Policy Priorities
The Commission on the Status of Women and Girls is one of the few state agencies that can sponsor legislation, and advocate on behalf of California’s women and girls. Working with our partners, the Commission has played a role in the passage of dozens of bills that have made a measurable difference in the lives of women and girls in our state. Read on to learn more about our current policy priorities.
2025 Policy Priorities
Co-Sponsored Bills
Supported Bills
Opposed Bills
The Commission has supported policies and advocated for budget allocations that ensure women are paid fairly; have the right to make decisions about their own bodies; have access to higher education without the fear of sexual harassment; and that working parents are able to support their children. The Commission supports the right choose who to love, and who we marry, because who we are is not, and should not be, open for debate, and we will continue to uplift State policies that protect and better the lives of all California women and girls.
The Commission’s Policy Committee examines, offers feedback on, and suggest stances on proposed State legislation, regulation, policy, procedure and practice. The Committee also assists Commissioners and staff in developing legislative policy, suggest positions on federal regulatory proposals, works closely with the Budget Advocacy Subcommittee to advocate for and help secure funding to support the Commission, our programs, and public outreach.
Supported Bills
Download the 2025 Legislative Snapshot, and learn more about the bills that the Commission is supporting, and opposing, in the current legislative cycle.
SB 642 (Limón) (Co-Sponsor)
Employment: payment of wages
This bill will help strengthen the California Fair Pay Act by: revising outdated gender binary language, clarifying what constitutes “wages,” harmonizing the statute of limitations with other wage and antidiscrimination statutes, allowing workers to recover lost wages for all discriminatory paychecks, and providing limits on how wide pay ranges may be in public job postings.
AB 54 (Krell) (Co-Sponsor)
Access to safe abortion care act
This bill ensures continued access to Medication Abortion and shields providers from liability for transporting such medication.
AB 65 (Aguiar-Curry)
School and community college employees: paid disability and parental leave
The bill would require a public school employer to, for a certificated employee or an employee in the classified service of the public school employer, and would require a community college district to, for an academic employee or an employee in the classified service of the community college district, provide up to 14 weeks of a leave of absence with specified pay benefits for an employee who is required to be absent from duty because of pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, or recovery from those conditions, as provided. The bill would authorize the paid leave to begin before and continue after childbirth if the employee is actually disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, or a related condition.
AB 67 (Bauer-Kahan)
Attorney General: Reproductive Privacy Act: enforcement
This bill would authorize the Attorney General, if it appears to them that a person has engaged, or is about to engage, in any act or practice constituting a violation of the Reproductive Privacy Act, to bring an action in the name of the people of the State of California in the superior court to enjoin the acts or practices or to enforce compliance with the act, as specified. In this context, the bill would authorize the Attorney General to make public or private investigations, publish information concerning violation of the Reproductive Privacy Act, and subpoena witnesses, compel their attendance, take evidence, and require the production of documents or records that they deem relevant or material to the inquiry.
AB 81 (Ta)
Veterans: mental health
This bill would require the Department of Veteran Affairs to establish a program to fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, an academic study of mental health among women veterans in California, as specified. The bill would require the department to submit a report that summarizes the findings and recommendations of the study to the Legislature no later than June 30, 2029. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2030.
AB 250 (Aguiar-Curry)
Sexual assault: statute of limitations
This bill would extend the eligibility period for revival of sexual assault claims that would otherwise be barred prior to January 1, 2026, because the applicable statute of limitations has or had expired. The bill would instead require a revived claim against an entity, as defined, to allege that the plaintiff was sexually assaulted and that (1) one or more entities or persons are legally responsible for damages arising out of sexual assault by an alleged perpetrator against the plaintiff, and (2) an entity or entities, including their specified representatives, engaged in a cover up or attempted a cover up of a previous instance or allegations of sexual assault by an alleged perpetrator.
AB 379 (Krell)
Crimes: prostitution
This bill would make that increased punishment applicable to any solicitation of any person under 18 years of age. The bill would require a person who commits prostitution with the intent to receive compensation, money, or anything of value from another person to, for a first or 2nd violation of those provisions, be offered a diversion program pursuant to specified provisions. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for any person to loiter in any public place with the intent to purchase commercial sex, as specified. The bill would make any person who violates that crime or who commits prostitution in exchange for providing compensation, money, or anything of value to the other person subject to an additional fine of $1,000, and would establish the Survivor Support Fund and require that additional fine be deposited in the fund. The bill would require the California Victim Compensation Board to establish a grant program to provide grants to community-based organizations that provide direct services and outreach to victims of sex trafficking and exploitation, and would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, authorize moneys in the Survivor Support Fund to be used for the purposes of that grant program. By creating a new crime and increasing the punishment of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
AB 397 (Mark Gonzalez)
Personal Income Tax Law: young child tax credit
This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, would define a “qualifying child” to mean a child younger than a specified age as of the last day of the taxable year, as described.
AB 432 (Bauer-Kahan)
Menopause
This bill would require The Medical Board of California, in determining its continuing education requirements, to include a course in menopausal mental or physical health.
AB 451 (Petrie-Norris)
Law enforcement policies: restraining orders
This bill would require each municipal police department and county sheriff’s department, the Department of the California Highway Patrol, and the University of California and California State University Police Departments to, on or before January 1, 2027, develop, adopt, and implement written policies and standards to promote safe, consistent, and effective service, implementation, and enforcement of court protection and restraining orders that include firearm access restrictions. The bill would require these policies and standards to include specified elements, including, among others, ensuring compliance with specified laws and instructing officers about the array of civil and criminal protection restraining order options available under California law to law enforcement officers, to victim-survivors, and other petitioners.
AB 551 (Krell)
The Reproductive Health and Emergency Preparedness Program
This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature or the availability of funds from private sources, establish the Reproductive Health Emergency Preparedness Program (RHEPP) for the purpose of expanding and improving access to reproductive and sexual health care in emergency departments across California.
AB 661 (Lee)
The California Guaranteed Income Statewide Feasibility Study Act
This bill, the California Guaranteed Income Research and Expansion Act, would require the State Department of Social Services to contract with one or more entities, subject to specified requirements, to develop and provide comprehensive recommendations on how to design, fund, and implement a permanent, statewide Guaranteed Income Program. The bill would require the contractor, among other things, to examine the benefits and challenges of scaling up permanent guaranteed income programs to reach a larger proportion of California’s socially and economically vulnerable populations, focusing on regions with a high cost of living and insights from best practices and lessons learned from the California Guaranteed Income Pilot Program.
AB 678 (Lee)
Interagency Council on Homelessness
This bill would require the Interagency Council on Homelessness to coordinate with representatives from LGBTQ+ communities to identify recommended policies and best practices for providing inclusive and culturally competent services to LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness and develop recommendations to, among other things, expand data collection to understand the needs and experiences of LGBTQ+ people in state homelessness programs, as defined.
AB 727 (Gonzalez)
Pupil and student safety: statewide resources: identification cards
This bill, commencing July 1, 2026, requires a public or private school that serves pupils in any of grades 7 to 12 to additionally have printed on the identification cards the telephone number and text line for a specified suicide hotline that is available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, as provided. Existing law, the Safe Place to Learn Act, requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to post, and annually update, on the State Department of Education’s internet website, and notify school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools of the availability of, a list of statewide resources that provide support to youth, and their families, who have been subjected to school-based discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying, including school-based discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying on the basis of neurodiversity, religious affiliation, nationality, race, or ethnicity, or perceived neurodiversity, religious affiliation, nationality, race, or ethnicity, as provided. This bill would additionally require that list to include resources that provide support to youth, and their families, who have been subjected to school-based discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or bullying on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
AB 798 (Calderon)
Emergency Diaper and Wipe Distribution Program
This bill would require the Department of Social Services to establish and administer the Emergency Diaper and Wipe Distribution Program for families with infants or toddlers impacted by a natural disaster that is the subject of a state of emergency proclaimed by the Governor.
AB 887 (Berman)
Pupil instruction: high schools: computer science courses: implementation guide
This bill would require the Department of Education, by July 1, 2026, and under the direction of the California Computer Science Coordinator, to develop a computer science implementation guide that would include specified information regarding computer science standards-aligned courses, as provided, and would encourage school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to review the computer science implementation guide developed by the department.
AB 1018 (Bauer-Kahan)
Automated decision systems
This bill would generally regulate the development and deployment of an automated decision system (ADS) used to make consequential decisions. This bill would require a developer of a covered ADS to take certain actions, including conduct performance evaluations of the covered ADS and provide deployers to whom the developer transfers the covered ADS with certain information, including the results of those performance evaluations. This bill would, beginning January 1, 2027, require a deployer of a covered ADS to provide certain disclosures to a subject of a consequential decision made or facilitated by the covered ADS, provide the subject an opportunity to opt out of the use of the covered ADS, provide the subject with an opportunity to appeal the outcome of the consequential decision, and submit the covered ADS to third-party audits.
AB 1084 (Zbur)
Change of name and gender and sex identifier
This bill would eliminate the mechanism to file an objection to an adult petitioner’s change of name to conform to the petitioner’s name to the petitioner’s gender identity. The bill would require the court to enter an order granting the petition without a hearing within two weeks of the petition’s filing, as specified. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.
AB 1098 (Fong)
Postsecondary education: undergraduate and graduate students: pregnancy or pregnancy-related issues
The bill would extend to pregnant or recently pregnant undergraduate students the prohibitions and obligations placed by existing law on postsecondary educational institutions for pregnant or recently pregnant graduate students. The bill would require these institutions to: (1) require responsible employees, upon being informed of a student’s pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, to give the student the institution’s Title IX coordinator’s contact information and information about what the Title IX coordinator can do to ensure the student has equal access to educational programs; (2) require reasonable accommodations provided to a pregnant student or a recently pregnant student to be provided though the institution’s Title IX coordinator, and (3) provide a pregnant student or recently pregnant student access to a private and secure room for lactation. The bill would authorize a student to voluntarily accept or reject an accommodation and would require the institution to immediately implement an accommodation the student accepts. The bill would require birth parent and nonbirth parent students, upon returning to their education program, to be reinstated to the academic status held before their voluntary leave of absence began. For a birth parent or nonbirth parent undergraduate student, the bill would prohibit an institution from reducing the student’s institution-based financial aid upon returning from the leave of absence. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.
SB 334 (Reyes)
Pupil instruction: sexual harassment: Title IX.
This bill would require the Instructional Quality Commission, when the Health Education Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve is next revised on or after January 1, 2026, to consider including in that curriculum framework information related to, among other things, the Uniform Complaint Procedures, Title IX, and what a pupil should do if they believe another pupil has been subjected to sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, or retaliation, as provided. The bill would encourage the same information to also be provided as part of the instruction required under the comprehensive sexual health education and HIV prevention education provisions.
SB 388 (Padilla)
California Latino Commission
This bill would create the California Latino Commission to address the inequities faced by the Latino community in housing, education, economic mobility, labor, and health care. The bill would task the commission with, among other things, collecting and analyzing data, developing recommendations, and monitoring the implementation of state programs and policies affecting the Latino community.
SB 464 (Smallwood-Cuevas)
Employer pay data
This bill would also require public employers with 100 or more employees to submit the annual pay data report beginning in 2027. The bill would require an employer to collect and store any demographic information it gathers for the purpose of submitting the pay data report separately from employees’ personnel records. This bill would also expand the demographics for the reporting requirements to also include sexual orientation and require the report to include information by sexual orientation about the number of employees in specified job categories, whose pay falls within federal pay bands, and within each job category the median and mean hourly rate for each combination of the specified characteristics.
SB 498
(Becker)
County detention: commissary
This bill would require that indigent incarcerated persons and indigent wards or detainees be provided basic hygiene products free of charge and require that those individuals have guaranteed access to hygiene products, upon their request. The bill would prohibit an indigent incarcerated person or an indigent ward or detainee from being denied access to hygiene products as a disciplinary measure. The bill would prohibit debt from being accrued as a result of the provision of hygiene products to indigent inmates and indigent wards or detainees and would require any debt accrued for the provision of hygiene products prior to January 1, 2026, to be discharged. By expanding the duties of local sheriffs and probation officers, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
SB 590
(Durazo)
Paid family leave: eligibility: care for designated persons
This bill would, commencing July 1, 2027, expand eligibility for benefits under the paid family leave program to include individuals who take time off work to care for a seriously ill designated person. The bill would define designated person to mean any individual related by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. The bill would authorize the employee to identify the designated person when they file a claim for benefits. The bill would make conforming changes to the definitions of the term’s family care leave and family member. This bill contains other existing laws.
SB 669 (McGuire)
Rural hospitals: standby perinatal medical services
This bill would require the State Department of Public Health, in consultation with specified stakeholders, to establish a 5-year pilot project to allow critical access and individual and small system rural hospitals to establish standby perinatal medical services, as defined. To qualify for participation in the pilot project, the bill would require a critical access or individual and small system rural hospitals to meet specified requirements, including, among others, that the hospital (1) be greater than 60 minutes from the nearest hospital providing full maternity services, (2) not have closed a full maternity or labor and delivery department within the past 3 years, and (3) agree to provide routine labor and delivery services or have an agreement with a freestanding birth center, as specified. The bill would require a hospital selected for a pilot program to comply with certain requirements, including among others, having and maintaining specified staff, services, and equipment.
SB 702 (Limon)
Legislative and gubernatorial appointments: report
This bill would require the office of the Governor, commencing January 1, 2027, to maintain on its internet website a list of each state board and commission and the membership list, stated purpose, duties, meeting frequency, internet website, and vacancies in the membership for each board or commission. The bill would require the office of the Governor, on or before January 1, 2028, and annually on January 1 thereafter, to create and publish on its internet website a report containing aggregate demographic information, as defined, of appointments made by the office during the prior calendar year, as specified.
Opposed Bills
AB 600 (Castillo)
Pupil instruction: transgender concepts: opt out
This bill, notwithstanding any other law and upon the written request of a pupil’s parent or guardian, would require the pupil to be excused from, and would prohibit the pupil from participating in, (1) any part of a public school’s curricula, instructions, lessons, presentations, or assemblies discussing, involving, or referencing transgender concepts, as defined, and (2) any anonymous, voluntary, and confidential tests, questionnaires, or surveys discussing, involving, or referencing transgender concepts. The bill would prohibit a school district, county office of education, or charter school from subjecting a pupil to any disciplinary action, academic penalty, or other sanction for being excused from participation.
AB 1464 (Macedo)
Housing preferences
This bill would require the department to deny a housing preference by an individual who is transgender, nonbinary, or intersex, regardless of anatomy, and require an individual to be housed in a facility consistent with the individual’s anatomy, if the individual has been convicted of, or the department has credible evidence that the individual has committed, specific offenses, including, among others, rape or human trafficking, against one or more victims with a gender opposite to that of the individual, as determined by the individual’s anatomy.
2024 Legislative Accomplishments
Bills Supported
Sent to the Governor
Signed into Law
2023 Legislative Accomplishments
Bills Supported
Sent to the Governor
Signed into Law
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To find policy and legislation efforts supported and/or sponsored by the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls from 2017 – 2023 you can learn more here
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