Finally, we want you to know that three Assemblymembers on the committee spoke up especially strongly for rooftop solar—Laura Friedman, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, and Pilar Schiavo. Below is a video of their remarks, and we think it is worth watching.

SACRAMENTO, CA., 8/18/24 – Amid the sea of bills that California lawmakers waded through Thursday, one they rescued marks a key step forward to ban commercial octopus farming in California.

Three important bills to hold oil and gas companies accountable for their pollution also passed through their respective committees.

AB 3155 (Friedman) passed, which would make polluters pay for the illnesses they cause to residents living nearby toxic oil and wells.

We’re just four days away from the Friday cutoff for state lawmakers to publish legislation they hope to get passed this year. And a lot like your author right before a deadline, we’re expecting to see a flurry of activity right before time’s up.

Here’s some areas we’re watching for likely legislation:

It was sad and alarming to see two dead hawks in my neighbor’s swimming pool, where his children played. I suspected that anticoagulant rat poisons used in our Berkeley neighborhood were involved. These poisons cause internal bleeding, making animals seek water. 

WildCare, a rehab center in Marin County, had the bodies tested at UC Davis, which confirmed that both hawks had been poisoned by anticoagulants. That year, another hawk with anticoagulant poison in its system bled to death on the sidewalk. 

Other moves on the deposit topic are currently making their way through the state legislature, including AB 2801 introduced by state assembly member Laura Friedman (D-Burbank). The bill would make several changes on the actual return of security deposits from landlord to renter after their tenancy, such as requiring that landlords withholding deposits under the guise of apartment repairs provide photographic evidence of such repairs, along with proof that repairs were completed.

Amid the sea of bills that California lawmakers waded through Thursday, one they rescued marks a key step forward to ban commercial octopus farming in California.

Insights into more lax legislation regarding security deposits came to light in a seemingly minor, administrative agenda item for the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.

SACRAMENTO, California — The Appropriations Committees in each house announced the fate of 830 remaining bills. The Appropriations deadline is the penultimate – and often the most-challenging – legislative hurdle.

Despite fierce opposition, the committee approved our highest priority bills – which address campus antisemitism, expand Holocaust education, and support refugees – along with most of the other bills we’re supporting!

This has been a very interesting year in the California Legislature. Our work began in January with a massive budget deficit and the introduction of hundreds of bills. Over the course of the year, we’ve worked to balance the budget while protecting school funding and critical programs, and we’ve refined legislation on topics big and small as bills have worked their way through both houses. Many of these bills will have an outsized effect on California’s future. Several of them are mine.