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 1616 (Davies) (Co-Sponsor)
Veterans
This bill would, upon appropriation, require the Department of Veteran Affairs to establish a program to fund a study for nonnarcotic post-traumatic stress disorder treatments and submit the report of the study and its findings to the Legislature by June 30, 2030.
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 a city or county to review and update the land use, circulation, housing, safety, and environmental justice elements to address the childcare needs of the jurisdiction during the next update of 2 or more elements in their general plan.
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 also require the Governor’s Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Engagement to raise awareness of the employment rights of individuals experiencing these conditions and require workplace discrimination posters to notify employees of these rights and 1705 protections.
AB 1980 (Caloza) (Co-Sponsor)
Labor: apprenticeship: California Women’s Pre-apprenticeship and Stipend Program
This bill would appropriate $50,000,000 from the General Fund to establishing the California Women’s Preapprenticeship and Stipend Program within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. The program would be established for the purposes of awarding competitive grants to entities that provide preapprenticeship training programs designed to prepare women for entry into registered apprenticeship programs or other state-approved pathways.
SB 1395 (Valladares) (Co-Sponsor)
Criminal procedure: protective orders
This bill would allow courts to issue permanent protective orders 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 1570 (Wilson)
Health care coverage: diagnostic imaging
Beginning January 1, 2028, this bill would require that all health care plans that provide hospital, medical, or surgical coverage to cover screening mammography and diagnostic breast imaging without imposing cost sharing, including diagnostic breast imaging following an abnormal mammography result and for an individual indicated to have a risk factor associated with breast cancer.
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 1643 (Nguyen)
Child Support
This bill aims to streamline child support by adding duties to local child support agencies such as requiring that all the child support payments be directed to the State Disbursement Unit. This bill would also authorize the court to allow the local child support agency to appear on behalf of the minor children to enforce the order.
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 1700 (Lowenthal)
e-Safety Commission: youth online protection
This bill would establish the e-Safety Commission to develop minimum age compliance guidelines for covered entities, review age assurance technologies used to implement the minimum age verification, and establish procedures for noncompliance investigations.
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 1716 (Stephani)
California Victim Compensation Board: tuition reimbursement
This bill would authorize the California Victim Compensation Board to reimburse tuition expenses at an educational institution that do not exceed $10,000 to full or part-time students who were victims of sexual assault or violence if the student can no longer continue attendance or suffers an academic setback.
AB 1730 (Fong)
Community colleges: external resolution services for civil rights compliance: managing entity and Title IX coordinator
This bill would require the board of governors to enter into a contract to administer on behalf of the California Community Colleges external resolution services for civil rights compliance, including developing and recommending a nondiscrimination policy, developing a campus discrimination prevention training program for students and employees, and addressing grievances and complaints alleging discrimination. The bill would further require districts to designate a staff person as a Title IX coordinator, amongst other 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 expedited assistance for the initial licensure process for an applicant who supplies satisfactory evidence to the board that the applicant served as an active duty member of the US Armed Forces and was honorably discharged when applying for a professional or vocational license, amongst other assistance.
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 1880 (Caloza)
PINK Alert
This bill would require the Department of Social Services to create a Pink Alert, a registration-based notification system designed to issue and coordinate alerts with respect to a person who is pregnant and seeks shelter or emergency prenatal services.
AB 1900 (Kalra)
Guaranteed Health Care for All
This bill would create the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act or CalCare, to provide comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage and a health care cost control system for the benefit of all residents of the state.
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 (Rodiguez)
Triggering event: pregnancy
This bill would make pregnancy a triggering event for purposes of enrollment or changing a health benefit plan.
AB 2082 (Rodiguez)
Rural Farmworker Women’s Health Act of 2026
This bill would require the Department of Public Health to establish a program to work with local nonprofit organizations who have a history of serving farmworker communities to provide free menstrual products in rural or agricultural communities.
AB 2160 (Rodiguez)
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 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 99 (Blakespear)
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 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.
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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.