2019-2020 Legislation

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Banking and Financial Institutions

  • SB 455: Financially Empowering Californians
    Creates the California Financial Empowerment Fund administered by the Department of Business Oversight to award grants to nonprofit organizations, which provide effective financial education and empowerment tools to unbanked and underbanked individuals and families.
     
  • SB 747: Banking Development Districts
    Establishes a Banking Development District Program within the Department of Business Oversight. The program encourages the establishment of banking branches to serve the banking needs of financially disenfranchised Californians who are currently unbanked. This bill seeks to bridge the growing financial equity gap in California and giving citizens the opportunity to build wealth through access to reasonably priced banking services.
     
  • SB 1157: Credit Reporting for Lower Income Households
    Requires multifamily housing landlords with 200 or more units occupied by low-income households to offer optional credit reporting of rental payments at no cost.
     
  • SB 1447: Foreclosure Protections for Tenant-Occupied Housing
    Extends protections of the CA Homeowner Bill of Rights to specified first lien mortgages or deeds of trust in order to protect tenants unable to pay rent due to COVID-19.

Business and Economic Development

  • SB 595: Reducing Barriers and Creating an Equitable Cannabis Industry
    Requires a state cannabis-licensing authority to develop and implement a program to provide state application or licensing fee waivers and deferrals for local equity applicants or licensees, who have been most harmed by cannabis prohibition and the larger war on drugs.
     
  • SB 658: Improving Cannabis Consumer Safety and Effective Regulatory Oversight
    Authorizes local regulators to access the California Cannabis Track-and-Trace system for the purpose of enforcement, and requires the Bureau of Cannabis Control to create an emblem program to help consumers differentiate illegal operators and licensed operators.
     
  • SB 1210: California Jumpstart Act
    Provides tax credits to incentivize federally licensed Small Business Administration investors to raise up to $500 million for small business relief and recovery.
     
  • SB 1244: Cannabis Testing Laboratories
    Authorizes state and local law enforcement, regulatory, and prosecutorial agencies to have cannabis tested at a licensed facility to ensure it is safe and complies with existing regulations.

Education

  • SB 206: The Fair Pay to Play Act
    (Signed by the Governor)
    Enables all student athletes enrolled in public or private four-year colleges and universities to earn money from sponsorships, endorsements and other activities that use their name, image, and likeness.
     
  • SB 426: Better Preparing South LA Students for College
    Expands the academic and leadership skills of high school and community college students in the South Los Angeles Area by creating a fellowship program that increases their enrollment in the California State University system.
     
  • SB 575: Expanding Access to College Education Programs for Incarcerated Students
    Ensures that incarcerated students will have equal access to college education programs, while supporting effective rehabilitative efforts within our correctional institutions.

Energy, Utilities and Communication

  • SB 155: Clarifying Energy Procurement Rules
    Clarifies existing requirements created to help the State achieve its existing renewable and zero-carbon energy goals.
     
  • SB 255: Expanding Diversity in California’s Energy Sector
    Adapts the existing energy supplier diversity initiative to suit our twenty-first-century electric grid by including new market participants.
     
  • SB 497: Increased Transparency from the California Energy Commission
    Requires the chair of the Energy Commission to appear annually before the Legislature to report on the many vital activities underway at this agency.
     
  • SB 676: Smart Transportation Electrification
    Lowers the overall costs associated with Californians’ growing number of electric vehicles by integrating their electricity demand into the grid in smart, strategic ways.
     
  • SB 704: Improving the LifeLine Universal Telecommunication Service Program
    Updates the LifeLine program, which helps low-income Californians access affordable, basic telephone service for their safety and well-being, and helps particularly vulnerable individuals access the program.
     
  • SB 772: Building the Electric Grid of the Future
    Helps California to affordably deliver on its clean energy goals by ensuring the electric grid will have sufficient long-duration bulk energy storage to meet its long-term needs.

Environmental Quality

  • SB 519: Streamlining Remediation for Groundwater Cleanup
    Authorizes the State Water Resources Control Board to grant money in the Site Cleanup Subaccount to Water Replenishment Districts thereby quickly and effectively funding projects in order to protect valuable water resources.

Health

  • SB 322: Protecting Employee Reporting Rights during Health Inspections
    Allows workers to speak freely and privately with a state hospital or health facility inspector during an inspection by the Department of Public Health. This right is already afforded to employees when an inspection or investigation is behind conducted by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
     
  • SB 1278: Tele-dentistry
    Requires a health care provider who provides treatment to a patient using telehealth to follow the standards of appropriate patient care required in other health care settings.

Insurance

  • SB 534: Ensuring Diversity in California’s Insurance Industry
    Reinstates the Insurance Supplier Diversity Survey and expands on current definitions in the survey to include diverse communities and categories that have been historically excluded, such as LGBT and veteran-business enterprises. Also codifies the Governing Board Diversity Survey and Insurance Diversity Task Force in order to continue collecting vital information and advise the Department of Insurance on how best to achieve its diversity goals.
     
  • SB 1192: Benefit and Relief Associations
    Creates necessary consumer protections for members of police, firefighter, and peace officer benefit associations that offer long-term disability or long-term care benefits by allowing the Department of Insurance to regulate them.

Judiciary

  • SB 218: Fair Employment and Housing Act Local Enforcement
    Allows local jurisdictions to investigate and enforce state law prohibiting employment discrimination and enact their own employment antidiscrimination ordinances.

Labor

  • SB 731: The Workers’ Compensation Justice Act
    Prohibits the reduction of workers’ compensation benefits on the basis of race, gender, sexual identity, genetics, and other factors.

Public Safety

  • SB 269: Fair Compensation for the Wrongly Convicted
    Extends the time to apply for compensation for individuals who were wrongly convicted and have proven their innocence in a court of law. Also provides additional compensation for individuals who wrongfully spent time on parole, under state supervision, or on the sex offender registry.

SECURE BUDGET REQUESTS

  • $30 million for Cannabis Equity
    • For local jurisdictions to implement and expand their cannabis equity programs, serving individuals most harmed and disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition.
    • Ensures funding is allocated to local jurisdictions based on equity needs so applicants and licensees can directly benefit from the program and funding. 
       
  • $7.5 million for the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
    • $5 million for enrollment growth and student support services.
    • $2.5 million for academic facilities upgrades.
       
  • $5 million, on-going for In-prison Rehabilitative Programming
    • Creates the California Reentry Enrichment (CARE) Grant Program for community-based organizations (CBOs) that offer transformative and effective in-prison programming to apply to CDCR for state grants.
    • Establishes the CARE grant steering committee consisting of representatives from various entities including: researchers, CBO participants and facilitators, the Division of Adult Institutions, Division of Rehabilitative Programming, and the Office of the Inspector General to oversee, administer and select grant criteria and awardees.     
       
  • $1 million for the Mental Health Practitioner Education Fund (MHPEF):
    • Ensures $1M from the mental health workforce development funds are used through the MHPEF to repay educational loans for former California foster youth, who are currently serving as mental health providers such as marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers, and licensed professional counselors.  

RESOLUTIONS AUTHORED BY SENATOR BRADFORD:

  • SR 67: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
    Honors the late reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
     
  • SR 74: Black History Month
    Recognizes February as Black History Month and celebrates the accomplishments of African Americans, while encouraging Californians to recognize the many talents of African Americans and the achievements and contributions they have made on our country.
     
  • SCR 31: The Willie L. Brown, Jr. Circle and Plaza
    Names the public street, circle, and plaza at 914 and 915 Capitol Mall as the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Circle and Plaza.
     
  • SJR 10: Removing Cannabis from the Drug Schedules
    Urges the Congress and President of the United States to enact legislation that would remove cannabis and its derivatives from the federal drug schedules.