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Leading Legislative Efforts in CA AVFCA Sponsors 3 Bills and Inspires 2 more in the Past 5 Years!

The 2024 California Legislative session has gotten off to a busy start with the introduction of 2,124 bills - 1,505 bills in the Assembly and 619 bills in the Senate. AVFCA's Legislative Director goes through each of these bills to determine which AVFCA will support, oppose and watch. In the next few weeks, AVFCA will share those bills with you and let you know how you can take action!

Legislators author bills based on their passion projects and constituent priorities, so it is difficult for an organization like AVFCA to get a bill authored, because we do not heavily fund elections nor have multiple lobbyists. In past 3 months, AVFCA's nimble legislative team used the relationships formed over the past 8 years and proactively met with legislators and their staff to get AVFCA bills authored. This year, AVFCA shopped 13 bills, covering a broad range of topics, including getting toxics out, medical privacy, health transparency and exemptions. AVFCA recieved a lot of positive bi-partisan response to our bills, and were hopeful to get multiple bills authored this year. And AVFCA once again SUCCEEDED!!

You can view AVFCA's Weekly Summary video detailing the information below and more on Instagram [[link removed]] and X [[link removed]] .

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In line with AVFCA's mission to remove toxics from products, one of the bills our organization looked to sponsor this year would ban all bisphenol and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in children’s feeding, sucking or teething products, unless they are temporarily considered essential. Senator Limon agreed to author SB 1266 which will do exactly this. You can read the bill language here: [link removed] [[link removed]] . AVFCA is extremely excited to be working with Senator Limon's office on this bill.

Over the past 5 years AVFCA supported bills that ban PFAS in various products, including cosmetics, food containers and textiles. In 2023, the PFAS banning bills that moved through the legislature were all vetoed by the Governor because there was no regulatory oversite included in the bills. The Department of Toxic Substances and Control (DTSC) had no ability to enforce these bills, so while they are banned these products containing PFAS are still on the market today in CA. AVFCA met with DTSC to determine what language should be included in PFAS banning bills to ensure their passage.

Two other bills which AVFCA requested be authored, also related to banning PFAS, have been introduced. One banning PFAS from menstrual products ( AB 2515 [[link removed]] by Assembly Member Papan) and one completely banning non-essential PFAS in all products sold or distributed in California ( SB 903 [[link removed]] by Senator Skinner). While these two bills are author-sponsored (meaning the legislators chose not to work with a sponsoring organization), AVFCA is excited that they were inspired by our requests and AVFCA will support them fully.

Over the past 8 years, A Voice for Choice Advocacy has established itself as the leading legislative organization lobbying in the California Capitol for your health rights. For those less familar with AVFCA's prior years legislative successes, AVFCA sponsored AB 1989 (Garcia) in 2020, which requires all ingredients to be labeled on menstrual products and SB 499 (Menjivar) in 2023, which would have increased tree canopies and reduced asphalt and plastic surfaces in schools (halted due to budget issues). AVFCA is the only Health Freedom organization in California that has had such success in getting bills authored, and specifically all by strong Democrat legislators. Sponsoring bills allows AVFCA to build stronger relationships with legislators and their staff, so that when there are bad bills we can work with those same offices and be considered a reliable, professional, reasonable and research based organization.

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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