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.
2026 Policy Priorities
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.
AB 1626 (Gabriel) (Co-Sponsor)
Youth health: sports: coaches
The bill would require specified training for coaches described in AB 1665 of the 2025-26 legislative session to cover mental health topics, including trauma-informed care and strategies for creating a positive team culture. The bill would require the Department of Education to identify existing training or develop a model youth athletics behavioral and mental health training for persons who serve as coaches in youth sports organizations, amongst other youth spaces.
AB 1709 (Lowenthal) (Co-Sponsor)
Covered platforms: account creation: age restriction
This bill would prohibit a covered platform from permitting a user who is under 16 years of age to create or maintain an account on the covered platform and would require a covered platform to implement reasonable measures to prevent users under 16 years of age from accessing or using accounts on the platform.
AB 1914 (Schiavo) (Co-Sponsor)
Childcare
This bill would require cities and/or counties to prepare and adopt a childcare plan or integrate a childcare plan into the next adoption of the city or county’s general plan to address the childcare needs of the jurisdiction.
AB 1940 (Calderon) (Co-Sponsor)
Unlawful practices: discrimination: menopause
This bill would update the definition of “sex” in the Fair Employment and Housing Act to include perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause or other related medical conditions. The bill would further require the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls to raise awareness of the employment rights of women experiencing menopause-related conditions in the workplace.
AB 1980 (Caloza) (Co-Sponsor)
Labor: apprenticeship: California Women’s Pre-apprenticeship and Stipend Program
This bill would, upon appropriation, establish the Equal Representation in Construction Apprenticeships Grant Program for the purpose of increasing equitable access to building and construction career pathways for women, nonbinary individuals, and underrepresented populations in California. The bill would require the grants to be used specified purposes, including to provide direct participant stipends to offset lost wages and enable full participation in pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs.
SB 99 (Blakespear) (Co-Sponsor)
Military protective orders
This bill would authorize a court that is determining whether to issue a protective order to also consider whether a military protective order has been issued against the respondent and also authorize law enforcement officers to verify the military protective order.
SB 1395 (Valladares) (Co-Sponsor)
Criminal procedure: protective orders
This bill would allow the court to issue a protective order valid up to 20 years restraining a defendant from any contact with a victim if the defendant has been convicted of a registerable sex offense involving a minor victim.
AB 1540 (Gonzalez)
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: LGBTQ+ youth
This bill would require the Department of Emergency Services to no later than June 1, 2027, request the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services administration (SAMHSA) to enable a press 3 function for calls originating from California to allow callers to dial 988 and press “3” to be automatically routed to a specialized call center. The bill would further require, no later than 12 months following approval by SAMHSA, that California identify and contract with a qualified entity that specialize in LGBTQ+ suicide prevention services, establish an application process, and administer funds to the qualified entity to reduce suicide rates and address mental health crises.
AB 1541 (Dixon)
Human trafficking: data
This bill would require that law enforcement collect and record the additional information on the OpenJustice Web portal: the number of individuals arrested, the number of individuals convicted, and the number of victims of human trafficking.
AB 1574 (Rogers)
The Tribal Foster Care Prevention Program
This bill would establish the Tribal Foster Care Prevention Program to provide funding to assist any federally recognized Indian tribe located in California in keeping families together and preventing children from going into foster care.
AB 1581 (Ramos)
Pupils: data reporting: American Indian and Alaska Native pupils
This bill would require the Department of Education to collect and report the tribal affiliation of each pupil enrolled in the 2026-2027 school year who identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native.
AB 1602 (Rubio)
Foster youth: disaster aid assistance
This bill would establish the Child Welfare Disaster Response Program to, upon appropriation, support the needs of foster children and youth, and their caregivers in times of disaster. This would include times when a state of emergency is proclaimed by the Governor or there is a local emergency.
AB 1657 (Rogers)
Domestic violence: restraining orders
This bill would make it so that courts do not require notice to be provided to a party that’s subject to a restraining order before the application for the order is filed.
AB 1705 (Bauer-Kahan)
Pornographic internet websites
This bill would require a user of a pornographic internet website, before uploading sexually explicit content, to submit specific information to the operator, including that each individual depicted in the content meets certain criteria. Under the bill, knowingly providing false information in the user statement would be punishable and a depicted individual and a public prosecutor would be authorized to bring a civil action to enforce these provisions.
AB 1766 (Krell)
Health curriculum framework: human trafficking and online safety
This bill would require the Instructional Quality Commission to consider including in their framework recommendations to K-12 schools on how to provide annual, developmentally appropriate lessons for each grade on how to prevent human trafficking, how to prevent exploitation for labor and services, how to stay safe from sexually exploitative materials and deepfakes online, foundational digital citizenship skills, and skills-based content that builds protective factors.
AB 1775 (Ward)
Veterans
This bill would require that military members who were discharged or received a discharged solely as a result of Executive Order No. 14183 on January 27, 2025 to also receive support and education from the Veteran’s Military Discharge Upgrade Grant program about services provided by the program. The bill would further require the Department of Consumer Affairs to prioritize veteran recipients who are able to demonstrate that their less than honorable characterization of service was connected to a mental health condition, traumatic brain injury, sexual assault, or harassment, or sexual orientation or that their characterization of service was connected to gender identity.
AB 1784 (Pellerin)
Postsecondary education: nondiscrimination: pregnancy or pregnancy-related issues
Amongst other additional characteristics, this bill would expand the definition of “gender” in the Equity in Higher Education Act for the purposes of the act to include providing equal rights and opportunities in postsecondary educational institutions to all persons regardless also of pregnancy, childbirth, or medical conditions related to pregnancy. This bill would further prohibit a postsecondary educational institution from discriminating against a student based on the student’s current, potential, or past pregnancy-related conditions, including prohibiting an institution from making a student take a leave of absence for such conditions and requiring the institution to provide reasonable accommodations. Reasonable accommodations also include the ability to take a leave of absence and have an extension toward normative time to degree and students must be informed of this policy during student orientation.
AB 1792 (Rodriguez)
Pupil instruction: health framework: sexual health
This bill would require the Instructional Quality Commission, during the next revision of the publication “Health Framework for California Public Schools,” to consider including, and recommending for adoption by the state board, specific content related to sexual health instruction to educate pupils about dating abuse and digital violence.
AB 1876 (Addis)
Healthcare coverage: nondiscrimination
This bill would prohibit individuals from being excluded enrollment, denied benefits, or not given care by any health plan on the basis of sex, amongst other characteristics, with sex being inclusive of sex characteristics, intersex traits, pregnancy, and gender identity.
AB 1906 (Aguiar-Curry)
Cervical cancer screening
This bill would require a health care plan to provide coverage without cost sharing for an annual cervical cancer screening home kit upon referral by a patient’s provider and include these home test kits as a covered benefit under Medi-Cal without cost sharing.
AB 2030 (Lowenthal)
Dietary supplements for weight loss and over-the-counter diet pills
This bill would prohibit a person from selling over-the-counter diet pills or dietary supplements for weight loss or muscle building to any person under 18 years of age by requiring an identification check.
AB 2066 (Rodriguez)
Triggering event: pregnancy
This bill would make pregnancy a triggering event for purposes of enrollment or changing a health benefit plan.
AB 2160 (Rodriguez)
Medi-Cal: lactation services
This bill would require the Department of Health Care Services to issue updated Medi-Cal guidance that clarifies Medi-Cal coverage for lactation services, including clarifying policies for a continuum of lactation services, inclusive of health education related to lactation, basic lactation support, and lactation consultation.
AB 2164 (Bauer-Kahan)
Legally protected activities
This bill would specify that the protections applicable to individuals who engage in legally protected health care activity apply to a person who has undertaken one or more acts of omissions while in another US jurisdiction to aid or encourage rights to reproductive health care services or gender affirming health care services that would have been protected if undertaken in this state and the acts or omissions were permissible under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the person was located at the time of the acts or omissions. This bill would further authorize the Governor to extradite any person in this state and who is charged in another state only if the acts for which extradition is sought would be punishable by the laws of this state.
AB 2212 (Bauer-Kahan)
Postsecondary education: sexual harassment, harassment, intimidation, and bullying policies: student orientation and training
This bill would define additional terms in the Equity in Higher Education Act, including “digitized sexually explicit material,” “technology-facilitated sexual harassment,” “affirmative consent,” and “written consent.” This bill would also revise the definitions of “sexual harassment” and “sexual exploitation.” In order to receive state funds for student financial assistance, this bill would further require CCC, CSU, and UC governing boards and independent educational institutions to update their respective sexual harassment policies to include (A) a prohibition on the public disclosure of the creation or generation of digitized sexually explicit material without the depicted individual’s or individuals’ written consent and (B) a policy that the disclosure of such material without that consent is sexual exploitation, as provided.
AB 2540 (Stefani)
Reproductive health
This bill would require a student health center on a CSU or UC campus to promote awareness of the services for abortion by medication techniques that the student health center offers, provide information on those services to students, and post the availability of those services on its internet website. The bill would require a community college that has a student health center, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to offer the same abortion medication techniques to promote awareness of those services to students and post the availability of those services on its website.
AB 2660 (Alvarez)
Public postsecondary education: intersegmental partnerships: STEM education
This bill would establish the Cal-Bridge Program as a fully intersegmental partnership program between CCCs, the CSU, and UC to create a pathway that promotes the advancement of students who major in STEM disciplines to pursue STEM PhDs and become members of California’s professorate or leaders in California’s technology industry. The bill would further establish the ENLACE program that works in collaboration with Cal-Bridge to create pathways that prepare CA high school and college students for postsecondary STEM education and the STEM workforce.
SB 891 (Cervantes)
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Justice Program
This bill would establish a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Justice Program under the discretion of the CA DOJ. This program would be involved as a liaison between Tribal victims’ families, Tribal governments, and law enforcement agencies when dealing with active and inactive cases of missing, murdered, and human trafficked indigenous persons.
SB 1237 (Blakespear)
Civil Rights Department
This bill would require the Civil Rights Department to annual publish a report of the aggregate budgetary and enforcement information for the Civil Rights Enforcement and Litigation Fund. The bill would also increase the penalty for employers that repeatedly fai to file their pay data report to the department from $200 per employee to $1,000 per employee.
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS
State Senate & State Assembly
United States Congress
United States Senate
Advocacy Archives
Find policy and legislation efforts supported and/or sponsored by the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls from 2017 – 2024. Learn more in the archives.
ERA Coalition
The Commission is a proud member of the ERA Coalition, comprised of 200 national and local organizations representing millions of advocates working for the equality.