In the News

The following is a reaction to SB 1410 by Senator Anna M. Caballero who represents the 12th Senate District, composed of Merced, Madera, and San Benito Counties, and portions of Fresno, Monterey, and Stanislaus Counties.

Last week, the Assembly Judiciary Committee passed out of committee SB 1410, the Senate’s priority legislation to protect renters from evictions and provide financial relief to landlords with mortgages and maintenance bills to pay.

LOS ANGELES — It’s been three months since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests against police brutality and calls for sweeping criminal justice reform.

In many states, residents are still waiting for new laws and policies to be enacted. In California, lawmakers have until Aug. 31 to consider more than a dozen bills aimed at reducing, overseeing and disciplining the kind of police violence that led to Floyd’s death and those of thousands more like him, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures' bill-tracking database.

It’s crunch month for California legislators who promised sweeping reforms in response to the police killing of George Floyd and the protests his death unleashed.

Yet some social justice advocates doubt that politicians’ stomachs for change are as strong as their rhetoric: A Senate bill to excommunicate corrupt or misbehaving cops may be denied a floor vote, while another measure to involve the attorney general in certain deadly force investigations is gaining new opposition from those who say it won’t do much if signed into law.

On Wednesday, June 24, the full California Senate voted 30-10 to pass Assembly Constitutional Amendment  5 (ACA 5), an initiative to overturn Proposition 209 and reinstate Affirmative Action in the state after 24 years. 

The constitutional amendment will now appear on the general election ballot in November for voters to decide whether to approve it or not.