October 2018

The 2018 legislative session officially wrapped up on September 30th with Governor Brown taking action on all pieces of legislation that made it to his desk. This year, the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) endorsed three bills that were aligned with 4CA's objectives. We're happy to share that SB 439 (Mitchell & Lara) is officially law! This means that children 11 years old and younger are excluded from prosecution in juvenile court, except when the child is...

There is a severe human and fiscal cost of homelessness. In response, there's a new infusion of funding in California - approximately $750 million in three new programs - to help cities and counties address the needs of more than 130,000 men, women, and children who do not have a permanent and safe place to call home. These new programs include Homeless Emergency Aid Program ($500 million, deadline Dec. 31, 2018), No Place Like Home ($190 million), and the California Emergency Solutions and...

Gov. Jerry Brown has rejected a bill that would have given survivors of childhood sexual assault in California more time to file suits against those who could have stopped their abuse. The bill, written by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), would have allowed victims to file abuse claims until they are 40 years old. It also would have permitted those who have repressed memories of abuse to sue within five years of unearthing the cause of their trauma. On Monday, victims...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed a pair of measures that limits when and how young people can be prosecuted for criminal charges. It continues Brown’s efforts, in his final term, to undo many of the tough sentencing policies he supported during his first stint as governor, which contributed to an unconstitutionally overcrowded prison system in California. Senate Bill 439 establishes 12 years as the minimum age for prosecution in juvenile court , unless a minor younger than 12 has committed...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed a bill into law that makes California the first state to require corporate boards of directors to include women, saying that despite potentially “fatal” legal problems in the measure, it is time to force action. “Given all the special privileges that corporations have enjoyed for so long, it’s high time corporate boards include the people who constitute more than half the ‘persons’ in America,” Brown wrote in a signing message. The new law requires publicly...