any public retirement system in California from being a member of the board of retirement of a county operating a retirement system under the County Employees' Retirement Law of 1937; AB 300 (Nunez) authorizing the Governor to sign agreements required by the United States Olympic Committee as part of the City of Los Angeles' 2016 Olympic Games bid process (it became moot when Chicago won the bid); AB 349 (Salas) requiring a county clerk to certify a document submitted for recording in a language other than English upon verification that the translation was performed by a certified or registered interpreter translator; AB 384 (Portantino) providing health benefits to survivors of federal firefighters who reside in California and who are killed while performing firefighting services; AB 434 (Silva) requiring a notary public to either provide a photostatic copy to a requesting member of the public, or acknowledge that the line item requested does not exist, within 15 days of receipt of the request by the notary; AB 554 (Hernandez) expanding the group of employers eligible to participate in the California Employers Retirement Benefit Trust Fund (Prefunding Plan) administered by the Public Employees' Retirement System to include all California public employees; AB 610 (Price) raising the amount of guarantee liability outstanding against the California Small Business Expansion Fund to five times the amount of funds on deposit in the expansion fund or in a small business financial development corporation's trust fund account, until 2013; AB 641 (Torrico) prohibiting local governments from requiring the payment of local developer fees before the developer has received a certificate of occupancy, pursuant to a specified exemption, for any housing development in which at least 49 percent of the units are affordable to low- or very low-income households; AB 649 (Ma) increasing the minimum jockey riding fees which are paid to professional jockeys who compete in horse races; AB 720 (De Leon) establishing two new insurance agent license types, a life-only agent license and an accident and health agent license, in place of the current life agent license; AB 745 (Silva) requiring that contributions and expenditures for political purposes related to a local boundary change proposal carried out under local agency formation commission law, and contributions in support or in opposition to those measures, be disclosed and reported subject to the same requirements that the Political Reform Act provides for local initiative measures; AB 761 (Coto) ensuring that small and emerging contractors obtain a fair portion of state infrastructure construction contracts by establishing statutory participation goals and specifying the types of assistance to be provided to help those businesses successfully bid on infrastructure contracts; AB 765 (Evans) reauthorizing horseracing's Advance Deposit Wagering Law; AB 771 (De Leon) authorizing the Secretary of the Department of Food and Agriculture to establish working groups to resolve coexistence conflicts amongst and between sectors of agriculture as they arise, and enacting the Seedless Mandarin and Honeybee Coexistence Working Group Act; AB 797 (Coto) authorizing the Continuing Education Curriculum Board in the Department of Insurance to approve courses in business management practices to qualify for continuing education credit, and authorizing the Insurance Commissioner to issue a limited "automobile-only" insurance agents license; AB 829 (Duvall) allowing aftermarket and performance parts with valid Air Resources Board Executive Orders to be installed and sold prior to, or concurrent with, the purchase of a motorcycle; AB 886 (Runner) making it easier for law enforcement agencies and district attorneys to investigate unauthorized and criminal notaries public; AB 918 (Torrico) allowing certain telephone corporations to issue stock or securities without first obtaining approval from the Public Utilities Commission unless the Commission finds that prior approval is necessary; AB 951 (Jones) prohibiting possession of alcoholic beverages, whether open or closed, on non-motorized vessels along the American River between the Hazel Avenue and Watt Avenue bridges during three summer holiday periods -- Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day; AB 1108 (Ma) prohibiting the use of phthalates in toys and childcare products designed for babies and children under three years of age; AB 1019 (Blakeslee) creating a process for the reallocation of a county's share of the regional housing need when the annexation of an unincorporated area into a city occurs; AB 1047 (Houston) requiring the State Controller to notify all public agencies, on or before January 1, 2009, about the Uniform Public Construction Cost Accounting Act and the benefits of its provisions; AB 1063 (Evans) specifying that a county board of supervisors may provide for the issuance of bonds payable from the proceeds of a transactions and use tax, subject to specified criteria; AB 1168 (Jones) requiring specified public entities to truncate social security numbers when the numbers are displayed in public records; AB 1222 (Laird) establishing a streamlined alternative state mandate reimbursement process, clarifying an existing reimbursement methodology, and enhancing existing claiming requirements for certain mandates; AB 1246 (Blakeslee) allowing a state or local public agency to transfer its interest in real property that mitigates an adverse impact on natural resources to a nonprofit organization; AB 1288 (Hayashi) establishing the County Retirement System Vision Care Program to provide vision care benefits to retired employees of the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937; AB 1296 (Torrico) requiring health benefit plans providing services under the Public Employees' Medical and Hospital Care Act to provide the Public Employees' Retirement System with claims payment data for each member, and contract payment amounts for services rendered by hospitals; AB 1298 (Jones) changing existing law relating to the disclosure of personal information, including medical information, maintained by a business or state agency or contained in a credit report; AB 1307 (Krekorian) allowing the Public Employees' Retirement System to accept public agency and school employer contributions on behalf of participating employees in the Supplemental Contribution Plan and expanding eligibility to participate in the Plan to all California public agencies; AB 1339 (Torrico) requiring the Office of Problem and Pathological Gambling, within the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, to develop a statewide strategic plan for the prevention, intervention, treatment, and research of problem and pathological gambling in California, and creating a nine-member advisory board; AB 1347 (Caballero) enacting the Pet Store Animal Care Act that establishes procedures for the care and maintenance of animals in the custody of a pet store, and places limitations on the sale or transfer of those animals; AB 1401 (Aghazarian) increasing, from $1,300 to $5,100, the annual assessment on insurers to fund the activities of the Fraud Division of the Department of Insurance; AB 1483 (Carter) requiring an automotive repair dealer, once repairs are completed, to provide a written affirmation to the customer that the crash parts identified on the written estimate are the crash parts that were installed on the vehicle during repair; AB 1484 (Krekorian) repealing the California Trademark Law and replacing it with the Model State Trademark Law; AB 1528 (Assembly Banking and Finance Committee) prohibiting any person or entity from marketing financial services or products to a service member, or former service member, or the spouse of a service member in a false or deceptive manner; AB 1533 (Assembly Banking and Finance Committee) specifying what procedures apply to the sale of revenue anticipation warrants, legally known as registered reimbursement warrants, at public sale; AB 1658 (Runner) increasing the fines for trying to purchase alcohol by persons under 21 years old and manufacturing of false identification cards and licenses; AB 1678 (De La Torre) enacting a four-year statute of limitations to commence an action to avoid a contract in violation of existing law that prohibits specified public officials from having a financial interest in a contract entered into by the public official in his/her official capacity or by any board or body of which he/she is a member; AB 1736 (Assembly Governmental Organization Committee) adding the Travers Stakes to the group of specific stake races exempt from the 23 race per day limit on imported races; and AB 1739 (Assembly Governmental Organization Committee) clarifying the immunity for minors that are used in the Decoy Shoulder Tap Program in enforcing the law concerning selling of alcohol to underage minors.

Vetoed significant general government legislation included: SB 103 (Cedillo) requiring local agencies to provide public disclosure of any economic development subsidy of $100,000 or more; SB 152 (Florez) allowing a city, county, or city and county that has a gambling ordinance in effect on July 1, 2007, prohibiting more than 12 tables, to modify its ordinance to increase the number of gambling tables by an amount not to exceed 45 percent, without having to obtain voter approval; SB 284 (Lowenthal) enacting the Athletic Trainers Registration Act; SB 515 (Scott) extending the sunset date for the Secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency to establish, on a contract basis, an international trade and investment office in Yerevan, in the Republic of Armenia, until 2010; SB 739 (Calderon) exempting life insurance policies of $15,000 or less intended to be used for funeral expenses from the requirement that prospective senior policyholders receive at least a 24-hour advance notice before a life insurance agent can meet the senior in the senior's home; SB 904 (Battin) requiring the county recorder, when furnishing an informational copy of a military service record, to alter that record by masking the service member's personal information, as specified, without incurring any liability; AB 35 (Ruskin) enacting the Sustainable Building Act of 2007; AB 89 (Gaines) requiring the Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency to prepare a study regarding infrastructure development along the California/Mexico border including an assessment of whether alternative financing mechanisms may be necessary to meet the development needs of the bi-national region; AB 174 (Price) giving the State Personnel Board the discretionary authority to award attorney fees and costs when the Board finds that a state civil service employee has suffered discrimination; AB 295 (Lieu) requiring specified state agencies to use additional separate collection categories and tabulations for specified Asian and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islander groups; AB 414 (Jones) restricting the use of double-zoned sites to accommodate a city's or county's share of the regional housing need under the housing element law; AB 546 (Brownley) requiring a retailer of an electronic device to provide a customer with specified information relating to electronic waste recycling; AB 553 (Hernandez) clarifying the Public Employment Relations Board's exclusive authority to determine, under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, whether to seek from a court of competent jurisdiction injunctive relief involving relations between an employee organization and a public agency; AB 608 (De La Torre) increasing the state's bidding preferences afforded to small and microbusinesses from five to 10 percent; AB 684 (Leno) clarifying the definition of "marijuana" contained in the Uniformed Controlled Substance Act to exclude industrial hemp, except where the plant is cultivated or processed for purposes not expressly allowed, as specified; AB 701 (De La Torre) increasing the maximum amount of salary a city council member may receive per month; AB 779 (Jones) establishing a set procedure to be adhered to by a person, business, or public agency that sells goods or services to any California resident, and accepts as payment a credit card, debit card, or other payment device; AB 1135 (Strickland) requiring written reports from the Executive Branch of state government to the Legislature to include a signed statement under penalty of perjury by the head of the agency that the factual contests of the report are true, accurate, and complete, to the best of his/her knowledge; AB 1393 (Leno) requiring any state agency that publishes an Internet web site to include on its homepage specified information that is not exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act, about how to contact the agency, how to request records under the Act, and a form for submitting requests for records online, as described; AB 1606 (Arambula) requiring the development of a state private investment strategy and updating the state's economic development statutory framework for the purpose of streamlining and improving coordination of existing policies and programs; and AB 1673 (Feuer) requiring a retailer that advertises a rebate price to actually sell the item at that price to the consumer and then seek reimbursement for the rebate rather than require the consumer to do so.