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California lawmakers want Gov. Gavin Newsom to approve bills they passed that aim to make artificial intelligence chatbots safer. But as the governor weighs whether to sign the legislation into law, he faces a familiar hurdle: objections from tech companies that say new restrictions would hinder innovation.

Californian companies are world leaders in AI and have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to stay ahead in the race to create the most powerful chatbots. The rapid pace has alarmed parents and lawmakers worried that chatbots are harming the mental health of children by exposing them to self-harm content and other risks.

Parents who allege chatbots encouraged their teens to harm themselves before they died by suicide have sued tech companies such as OpenAI, Character Technologies and Google. They’ve also pushed for more guardrails.

Calls for more AI regulation have reverberated throughout the nation’s capital and various states. Even as the Trump administration’s “AI Action Plan” proposes to cut red tape to encourage AI development, lawmakers and regulators from both parties are tackling child safety concerns surrounding chatbots that answer questions or act as digital companions.

California lawmakers this month passed two AI chatbot safety bills that the tech industry lobbied against. Newsom has until mid-October to approve or reject them.

The high-stakes decision puts the governor in a tricky spot. Politicians and tech companies alike want to assure the public they’re protecting young people. At the same time, tech companies are trying to expand the use of chatbots in classrooms and have opposed new restrictions they say go too far.

Meanwhile, if Newsom runs for president in 2028, he might need more financial support from wealthy tech entrepreneurs. On Sept. 22, Newsom promoted the state’s partnerships with tech companies on AI efforts and touted how the tech industry has fueled California’s economy, calling the state the “epicenter of American innovation.”

He has vetoed AI safety legislation in the past, including a bill last year that divided Silicon Valley’s tech industry because the governor thought it gave the public a “false sense of security.” But he also signaled that he’s trying to strike a balance between addressing safety concerns and ensuring California tech companies continue to dominate in AI.

“We have a sense of responsibility and accountability to lead, so we support risk-taking, but not recklessness,” Newsom said at a discussion with former President Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative event on Wednesday.

Two bills sent to the governor — Assembly Bill 1064 and Senate Bill 243 — aim to make AI chatbots safer but face stiff opposition from the tech industry. It’s unclear if the governor will sign both bills. His office declined to comment.

AB 1064 bars a person, business and other entity from making companion chatbots available to a California resident under the age of 18 unless the chatbot isn’t “foreseeably capable” of harmful conduct such as encouraging a child to engage in self-harm, violence or disordered eating.

SB 243 requires operators of companion chatbots to notify certain users that the virtual assistants aren’t human.

Under the bill, chatbot operators would have to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content and put in guardrails, such as referring users to a suicide hotline or crisis text line.

They would be required to notify minor users at least every three hours to take a break, and that the chatbot is not human. Operators would also be required to implement “reasonable measures” to prevent companion chatbots from generating sexually explicit content.

Tech lobbying group TechNet, whose members include OpenAI, Meta, Google and others, said in a statement that it “agrees with the intent of the bills” but remains opposed to them.

AB 1064 “imposes vague and unworkable restrictions that create sweeping legal risks, while cutting students off from valuable AI learning tools,” said Robert Boykin, TechNet’s executive director for California and the Southwest, in a statement. “SB 243 establishes clearer rules without blocking access, but we continue to have concerns with its approach.”

A spokesperson for Meta said the company has “concerns about the unintended consequences that measures like AB 1064 would have.” The tech company launched a new Super PAC to combat state AI regulation that the company thinks is too burdensome, and is pushing for more parental control over how kids use AI, Axios reported on Tuesday.

Opponents led by the Computer & Communications Industry Assn. lobbied aggressively against AB 1064, stating it would threaten innovation and disadvantage California companies that would face more lawsuits and have to decide if they wanted to continue operating in the state.

Advocacy groups, including Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that sponsored AB 1064 and recommends that minors shouldn’t use AI companions, are urging Newsom to sign the bill into law. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta also supports the bill.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said SB 243 is too broad and would run into free-speech issues.

Several groups, including Common Sense Media and Tech Oversight California, removed their support for SB 243 after changes were made to the bill, which they said weakened protections. Some of the changes limited who receives certain notifications and included exemptions for certain chatbots in video games and virtual assistants used in smart speakers.

Lawmakers who introduced chatbot safety legislation want the governor to sign both bills, arguing that they can both “work in harmony.”

Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista), who introduced SB 243, said that even with the changes he still thinks the new rules will make AI safer.

“We’ve got a technology that has great potential for good, is incredibly powerful, but is evolving incredibly rapidly, and we can’t miss a window to provide commonsense guardrails here to protect folks,” he said. “I’m happy with where the bill is at.”

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), who co-wrote AB 1064, said her bill balances the benefits of AI while safeguarding against the dangers.

“We want to make sure that when kids are engaging with any chatbot that it is not creating an unhealthy emotional attachment, guiding them towards suicide, disordered eating, any of the things that we know are harmful for children,” she said.

During the legislative session, lawmakers heard from grieving parents who lost their children. AB 1064 highlights two high-profile lawsuits: one against San Francisco ChatGPT maker OpenAI and another against Character Technologies, the developer of chatbot platform Character.AI.

Character.AI is a platform where people can create and interact with digital characters that mimic real and fictional people. Last year, Florida mom Megan Garcia alleged in a federal lawsuit that Character.AI’s chatbots harmed the mental health of her son Sewell Setzer III and accused the company of failing to notify her or offer help when he expressed suicidal thoughts to virtual characters.

More families sued the company this year. A Character.AI spokesperson said they care very deeply about user safety and “encourage lawmakers to appropriately craft laws that promote user safety while also allowing sufficient space for innovation and free expression.”

In August, the California parents of Adam Raine sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT provided the teen information about suicide methods, including the one the teen used to kill himself.

OpenAI said it’s strengthening safeguards and plans to release parental controls. Its chief executive, Sam Altman, wrote in a September blog post that the company believes minors need “significant protections” and the company prioritizes “safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens.” The company declined to comment on the California AI chatbot bills.

To California lawmakers, the clock is ticking.

“We’re doing our best,” Bauer-Kahan said. “The fact that we’ve already seen kids lose their lives to AI tells me we’re not moving fast enough.”

SACRAMENTO — In a bid to stabilize struggling crude-oil refineries, state lawmakers on Saturday passed a last-minute bill that would allow the construction of 2,000 new oil wells annually in the San Joaquin Valley while further restricting drilling along California’s iconic coastline.

The measure, Senate Bill 237, was part of a deal on climate and environmental issues brokered behind closed doors by Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister). The agreement aims to address growing concerns about affordability, primarily the price of gas, and the planned closure of two of the state’s 13 refineries.

California has enough refining capacity to meet demand right now, industry experts say, but the closures could reduce the state’s refining capacity by about 20% and lead to more volatile gas prices.

Democrats on Saturday framed the vote as a bitter but necessary pill to stabilize the energy market in the short term, even as the state pushes forward with the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

McGuire called the bills the “most impactful affordability, climate and energy packages in our state’s history.”

“We continue to chart the future, and these bills will put more money in the pockets of hard-working Californians and keep our air clean, all while powering our transition to a more sustainable economy,” McGuire said.

The planned April 2026 closure of Valero’s refinery in Benicia will lead to a loss of $1.6 billion in wages and drag down local government budgets, said Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City), who represents the area and co-authored SB 237.

Wilson acknowledged that the bill won’t help the Benicia refinery, but said that “directly increasing domestic production of crude oil and lowering our reliance on imports will help stabilize the market — it will help create and save jobs.”

Crude oil production in California is declining at an annualized rate of about 15%, about 50% faster than the state’s most aggressive forecast for a decline in demand for gasoline, analysts said this week.

The bill that lawmakers approved Saturday would grant statutory approval for up to 2,000 new wells per year in Kern County, the heart of California oil country.

That legislative fix, effective through 2036, would in effect circumvent a decade of legal challenges by environmental groups seeking to stymie drilling in the county that produces about three-fourths of the state’s crude oil.

“Kern County knows how to produce energy,” said state Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield). “We produce 80% of California’s oil, if allowed, 70% of the state’s wind and solar, and over 80% of the in-state battery storage capacity. We are the experts. We are not the enemy. We can help secure energy affordability for all Californians while enjoying the benefits of increased jobs and economic prosperity.”

Environmentalists have fumed over that trade-off and over a provision that would allow the governor to suspend the state’s summer-blend gasoline fuel standards, which reduce auto emissions but drive up costs at the pump, if prices spike for more than 30 days or if it seems likely that they will.

Some progressive Democrats voted against the bill, including Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San José), the chair of the Legislative Progressive Caucus. The bill, Lee said, was a “regulatory giveaway to Big Oil” that would do little to stabilize gas prices or refineries, which are struggling because demand for oil is falling.

“We need to continue to focus on the future, not the past,” Lee said.

The bill also would make offshore drilling more difficult by tightening the safety and regulatory requirements for pipelines.

Lawmakers also voted to extend cap-and-trade, an ambitious climate program that sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions and allows large polluters to buy and sell unused emission allowances at quarterly auctions. Lawmakers signed off on a 15-year extension of the program, which has been renamed “cap and invest,” through 2045.

The program is seen as crucial for California to comply with its climate goals — including reaching carbon neutrality by 2045 — and also brings in billions in revenue that helps fund climate efforts, including high-speed rail and safe drinking water programs.

Also included in the package was AB 825, which creates a pathway for California to participate in a regional electricity market. If passed, the bill would expand the state’s ability to buy and sell clean power with other Western states in a move that supporters say will improve grid reliability and save money for ratepayers.

Opponents fear that California could yield control of its power grid to out-of-state authorities, including the federal government.

SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers on Friday advanced a plan that would allow California colleges to offer preferential admission to students who are descended from enslaved people, part of an ongoing effort by Democrats to address the legacy of slavery in the United States.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 7, would allow — but not require — the University of California, Cal State and private colleges to give admissions preference to applicants who can prove they are directly related to someone who was enslaved in America before 1900.

If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the effort could put the Golden State on yet another collision course with the Trump administration, which has diversity initiatives and universities in its crosshairs.

“While we like to pretend access to institutions of higher learning is fair and merit-based and equal, we know that it is not,” said Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D-Los Angeles), who authored the bill, before the final vote Friday. “If you are the relative or the descendant of somebody who is rich or powerful or well connected, or an alumni of one of these illustrious institutions, you got priority consideration.”

But, Bryan said, “There’s a legacy that we don’t ever acknowledge in education … the legacy of exclusion, of harm.”

The bill is a top priority of the Legislative Black Caucus, which introduced 15 bills this year aimed at addressing the lingering effects of slavery and systemic racism in California.

Although California entered the Union as a “free state” in 1850, slavery continued in the Golden State after the state Constitution outlawed it in 1849. Slavery was abolished nationwide by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865 after the Civil War.

California voters barred colleges from considering race, sex, ethnicity or national origin in admissions nearly three decades ago by passing Proposition 209. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that affirmative action in university admissions violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Bryan and other backers stressed that the language of the bill had been narrowly tailored to comply with Proposition 209 by focusing on lineage, rather than race. Being a descendant of a slave is not a proxy for race, they said, because not all enslaved people were Black, and not all Black Americans are descended from slaves.

“The story of our country is such that people who look like me and people who do not look like me could be descendants of American chattel slavery,” said Bryan, who is Black, during a July debate over the bill.

Supporters of the measure say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his concurrence in the 2023 affirmative action case that refugees and formerly enslaved people who received benefits from the government after the Civil War were a “race-neutral category, not blacks writ large,” and that the term “freedman” was a “decidedly underinclusive proxy for race.”

Andrew Quinio, an attorney for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, told lawmakers during earlier debates on the bill that lineage is, in fact, a proxy for race because being a descendant of an American slave is “so closely intertwined” with being Black.

Instead, he said, the bill could give colleges a green light to give preference to “victims of racial discrimination in public education, regardless of race,” which would treat students as individuals, rather than relying on “stereotypes about their circumstances based on their race and ancestry.”

Were California “confident in the overlap of students who have experienced present discrimination and students who are descendants of slaves, then giving preference based on whether a student has experienced present discrimination would not exclude descendants of slaves,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Democratic-led Legislature also passed Senate Bill 518, which would create a new office called the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery. That bureau would create a process to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave and to certify someone’s claim to help them access benefits.

The legislature also approved Assembly Bill 57, by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), which would help descendants of slavery build generational wealth by becoming homeowners.

The bill would set aside 10% of the loans from a popular program called California Dream for All, which offers first-time home buyers a loan worth up to 20% of the purchase price of a house or condo, capped at $150,000.

The loans don’t accrue interest or require monthly payments. Instead, when the mortgage is refinanced or the house is sold, the borrower pays back the original loan, plus 20% of its increase in value.

McKinnor said during debates over the bill that the legacy of slavery and racism has created stark disparities in home ownership rates, with descendants of slaves about 30 percentage points behind white households.

The Legislature also passed McKinnor’s AB 67, which sets up a process for people who said they or their families lost property to the government through “racially motivated eminent domain” to seek to have the property returned or to be paid.

Nonpartisan legislative analysts said that the bill could create costs “in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars,” depending on the number of claims submitted, the value of the properties and the associated legal costs.

California became the first state government in the country to study reparations after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer sparked a national conversation on racial justice.

Newsom and state lawmakers passed a law to create a “first in the nation” task force to study and propose remedies to help atone for the legacy of slavery. That panel spent years working on a 1,080-page report on the effects of slavery and the discriminatory policies sanctioned by the government after slavery was abolished.

The report recommended more than 100 policies to help address persistent racial disparities, including reforms to the criminal justice system and the housing market, the first of which were taken up last year by the Legislature’s Black Caucus.

Hamstrung by a budget deficit, lawmakers passed 10 of 14 bills in the reparations package last year, which reform advocates felt were lackluster.

How Californians feel about reparations depends on what is under discussion. A poll by the L.A. Times and the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies in 2023 found that voters opposed the idea of cash reparations by a 2-to-1 margin, but had a more nuanced view on the lasting legacy of slavery and how the state should address those wrongs.

Most voters agreed that slavery still affects today’s Black residents, and more than half said California is either not doing enough, or just enough, to ensure a fair shake at success.

California banned slavery in its 1849 Constitution and entered the Union as a “free state” under the Compromise of 1850, but loopholes in the legal system allowed slavery and discrimination against formerly enslaved people to continue.

California passed a fugitive slave law — rare among free states — in 1852 that allowed slaveholders to use violence to capture enslaved people who had fled to the Golden State. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, ratified after the end of the Civil War.

Census records show about 200 enslaved African descendants lived in California in that year, though at least one estimate from the era suggested that the population was closer to 1,500, according to the report drafted by the reparations task force.

The California Legislature on Thursday passed a pair of bills to prohibit on-duty law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from masking their faces and to require them to identify themselves.

Senate Bill 627, written by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), includes exceptions for SWAT teams and others. The measure was introduced after the Trump administration ordered immigration raids throughout the Los Angeles area earlier this year.

Federal officers in army-green neck gaiters or other face coverings have jumped out of vans and cars to detain individuals across California this summer as part of President Trump’s mass deportation program, prompting a wave of criticism from Democratic leaders.

Representatives for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defend the face coverings, arguing that identifying officers subjects to them to retaliation and violence.

If supported by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the law would apply to local and federal officers, but not state officers such as California Highway Patrol officers. Wiener, when asked about that exemption on the Senate floor, declined to elaborate.

Leaders in Los Angeles County are exploring a similar measure to ban masks despite some legal experts’ view that the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution dictates that federal law takes precedence over state law.

The bill’s backers argue that permitting officers to disguise themselves creates scenarios where impostors may stop and detain migrants, which undermines public trust and ultimately hinders legitimate law enforcement operations.

“The idea that in California we would have law enforcement officers running around with ski masks is terrifying,” Wiener said in a brief interview. “It destroys confidence in law enforcement.”

Wiener’s bill allows exceptions for masks, including for undercover officers. Medical coverings are also allowed. .

Senate Bill 805, a measure by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra) that targets immigration officers who are in plainclothes but don’t identify themselves, also passed the state Legislature on Thursday.

Her bill requires law enforcement officers in plain clothes to display their agency, as well as either a badge number or name, with some exemptions.

SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers approved a bill Monday that would ban online pet dealer websites and shadowy middlemen who pose as local breeders from selling dogs to California consumers — the latest move to curtail the pipeline from out-of-state puppy mills.

Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) said Assembly Bill 519 will help ensure buyers aren’t misled about where their puppies come from after a Times investigation last year detailed how designer dogs are trucked into California from out-of-state commercial breeders and resold by people claiming to be small, local operators.

“AB 519 would close this loophole that allows this dishonest practice,” Berman said.

California became the first state in the nation with a 2019 law to bar pet stores from selling commercially bred dogs. That retail ban, however, did not apply to online pet sales, which grew rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Berman’s bill would ban online marketplaces where dogs are sold by brokers, which is defined as any person or business that sells or transports a dog bred by someone else for profit. That would include major national pet retailers such as PuppySpot as well as California-based operations that market themselves as pet matchmakers. AB 519, which now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration, applies to dogs, cats and rabbits under a year old.

Puppy Spot opposed the bill, writing in a letter to lawmakers that it would dismantle a system they say works for families — particularly those seeking specific breeds for allergy concerns. PuppySpot CEO Claire Komorowski wrote to Berman in May that their online marketplace maintains internal breeder standards that exceed regulatory mandates.

“We believe this bill penalizes responsible, transparent operations while doing little to prevent the underground or unregulated sales that put animal health and consumer trust at risk,” PuppySpot CEO Claire Komorowski wrote to Berman in May.

The bill does not apply to police dogs or service animals and provides an exemption for shelters, rescues and 4H clubs.

“This measure is an important step in shutting down deceptive sales tactics of these puppy brokers and lessening the financial and emotional harm to families who unknowingly purchase sick or poorly bred pets,” Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a letter of support for the bill. “By eliminating the profit incentive for brokers while preserving legitimate avenues for Californians to obtain animals, AB 519 protects consumers, supports shelters and rescues that are already at capacity, and advances California’s commitment to the humane treatment of animals.”

Two other bills stemming from The Times’ investigation are expected to pass the Legislature this week as lawmakers wrap up session and send a flurry of bills to the governor. The package of bills has overwhelming bipartisan support.

AB 506 by Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) would void pet purchase contracts involving California buyers if the pet seller requires a nonrefundable deposit. The bill would also make the pet seller liable if they fail to disclose the breeder’s name and information, as well as medical information about the animal.

The Times’ investigation found that some puppies advertised on social media, online marketplaces or through breeder websites as being California-bred were actually imported from out-of-state puppy mills. To trace dogs back to mass breeding facilities, The Times requested Certificates of Veterinary Inspection, which are issued by a federally accredited veterinarian listing where the animal came from, its destination and verification it is healthy to travel.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture has long received those health certificates from other states by mistake — the records are supposed to go to county public health departments — and, in recent years, made it a practice to immediately destroy them. Dog importers who were supposed to submit the records to counties largely failed to do so.

The Times analyzed the movement of more than 71,000 dogs into California since 2019, when the pet retail ban went into effect. The travel certificates showed how a network of resellers replaced pet stores as middlemen while disguising where puppies were actually bred. In some cases, new owners discovered that they were sold a puppy by a person using a fake name and temporary phone numbers after their new pet became sick or died.

After The Times’ reporting, lawmakers and animal activists called on the state agriculture department to stop “destroying evidence” of the decepitive practices by destroying the records. The department began preserving the records thereafter, but has so far released the records with significant redactions.

SB 312 by state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange) would require pet sellers to share the travel certificate with the state agriculture agency, which would then make them available without redactions to the public. An earlier version of the bill required the state department to publish information from the certificates online, but that was removed amid opposition.

“Given the high propensity for misleading consumers and the large volume of dogs entering the state, the health certificate information is in the public interest for individual consumers to review to confirm information conveyed to them by sellers and to also hopefully be helpful to humane law enforcement agencieds as they work to investigate fraud and malfeasance,” said Bennet said Monday in support of Umberg’s bill.

SACRAMENTO — Responding to the Trump administration’s aggressive and unceasing immigration raids in Southern California, state lawmakers this week began strengthening protections for immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.

The Democratic-led California Legislature is considering nearly a dozen bills aimed at shielding immigrants who are in the country illegally, including helping children of families being ripped apart in the enforcement actions.

“Californians want smart, sensible solutions and we want safe communities,” said Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego). “They do not want peaceful neighbors ripped out of schools, ripped out of hospitals, ripped out of their workplaces.”

Earlier this week, lawmakers passed two bills focused on protecting schoolchildren.

Senate Bill 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Peréz (D-Alhambra), would require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.

Legislation introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), AB 49, would bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school unless they had a judicial warrant or court order. It also would bar school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.

A separate bill by Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), SB 81, would bar healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace, or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics, to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.

All three bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration. If signed into law, the legislation would take effect immediately.

The school-related bills, said L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas, provide “critical protections for students, parents and families, helping ensure schools remain safe spaces where every student can learn and thrive without fear.”

Federal immigration agents have recently detained several 18-year-old high school students, including Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, who was picked up last month while walking his dog a few days before he started his senior year at Reseda Charter High School.

Most Republican legislators voted against the bills, but Peréz’s measure received support from two Republican lawmakers, Assemblymember Juan Alanis (R-Modesto) and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa). Muratsuchi’s had support from six Republicans.

“No person should be able to go into a school and take possession of another person’s child without properly identifying themselves,” Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) said before voting to support the bill.

The healthcare bill follows a surge in cancellations for health appointments as immigrants stay home, fearing that if they go to a doctor or to a clinic, they could be swept up in an immigration raid.

California Nurses Assn. President Sandy Reding said that federal agents’ recent raids have disregarded “traditional safe havens” such as clinics and hospitals, and that Newsom’s approval would ensure that people who need medical treatment can “safely receive care without fear or intimidation.”

Some Republicans pushed back against the package of bills, including outspoken conservative Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who said that the raids that Democrats are “making such hay over” were triggered by the state’s “sanctuary” law passed in 2018.

The state law DeMaio attacked, SB 54, bars local law enforcement from helping enforce federal immigration laws, including arresting someone solely for having a deportation order, and from holding someone in jail for extra time so immigration agents can pick them up.

The law, criticized by President Trump and Republicans nationwide, does not prevent police from informing federal agents that someone who is in the country illegally is about to be released from custody.

“If you wanted a more orderly process for the enforcement of federal immigration rules, you’d back down from your utter failure of SB54,” DeMaio said.

Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is running for state superintendent of public instruction, said that the bills about school safety were “political theater that create fear where none is needed.”

“Schools already require proper judicial orders before allowing immigration enforcement on campus, so these bills don’t change anything,” Shaw said. “They are gaslighting families into believing that schools are unsafe, when in reality the system already protects students.”

But Muratsuchi, who is also running for superintendent, said the goal of the legislation is to ensure that districts everywhere, “including in more conservative areas,” protect their students against immigration enforcement.

A half-dozen other immigration bills are still pending in the Legislature. Lawmakers have until next Friday to send bills to Newsom’s desk before the 2025 session is adjourned.

Those include AB 495 by Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez (D-San Fernando), which would make it easier for parents to designate caregivers who are not blood relatives — including godparents and teachers — as short-term guardians for their children. An increasing number of immigrant parents have made emergency arrangements in the event they are deported.

The bill would allow nonrelatives to make decisions such as enrolling a child in school and consenting to some medical care.

Conservatives have criticized the bill as an attack on parental rights and have said that the law could be misused by estranged family members or even sexual predators — and that current guidelines for establishing family emergency plans are adequate.

Also still pending is AB 1261, by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), which would establish a right to legal representation for unaccompanied children in federal immigration court proceedings; and SB 841 by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), which would restrict access for immigration authorities at shelters for homeless people and survivors of rape, domestic violence and human trafficking.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers on Friday announced a landmark deal with Uber and Lyft to allow hundreds of thousands of rideshare drivers to unionize and bargain collectively while still being classified as independent contractors.

The compromise between labor unions and the Silicon Valley companies, backed by Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, would advance a collective bargaining bill through the Legislature along with a bill backed by Uber and Lyft that would significantly reduce the companies’ insurance requirements.

The deal is a major development in the years-long tussle between organized labor and Silicon Valley over rights for independent contractors.

Labor leaders from Service Employees International Union California, a powerful union that has been working for years to organize app-based drivers, said the deal is the largest expansion of private sector collective bargaining rights in California history.

“Labor and industry sat down together, worked through their differences, and found common ground,” Newsom said in a statement. The agreement, he said, will “empower hundreds of thousands of drivers while making rideshare more affordable for millions of Californians.”

With support from Rivas and McGuire, both bills are expected to sail through the Legislature before the session ends in mid-September. The agreement does not apply to other types of gig workers, including those who deliver food through apps like DoorDash.

The two bills “represent a compromise that lowers costs for riders while creating stronger voices for drivers,” said Ramona Prieto, Uber’s head of public policy for California, in a prepared statement.

The deal marks a new chapter in nearly a decade of tension between technology companies and state lawmakers over the employment status of the tens of thousands of Californians who do gig work for app-based companies.

“This moment has been a long fight for over a decade in the making,” said Tia Orr, the executive director of SEIU California.

After the California Legislature in 2019 rewrote employment law in 2019, clarifying and limiting when businesses can classify workers as independent contractors, Uber and Lyft went to the ballot in California to exempt their drivers.

When California voters passed Proposition 22, the ballot measure funded by Uber and Lyft, in 2020, drivers were classified as independent contractors and, under federal law, do not have the right to organize. Prop. 22 also explicitly barred drivers from collectively bargaining over their compensation, benefits and working conditions.

But SEIU California argued that court decisions over Prop. 22 left an opening for the state Legislature to create a process for drivers to unionize.

Earlier this year, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) introduced the collective bargaining bill, AB 1340, which Uber and Lyft initially opposed.

The bill allows drivers to negotiate their pay and other terms of their agreements with the companies and exempts workers from the state and federal antitrust laws that normally prohibit collective action by independent contractors.

Under federal law, employees in the U.S. can unionize by holding an election or reaching a voluntary agreement with their employers for a specific union to represent them.

The process for California Uber and Lyft drivers would be somewhat different. The bill says drivers can select a bargaining representative by collecting signatures from at least 10% of active drivers, then petitioning the state’s Public Employment Relations Board for a certification.

That path to collective bargaining mirrors a ballot initiative approved by Massachusetts voters last fall that was also backed by SEIU, which allowed drivers to form a union after collecting signatures from at least 25% of active drivers in the state.

Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Irvine who studies the effect of technology on workers, said the compromise reached by California lawmakers may not be strong enough to ensure that drivers can reach a fair contract.

The bill does not clarify whether drivers would be protected if they collectively protested or went on strike, she said, and doesn’t require that the companies provide data about wages.

“These are the crux of what makes a union strong and the very, very bottom line of what members need and want,” Dubal said. “That they couldn’t achieve those things — that’s a win for Uber.”

Uber driver Margarita Peñalosa, 45, of Los Angeles, said she realized she needed a union after being temporarily deactivated from the app, and losing three days of income, when a passenger who reeked of marijuana left behind a lingering smell in her car that other riders then complained about.

“That experience made me realize how powerless we can be,” she said. She said she hoped that a collective bargaining process would create a “clear, fair appeals process” for rider complaints.

A Southern California group that counts some 20,000 drivers as members said they had lobbied for provisions to strengthen the bill — including protections that would give drivers the right to strike and more enforcement resources for the state board tasked with overseeing the process — but had been largely shut out of negotiations.

“We were not invited into conversations about this, and we were banging on the door,” said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United.

Representatives from SEIU and Wicks’ office met multiple times with Rideshare Drivers United about their proposals and discussed why some weren’t included, said someone familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly. For example, that person said, strike protections could open up the bill to attack for potentially violating antitrust laws.

“While we always give fair consideration to suggested amendments, not all are ultimately viable,” Wicks said. She added that her office heard from dozens of constituents and advocates over months of public debate, and “any suggestion otherwise is disingenuous.”

Despite the weaknesses in the law, Moore said, she still hopes that it will help, since right now, she said, drivers “have no labor rights and our wages are in the dungeon.”

“We will do what we can with duct tape and a few paper clips and a little extra wax to actually wage a fight,” she said.

The insurance bill, backed by Uber and Lyft and introduced by state Sen. Christopher Cabaldon (D-Yolo), would reduce the amount of insurance that companies like Uber and Lyft are required to provide for rides.

Currently, the companies must carry $1 million in coverage per rideshare driver for accidents caused by other drivers who are uninsured or underinsured. The companies have argued that current insurance requirements are so high that they encourage litigation for insurance payouts and create higher costs for passengers.

The agreement instead calls for $60,000 in uninsured motorist coverage per rideshare driver and $300,000 per accident.

Cabaldon said that the changes would eliminate “outsized insurance requirements that don’t apply to any other forms of transportation, such as taxis, buses, or limos.”

SACRAMENTO — Moments after California lawmakers passed a plan designed to undercut attempts by the president and fellow Republicans to keep control of Congress, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state’s proposed partisan redistricting that favors Democrats is a necessary counterweight to President Trump’s threat to American democracy.

Trump’s assault on vote by mail and decision to send the military into U.S. cities are evidence of his authoritarian policies, and California must do its part to keep him in check, Newsom said.

By deploying federal immigration agents in roving street raids and activating thousands of members of the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Newsom said, Trump is amassing “a private army for Donald Trump.”

“He’s trying to rig the election, he’s trying to set up the conditions where he can claim that the elections were not won fair and square,” Newsom said. “Open your eyes to what is going on in the United States of America in 2025.”

The argument is a preview of the messaging for the ballot measure campaign that Newsom and his Democratic Party allies will be running over the next 74 days.

On Thursday, California lawmakers signed off on a Nov. 4 special election that will put partisan redistricting in front of California voters.

The ballot measure, called Proposition 50, will ask voters to discard the congressional boundaries drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission in 2021 in favor of partisan districts that could boot as many as five California Republicans out of Congress.

“When all things are equal, and we’re all playing by the same set of rules,” Newsom said, “there’s no question that the Republican Party will be the minority party in the House of Representatives next year.”

California is “responding to what occurred in Texas, we’re neutralizing what occurred, and we’re giving the American people a fair chance,” Newsom said.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina accused Newsom of trying to “rig” the system to advance his own political career.

“Instead of fixing the homelessness, crime, drug, and cost crises crushing the Golden State, Gavin Newsom is tearing up California’s Constitution to advance his presidential ambitions,” Hudson said in a statement.

California’s new lines would neutralize efforts in Texas to redraw their congressional district maps to help elect five more GOP candidates in 2026. The Texas Legislature is expected to approve new district lines this week.

The other option, Newsom said, is for California and Democrats to “roll over and do nothing.”

“I think people all across the country are going to campaign here in California for this,” Newsom said. “They recognize what’s at stake. It’s not just about the state of California. It’s about the United States of America. It’s about rigging the election. It’s about completely gutting the rules.”

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — California Democrats on Monday kicked off the process to redraw the state’s congressional districts, an extraordinary action they said was necessary to neutralize efforts by President Trump and Texas Republicans to increase the number of GOP lawmakers in Congress.

If approved by state lawmakers this week, Californians will vote on the ballot measure, labeled Proposition 50, in a special election in November.

At a news conference unveiling the legislation, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said they agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom that California must respond to Trump’s efforts to “rig” the 2026 midterms by working to reduced by half the number of Republicans in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation.

They said doing so is essential to stymieing the president’s far-right agenda.

“I want to make one thing very clear, I’m not happy to be here. We didn’t choose this fight. We don’t want this fight,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park). “But with our democracy on the line, we cannot run away from this fight, and when the dust settles on election day, we will win.”

Republicans accused Democrats of trying to subvert the will of the voters, who passed independent redistricting 15 years ago, for their own partisan goals.

“The citizens seized back control of the power from the politicians in 2010,” said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), flanked by GOP legislators and signs in the Capitol rotunda that said, “Rigged map” and “Defend fair elections.”

“Let me be very clear,” DeMaio said. “Gavin Newsom and other politicians have been lying in wait, with emphasis on lying … to seize back control.”

After Trump urged Texas to redraw its congressional districts to add five new GOP members to Congress, Newsom and California Democrats began calling to temporarily reconfigure the current congressional district boundaries, which were drawn by the voter-approved independent redistricting commission in 2021.

Other states are also now considering redrawing their congressional districts, escalating the political battle over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressional districts are typically reconfigured once every decade after the U.S. census.

Newsom, other Democratic lawmakers and labor leaders launched a campaign supporting the redrawing of California’s congressional districts on Thursday, and proposed maps were sent to state legislative leaders on Friday.

The measures that lawmakers will take up this week would:

• Give Californians the power to amend the state Constitution and approve new maps, drawn by Democrats, that would be in place for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 congressional elections, if any GOP-led states approve their own maps.
• Provide funding for the November special election.
• Return the state to a voter-approved independent redistricting commission to redraw congressional districts after the 2030 census.

Whereas Texas and several other GOP-led states are considering an unusual mid-decade redistricting to keep the Republican Party’s hold on Congress, Ohio is an anomaly. If its congressional districts are not approved on a bipartisan basis, they are valid for only two general elections and can then be redrawn.

McGuire said California would go forward if Ohio does.

“The state of Ohio has made it clear that they are wanting to be able to proceed. They’re one of the few states in the United States of America that actually allow for … mid-decade redistricting,” he said. “We firmly believe that they should cool it, pull back, because if they do, so will California.”

Republicans responded by calling for a federal investigation into the California Democratic redistricting plan, and vowed to file multiple lawsuits in state and federal court, including two this week.

“We’re going to litigate this every step of the way, but we believe that this will also be rejected at the ballot box, in the court of public opinion,” DeMaio said.

He also called for a 10-year ban on holding elected office for state legislators who vote in support of calling the special election, although he did not say how he would try to do that.

McGuire dismissed the criticism and threats of legal action, saying the Republicans were more concerned about political self-preservation than the will of California voters or the rule of law.

“California Republicans are now clutching their pearls because of self-interest. Not one California Republican spoke up in the Legislature, in the House, when Texas made the decision to be able to eliminate five historically Black and brown congressional districts. Not one,” he said. “What I would say: Spend more time on the problem. The problem is Donald Trump.”

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers stood around Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday and celebrated the passage of the state budget and “transformative” housing legislation at the state Capitol.

Between mutual praise and handshakes in front of television news cameras, there was little acknowledgment of the power dynamics that played out behind the scenes: Democratic lawmakers once again gave in to the demands of the soon-to-be termed-out governor.

“We’ve seen multiple situations now where it’s clear that the Legislature is in one place and the governor is in another, whether that’s bills that have passed overwhelmingly and been vetoed, or it’s dragging the Legislature along on budget bills,” said Lorena Gonzalez, leader of the California Labor Federation. “At some point the Legislature needs to legislate.”

Newsom took a rare step earlier this year and publicly supported two bills to lessen environmental review standards to speed up the construction of housing in California. Despite vowing to supercharge homebuilding, Newsom previously backed only smaller-scale policies and construction has stagnated.

In his recently published book “Abundance,” journalist Ezra Klein argued that California’s marquee environmental law stands in the way of housing construction — a critique that struck a chord with the governor. Newsom, who is considering a 2028 presidential run, this year was hellbent on proving that he’s the kind of Democrat who can be part of the solution and push through the government and political logjams.

When a pivotal bill designed to streamline housing construction recently stalled in the state Senate, Newsom effectively forced it through despite the concerns of progressive lawmakers, environmental interest groups and labor unions. The governor did so by ensuring that a state budget bill included a “poison pill” provision that required lawmakers to pass the housing legislation in order for the spending plan to go into effect on July 1.

Newsom called the bills the “most consequential housing reform that we’ve seen in modern history in the state of California” on Monday evening.

“This was too important to play chance,” Newsom said, adding that he worried reforms would have fallen prey to the same opposition as prior years if he allowed the “process to unfold in the traditional way.”

Democratic lawmakers for years have tried to cut through the thicket of regulations under the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA, and faced stiff opposition from powerful labor groups. These groups, notably the State Building and Construction Trades Council, have argued that any relief offered to developers should be paired with wage and other benefits for workers.

The legislation Newsom signed Monday sidestepped those demands from labor.

Assembly Bill 130, based on legislation introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), exempts most urban housing projects from CEQA, requiring only developers of high-rise — taller than 85 feet — and low-income buildings to pay union-level wages for construction workers.

Senate Bill 131 also narrows CEQA mandates for housing construction and further waives the environmental restrictions for some residential rezoning changes. The bill, led by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), additionally designates a host of nonresidential projects — health clinics, child-care and advanced manufacturing facilities, food banks and more — no longer subject to CEQA.

Experts in development said the new legislation could provide the most significant reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history, especially for urban housing.

CEQA generally requires proponents to disclose and, if possible, lessen the environmental effects of a construction project. The process sounds simple but often results in thousands of pages of environmental assessments and years of litigation.

CEQA creates substantial legal risk for homebuilders and developers, and past efforts to alleviate its burdens fell short, said Dave Rand, a prominent Southern California land-use attorney. The bills signed Monday provide relief for the vast majority of housing, he said. High-rise and affordable housing construction often already require union-level pay.

“The worst cog in the wheel has always been CEQA,” Rand said. “It’s always been the place where projects get stuck. This is the first clean, across-the-board, objective, straightforward exemption that anyone can figure out.”

He said clients are eager to take advantage of the new rules, which take effect immediately.

“There’s over 10 projects we’re going to push the go button on with this exemption probably Tuesday,” Rand said.

For non-housing projects, the changes do not amount to a comprehensive overhaul but are still meaningful, said Bill Fulton, publisher of the California Planning & Development Report.

In the past, state lawmakers have passed narrow, one-off CEQA waivers for projects they supported, such as increased enrollment at UC Berkeley in 2022. SB 131 continues the Legislature’s penchant for exempting specific kinds of development from CEQA rules, he said, though the nine categories of projects affected provide more expansive relief than prior efforts.

“They’re cherry picking things that they want to speed through,” said Fulton, who has termed the phenomenon “Swiss cheese CEQA.”

Observers said Newsom’s actions were the strongest he has taken to force large-scale housing policies through the Legislature.

For years, the governor has made audacious promises — on the campaign trail in 2017, Newsom famously promised to support the construction of 3.5 million new homes by the end of this year, a goal likely to fall millions short. But he has been more likely to work behind the scenes or swoop in and praise bills once they’ve passed rather than publicly shape housing policy, said Chris Elmendorf, a UC Davis law professor.

Elmendorf, who supports the new laws, called Newsom’s arm-twisting and willingness to challenge entrenched interests, “an incredible about-face from his MO with respect to the legislative process on controversial housing and environmental issues for the last six, seven years.”

The governor has jammed his policy priorities on other topics through the Legislature before, including climate legislation, infrastructure and oil regulations, with mixed results over the years.

Newsom’s term ends in early 2027. His endorsement of the meaningful housing policies, and his strategy to propel one through the state Senate, became a bellwether of his strength at the Capitol as his time in office wanes.

Wicks said Newsom “put a ton of skin in the game” to force the proposals through.

“He went all in on pushing for taking on these sacred cows like CEQA because I think he recognizes that we have to tackle this problem,” Wicks said.

Wicks’ legislation had cleared the Assembly before the proposal became part of the state budget process, which added pressure on lawmakers to pass the bills. She described herself as “cautiously optimistic” as it moved through the Capitol and said her house understood the need for reform.

Wiener’s legislation was slower to gain traction. Just last week, the inability of the Senate and the governor’s office to reach an agreement on the proposal held up the announcement of a budget deal.

Then Newsom tied the proposal to the budget, essentially requiring lawmakers to pass the bill or risk starting the fiscal year on July 1 without a spending plan.

During the debate on SB 131, Sen. Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) said the legislation had “significant issues” but that he would vote in favor of the measure because of assurances that those would eventually be addressed.

“I think nature and abundance can live side by side. In fact, they must,” Stern said. “We don’t want to live in a moonscape California. Want to live in a livable one.”

Despite the concerns, lawmakers passed both bills on Monday.

Gonzalez was critical of legislators, saying “nobody is voting their values.” She compared the Legislature going along with Newsom’s plan to Republicans in Congress.

“California Democrats are crying foul that legislators and senators are passing things that they don’t even know the effect of that aren’t in line with their constituents that are just being shoved down their throats by Donald Trump,” Gonzalez said. “And those same legislators in California are allowing that to happen to themselves.”

After weathering a pandemic, dual strikes and massive wildfires, Hollywood is finally getting a lifeline.

California legislators voted Friday to more than double the amount allocated each year to the state’s film and television tax credit program, raising that cap to $750 million from $330 million.

The increase is a win for the studios, producers, unions and industry workers who have lobbied state legislators for months on the issue.

Other states and countries have increasingly lured productions away from California with generous tax credits and incentive programs, leaving many in Hollywood without work for months. In interviews, town halls and legislative committee hearings, industry workers said that without state intervention, they feared Tinseltown would be hollowed out, similar to Detroit after the heyday of its auto industry.

“It’s now time to get people back to work and bring production home to California,” Directors Guild of America executive and Entertainment Union Coalition President Rebecca Rhine said in a statement. “We call on the studios to recommit to the communities and workers across the state that built this industry and built their companies.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom called to expand the annual tax credit program last year, saying at the time that “the world we invented is now competing against us.”

From there, state lawmakers looked to expand the provisions of the program. A separate bill going through the Legislature would broaden the types of productions eligible to apply, including animated films, shorts and series and certain large-scale competition shows. It would also increase the tax credit to as much as 35% of qualified expenditures for movies and TV series shot in the Greater Los Angeles area and up to 40% for productions shot outside the region.

That bill, AB 1138, was unanimously approved Thursday by the state Senate Revenue and Tax Committee. It will be up for final votes next week.

California provides a 20% to 25% tax credit to offset qualified production expenses, such as money spent on film crews and building sets. Production companies can apply the credit toward any tax liabilities they have in California.

The bump to 35% puts California more in line with incentives offered by other states, such as Georgia, which provides a 30% credit for productions.

Lawmakers and industry insiders have said the increased tax credit cap and the proposed criteria changes to the incentive program must both be approved to make California more competitive for filming. The bill was written by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica).

“After years of uncertainty, workers can once again set the stage, cue the lights, and roll the cameras — because California is keeping film and TV jobs anchored right here, where they belong,” Zbur said in a statement about the $750-million cap. “This is a historic investment in our creative economy, our working families, small businesses, and the communities that depend on this industry to thrive.”

SACRAMENTO — Nearly six months after a firestorm ravaged communities across Los Angeles, California lawmakers are crafting legislation to try to protect the state insurance program for high-risk homes from financial collapse.

A bill, AB 226, sponsored by Assemblymembers Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier) and David A. Alvarez (D-San Diego), would make the state’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan, eligible for loans and bonds from the state-backed California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank to avoid running out of money after a disaster.

Alvarez proposed the measure last year but it failed to pass. Despite receiving unanimous support in the Assembly, the bill never reached the Senate floor for a vote before the end of the 2024 legislative session.

If the measure had passed last year and been signed into law by the governor, the FAIR Plan would have had more flexibility to weather the massive number of claims filed after the January firestorms, Alvarez said.

Instead, the FAIR plan was forced to imposed an extra $1 billion in total assessments on insurers that provide homeowners policies in California. To recoup those expenses, insurance companies are expected to hike rates on homeowners through monthly surcharges.

“Had they had this option available to them … they would not be having to hit consumers with price increases on the private market now,” Alvarez said.

AB 226 is one of many wildfire-related bills still winding their way through the slow legislative process. If passed into law, the measures would protect homeowners from price gouging after disasters, streamline the process for filing claims for lost property and offer financial protections for disaster victims.

Lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom in January approved $2.5 billion in wildfire aid after the Palisades and Eaton fires killed more than two dozen people and became the second and third most destructive fires in state history. Legislative leaders at the time signaled for a swift, bipartisan approach to the disaster.

“Tens of thousands of our neighbors, our families and friends, they need help. This means that we need to be able to move with urgency, put aside our differences, and be laser-focused on delivering the financial resources, delivering the boots on the ground that are needed and the policy relief that is needed to get neighborhoods cleaned up and communities rebuilt,” Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said after it passed.

California’s last-ditch home insurer, the FAIR Plan, is meant as a backup for properties deemed high-risk and uninsurable by private companies. A Times analysis found that within the Eaton and Palisades fire zones, the number of homes on the plan nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024 and the plan has become one of the state’s largest insurers.

Amid lawsuits alleging collusion between private insurers and the FAIR Plan and policyholders raising concerns about delays in payments and smoke damage investigations, lawmakers and insurance advocates have repeatedly called for better safety nets — like the one proposed in AB 226 — to keep the insurer solvent in emergencies and viable as a long-term solution to the state’s home insurance problem.

This year, Alvarez was joined on the bill by Calderon, chair of the Assembly’s insurance committee. It passed through the Assembly at the beginning of March but has not yet seen its first Senate committee.

Alvarez celebrated the bill’s swift passage through the Assembly and hopes the Senate will work to do the same, “God forbid, if it has to be used because of a devastating fire this summer,” he said.

Other major wildfire bills being considered by lawmakers include:

• AB 493, which would require lenders to pay policyholders interest on disaster insurance payouts that are held in escrow. The measure, authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) would close a loophole in existing law, which already requires interest payments on other escrowed funds.
• AB 597, also introduced by Harabedian, which would keep public insurance adjusters from gouging homeowners, especially after a natural disaster or state of emergency.
• SB 495, which would prevent insurers from requiring an itemized list of personal property losses from policyholders during a state of emergency, and would require insurers to provide extensions where reconstruction is delayed. The bill, introduced by state Sen. Benjamin Allen — who represents the Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica areas — passed a Senate floor vote on Tuesday and is headed to the Assembly.

Most of the pending legislation won’t directly support survivors of the Palisades and Eaton fires but are still important to the rebuilding process, said Maryam Zar, president emeritus of the Pacific Palisades Community Council and founder of the Palisades Recovery Coalition.

The new laws would help prevent and prepare for future fires, she said, and are a show of goodwill to the communities that are suffering still.

Some other fire relief measures focus on easing the permit process for rebuilding, while others extend provisions set by Newsom during the state of emergency — easing tenancy rights for people staying in temporary housing for longer than 30 days, shortening the permit approval timeline and securing mortgage forbearance for destroyed properties for up to a year after the disaster. Others look to address staffing issues for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection as fire season turns into a year-round threat.

“Wildfire survivors continue to face housing insecurity, financial strain, and emotional trauma long after the immediate danger has passed,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement. “These State bills represent a commitment to meeting people where they are — actively in recovery, rebuilding their lives, and in need of our long-term support.”