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2023 CA Legislative Session Wrapped Up!
Overall 2023 was a WIN for AVFCA's Impact on CA Bills and Legislative Relationships!

November 1, 2023 Update: The California Legislature ended the first of its 2023-24 sessions on October 14, 2023 with the final bill signings and vetoes coming from the Governor Newsom's office. Over 3000 bills were introduced in California this year. Over 1000 of those made it to the Governor's desk. He signed 890 bills and vetoed 156 of them, a significantly higher veto rate than usual. Budget issues were the primary reason given for the vetoes, with an inability to enforce bills being another key reason.

A Voice for Choice Advocacy took a position on over 50 bills that dealt with Health Rights in California this legislative session. For the most part AVFCA supported bills this year. There were a few bad bills, such as AB 659 which AVFCA was able to work with the author on to get our requested amendments taken to change the bill to only advise students to take the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, rather than mandating it for school and college.

This year AVFCA sponsored SB 499, the Cool Schools Act which would have mitigated air pollution and extreme heat in schools. While the bill passed through all the policy committees in both houses, and the Senate Floor, unfortunately, SB 499 met it's end in the Assembly Appropriations Committee due to this year's CA's budget demise. Senator Menjivar, who authored this bill for us, cannot author a bill on the same topic next year, due a rule disallowing similar bills in a two year session, but AVFCA hopes to find another author, as well as to continue doing this work on a grassroots level through our Non Toxic Schools Project ( www.nontoxicschools.org [[link removed]] ). Every year, AVFCA's Legislative Team spends November and December "shopping" bills, in the hopes a legislator will agree to author one or more.

Supporting bills is an important part of AVFCA's work, as it allows AVFCA's Legislative Team to interact with legislators and their staff in a positive way showing them AVFCA is more than just an organization that exists to oppose bad bills. AVFCA had hundreds of meetings with legislators and staffers in 2023 to discuss bills and build these relationships for future years. This allows A Voice for Choice Advocacy to continue to be the leading legislative organization lobbying in the California Capitol for your health rights. Other than the above mentioned bills, here are some of the highlights of the bills AVFCA supported this legislative session and their outcomes. A full list can be found here : [link removed] [[link removed]] .

The following bills were signed into law, with most going into effect January 1, 2024:

✔ AB-496 Cosmetic Safety (Friedman)
✔ AB-418 Food Product Safety (Gabriel)
✔ SB-348 Pupil Meals (Skinner)
✔ AB-1752 Bees pesticides civil penalties (Rivas)
✔ AB-363 Pesticides neonicotinoids for nonagricultural use reevaluation regulations (Bauer-Kahan)
✔ AB-48 Nursing Facility Resident Informed Consent Protection Act of 2023 (Aguiar-Curry)


The following bills were vetoed due to budget concerns, duplicative efforts and/or regulatory issues:

✔ SB-665 Plastic waste single-use plastics alternatives working group (Allen)
✔ SB-303 Solid waste Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (Allen)
✔ AB-727 Product safety cleaning products perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Weber)
✔ AB-246 Menstrual products perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) (Papan)
✔ AB-1423 Product safety perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and PFAS products (Schiavo)
✔ AB-249 Water schoolsites lead testing conservation (Holden)
✔ AB-57 California Pocket Forest Initiative (Kalra)
✔ SB-394 Master Plan for Healthy, Sustainable, and Climate-Resilient Schools (Gonzalez)


The following bills did not move through a committee this session and AVFCA will continue to support them if they move forward next year:

✔ AB-234 Microparticles (Bauer-Kahan)
✔ AB-1042 Department of Pesticide Regulation Sustainable Pest Management Workgroup (Bauer-Kahan)
✔ AB-1238 Hazardous waste solar panels (Ward)
✔ SB-597 Rainwater capture systems (Glazer)
✔ AB-406 Agriculture Healthy Soils Program and California Farmland Conservancy Program (Connolly)
✔ AB-660 Food labeling quality dates, safety dates, and sell by dates (Irwin)
✔ SB-625 Newborn screening genetic diseases blood samples collected (Nguyen)
✔ AB-310 CalWORKs (Arambula)
✔ SB-28 Education finance school facilities Public Preschool, K–12, and College Health and Safety Bond Act of 2024 (Glazer)


Again, a full list of the legislation AVFCA Opposed and Supported can be found here : [link removed] [[link removed]] .



While A Voice for Choice Advocacy's lobbying activity in the Capitol is important, and we have many meetings scheduled for the next month, your positive constituent relationships with your CA State Senator and Assembly Member and their staff are critical to assisting with A Voice for Choice Advocacy's efforts in the Capitol. Over the next few months, most legislators have holiday parties and many request bill ideas from their constituents. Make sure you are on your legislator's mailing list so you can attend and get to know them and their staff better. If you are not sure who your legislator is enter your address here: [link removed] [[link removed]] .

If you found this information helpful and appreciate the work A Voice for Choice Advocacy is doing, please support us by making a donation today.

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Together we can make change happen!

C
Christina Hildebrand
President/Founder
A Voice for Choice Advocacy, Inc.
[email protected] [[email protected]]
www.AVoiceForChoiceAdvocacy.org [[link removed]]
www.avoiceforchoiceadvocacy.org [www.avoiceforchoiceadvocacy.org]
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A Voice for Choice Advocacy
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