2026 Legislation

SB 716: Lifeline Reform

SB 784: Consumer Protection in Home Improvements

SB 1085: Restoration of Water Supply Assessment requirement

SB 1085 will restore water supply assessments (WSA) for large new developments. WSAs determine:

Whether a project was accounted for in a water agency’s planning, and
If not, whether the water agency will have sufficient water supplies to serve the project, in addition to other existing and planned uses, over a 20-year time frame.

For over two decades, cities and counties have been required to request WSAs when they determine that a project is subject to CEQA, but with the recent CEQA streamlining efforts, this requirement was inadvertently eliminated.

SB 1149: Bereavement Leave for Chosen and Extended Family

SB 1149 allows workers to use bereavement leave following the death of chosen and extended family.

Current law allows employees to take up to 5 days of job protected bereavement leave following the death of a child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner or parent-in-law and it does not include chosen and extended family members. Leave must be taken within three months of the death of the family member and while on leave the employee can use their earned but unused leave (vacation, personal, sick or compensatory time off) to make up for lost wages.

SB 1160: Eviction Data from Superior Courts

SB 1160, Eviction Court Data Transparency, aims to shine a light on California’s eviction process by creating accountability through data in a system deeply connected to how the State allocates its housing and homelessness prevention funds, decisions that directly affect the lives of tenants and the severity of California’s persistent housing crisis. Specifically, the bill requires superior courts to:

Publish online and report data to the Legislature every 3 months.
Data collected must provide information regarding unlawful detainer cases.
Require Judicial Council to make the information available through a spreadsheet that may be requested through a California Public Records Act.

SB 1170: Risk-pooling insurance JPAs for affordable housing developers

SB 1170, related to joint powers agreements for affordable housing developers, aims to address the significant increases in insurance costs for 100% affordable housing developers, as well as a lack of available insurance altogether. The measure aims to provide an opportunity for public agencies and affordable housing developers to partner to self-insure these affordable housing developments. This builds on a model that water agencies, mutual water companies, and private water companies use to insure their infrastructure. Specifically, the bill allows nonprofit housing developers to join a risk-pooling joint powers agency that pools self-insurance claims and losses. If California can reduce affordable housing insurance costs, nonprofit housing developers can preserve existing affordable housing developments and lower affordable housing production costs. Preserving and producing affordable housing helps house Californians who are rent-burdened or experiencing risk of homelessness.

SB 1227: Civil Service Apprenticeships

SB 1227 would address long-standing staffing challenges at the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) by requiring DIR to partner with state worker unions to develop apprenticeship pathways into DIR job classifications vital to labor law enforcement.

SB 1252: California resident taxpayers entitled to health coverage

SB 1252 affirms that every California Resident Taxpayer is entitled to access public health care coverage. The bill establishes a clear statutory principle: Californians who live here, work here, and pay taxes should not lose access to health care due to federal cruelty and fiscal negligence, state enrollment freezes, or budgetary cost shifts to counties and hospitals.

SB 1285: Safeguarding New Horizons for Justice-Impacted Youth

SB 1285, Safeguarding New Horizons for Justice Impacted Youth, affirms California’s values to allow justice-impacted youth the opportunity to petition for dismissal of their record and begin their adult lives with a broader horizon—one that includes healing, rehabilitation, careers, and meaningful societal connections such as support networks, mentorship, and faith-based groups. Specifically, it reaffirms and clarifies that a petition dismissed under Welfare and Institutions Code Section 782 is treated as if it never happened, protecting the individual from unfair or harmful questions in the future, in accordance with California’s dismissal law.

SB 1296: Pet Protections for Tenants

SB 1296 would ensure prospective renters receive information from rental properties on their existing pet policies, before they submit a rental application and pay any application fees. If an application is charged without the disclosure of pet policies, the landlord or property agent shall return the fees to the applicant.

SB 1342: Sunsetting Records

SB 1342 ensures that Californians who are already eligible for automatic record clearance can access the relief they deserve by removing unnecessary procedural barriers and safeguarding the opportunity they rightfully have to move forward with their lives. Specifically, it makes critical fixes to strengthen California’s record clearance process:

Preventing outdated pending charges from blocking record clearance by ending the use of pending charges older than 3 years if the Department of Justice (DOJ) has received no new information.
Requiring local court records to be updated to match state DOJ records.
Establishing a clear process for individuals to obtain written proof of relief such as requesting a certificate of disposition from the court.

SB 1371: Waste Haulers Rights

SB 1371, Waste Haulers Rights, will ensure that solid waste companies cannot use force majeure clauses to suspend service during a labor dispute and cannot misuse emergency health or sanitation orders to undermine lawful worker strikes.

SB 1399: DOJ Investigative Framework for Detention Centers

SB 1399, Department of Justice Investigative Framework for Detention Centers, ensures the truth about conditions inside detention centers are revealed and preserves public transparency. Specifically, the bill removes the sunset provisions and sustains the California Department of Justice’s reporting authority. These reports would include, but are not limited to:

Review of the conditions of confinement.
Review of the standard of care and due process provided to individuals held at these facilities.

SB 1422: Medi-Cal Freeze Sunset

SB 1422 restores enrollment in full-scope Medi-Cal for income-eligible undocumented Californians beginning January 1, 2027, reopening access to preventive coverage that was frozen in the 2025–26 State Budget.