2025 Legislation

SB 21: Affordable Housing

SB 21 ensures SRO properties can continue providing sustainable housing by:

1. Amending the Housing Crisis Act to allow up to a 25% reduction in units when converting deed-restricted affordable housing SROs into larger units with affordable rents, private amenities, and supportive service spaces, with any additional reductions offset by one-for-one offsite replacements.
2. Requiring tenant protections, including a right of first refusal to return, rent guardrails, and a replacement housing plan.
3. Updating Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) program eligibility to deem SRO tenants “homeless” for relocation purposes, waiving referral and homeless documentation requirements. This ensures that displaced SRO tenants can relocate to other permanent supportive housing with ease during redevelopment.

 

SB 346: Short-term Rental Enforcement

Requires the short-term rental platforms, upon request by a local agency that enacts a short-term rental ordinance, to provide the parcel number, and other information necessary to identify a rental’s location, for each short-term rental. If the platform does not provide this information, the local agency can fine the platform ($1,000 per violation up to $10,000 per day). This bill allows a local agency to conduct an audit of platform’s collection of transient occupancy tax. 

 

SB 513: Access to Training Records

Requires that employee personnel records relating to the employee’s performance include education and training records. Requires the employer to include the employee’s name, trainer, duration and date of the training, core competencies of the training, and the resulting certification or qualification.

 

SB 580: Strengthening Immigrant Protection Response Guides

Strengthens the Attorney General’s model policies and database guidance for state and local agencies. Requires the Attorney General to publish model policies for state and local agencies relating to interaction with immigration authorities and protecting state resources from immigration enforcement. Requires the Attorney General to publish guidance, audit criteria, and training recommendations for databases. Requires state and local agencies to implement both the AG’s model policy guidance and the database guides.

 

SB 590: Paid Family Leave for Chosen Family

Allows workers to use Paid Family Leave to care for family of choice.

 

SB 598: Quality Assurance in Public Contracts

Allows water districts/special district award projects using an alternative project delivery method: GM/GC to give flexibility to water/special districts to build projects quicker and save money. 

California’s water infrastructure faces unprecedented challenges due to climate change-driven extreme weather events. Warmer, wetter winters are increasing the frequency of both droughts and atmospheric river storms, requiring the state to enhance its ability to capture, store, and distribute water efficiently. Traditional design-bid-build methods can be inefficient and costly, delaying the implementation of urgently needed projects. CM/GC offers a proactive, collaborative approach to address these needs effectively.

 

SB 635: Street Vendor Protection Act

Advances micro-entrepreneurs’ economic security and stability by limiting the sensitive data that can be collected. Specifically, this bill:

• Prohibits local sidewalk vending permitting procedures from inquiring into immigration or citizenship status, or criminal history, or requiring fingerprints.
   
• Prohibits local sidewalk vending enforcement officers from using their resources to share micro-businesses vulnerable information voluntarily.   

 

SB 707: Brown Act Modernization Act

This bill creates equitable opportunities for public engagement with local government by:

• Maintaining teleconferencing flexibility for legislative bodies and gives flexibility to some advisory and multijurisdictional bodies.
   
• Requiring city councils and county boards of supervisors to improve remote access to the public
   
• Requiring interpretation services and language translation of meeting documents and information.

 

SB 754: Chemicals in Menstrual Products

Requires menstrual product manufacturers (of tampons and pads) to report out to the Department of Toxic Substance Control on the levels of potentially hazardous chemicals in their products. This bill comes after a study published in 2024 found lead, arsenic, and cadmium in tampons, and seeks to require manufacturers to be more proactive in the monitoring of toxins in their products. Rather than universities and organizations conducting one-off studies finding harmful contaminants, the responsibility should fall on manufacturers to ensure their products are safe for use by the over 9 million Californians who menstruate, including 1 million children.

 

SB 809: Construction Trucking

The AB 5 construction exemption expired at the end of 2024. This bill provides amnesty in exchange for the implementation of the “two check” system, which is a very promising model to convert owner-operators to employee status and provide them adequate compensation for the use of their vehicles. This bill has language stating that owner-operators can be employees.

 

SB 838: Housing Accountability Act Update

Excludes hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns, and other transient lodging, from being automatically streamlined under the Housing Accountability Act. SB 838 applies to new projects and projects in review after January 1, 2025.

 

SJR 9: Denouncing Militarized Immigration Raids

The resolution formally condemns the mass immigration raids, rejects the criminalization of peaceful protest, affirms California's commitment to safeguarding the rights of all residents regardless of immigration status, and supports the expansion of legal services and emergency response resources for affected families.