California becomes first state to ban plastic bags
LOS ANGELES — Governor Jerry Brown has made some big decisions affecting the whole state of California this week.
In a series of new legislations, Brown has approved of a gun restriction and signed several bills concerning privacy and paparazzi laws, prevention of further abuse of foster youth, new rape-prevention policies for colleges, increased protection for temporary workers and a ban on grocery store plastic bags.
The new measures were all signed by Brown over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday, causing a tidal wave of changes for the California landscape that many are both pleased and concerned about.
Gun control laws
Assembly Bill 1404 was the legislature’s central response to the fatal shootings in Isla Vista, a community near the University of California, Santa Barbara. The new gun restraining-order will allow family members of someone who displays signs of mental instability and violent tendencies, and poses an overall threat to request a court order temporarily barring gun use and purchase.
The bill was proposed and lobbied by several Democrats and families of the shooting victims. Law enforcement authorities and family members can also seek a court order allowing them to seize guns from people whom they believe pose a threat. Under the bill, whomever requests the restraining order would have to sign an affidavit under oath. A court hearing would be held within 14 days after the order is granted, to give the gun owner a chance to prove himself harmless.
AB 1404’s supporters claim that the new measure could have prevented the rampage attacks, as well as future shooting attacks.
“It continues California’s efforts to lead the nation in preventing firearm injury and death,” said Amanda Wilcox, an advocate for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who also lost a child to gun violence. “The greatest effect might be in preventing suicides or intervening where there is a history of domestic violence.”
“It’s hard to know how much it will be used or how much it will prevent,” she added. “It only takes avoiding one loss for this to be worth it.”
A related gun control bill, SB505, was also signed by the governor that would require law enforcement to develop policies that encourage officers to search California’s database of gun purchases, as part of routine welfare checks. Toy guns, according to law, must also be brightly colored to avoid police confusion.
Brown vetoed Senate Bill 808, which would have required Californians to register homemade firearms.
Paparazzi protection; “revenge porn”
Gov. Brown also addressed ongoing concerns about spying and invasion of privacy, including new paparazzi restrictions and “revenge porn” attacks, in which a person’s private nude or sexually explicit photos are posted on the Web as retaliation.
Thirteen new bills signed by Brown will affect these issues happening too often in the celebrity sector. The bills are meant to keep private things private, such as new paparazzi restrictions barring the use of aerial drones to collect video, photos, and audio from celebrities and others in a way that violates their personal privacy.
“As technology continues to advance and new robotic-like devices become more afforable for the general public, the possibility of an individual’s privacy being invaded substantially increases,” said Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park).
Two new bills that oppose lingering/stalking in front of someone’s home and blocking school, hospital, or medical facility entrances are also being considered.
The “revenge porn” ban allows victims of the private photo leakage to seek damages in civil court, obtain a restraining order from perpetrators, and get the offending photos—selfies included—taken down as much as possible from the Internet. Lawyers must show proof that the images were sent out without the victim’s consent.
Protecting foster youth and preventing rape/sexual assault
Brown-approved Assembly Bill 1978 will allow social workers to report their concerns if they believe that county welfare agencies are neglecting or endangering children. AB 1978 requires the state Department of Social Services to develop an efficient process for social workers to report their concerns anonymously, unless they consent to being idenfified.
The new measure comes in light of the recent concerns with the child-welfare system in Los Angeles County.
Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) said about the bill, “[AB 1978] gives social workers a venue to expose problems in the child-welfare system without risking their jobs and allowing everyone to put out most vulnerable neglected children first.”
Brown has also signed a significant new Senate legislation, Senate Bill 967, that requires California colleges to adopt rape-prevention policies that must include an “affirmative consent” standard for sexual assault happening too often in college campuses, according to the Governor’s office.
The new standard will pressure someone engaging in sexual activity to have an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement from his or her partner.
“As the father of a young college-age daughter, I was stunned, I was quite surprised when I read the statistic that 20 percent of young women have been sexually assaulted on a college campus,” said Senator Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles).
“These are our daughters, they are our sisters, they are our nieces,” he said.
Landmark law for temporary workers
Under AB 1897, companies will be held responsible for subcontracted temp agencies’ actions against workers. Now, when a larger company’s subcontracted temp firm endangers, rips off, or underpays a low-wage worker, there may be consequences. This is a huge step against the ongoing abuse of temporary workers in California.
The new legislation will require “the client employer to share with a labor contractor all civil legal responsibility and civil liability” for paying workers. It will also “prohibit a client employer from shifting to the labor contractor legal duties or liabilities” when it comes to safety issues in the workplace.
In other words, through AB 1897, the state of California can now fine these big companies when their temp firms disregard labor laws.
The California Chamber of Commerce initially opposed the bill, saying it would “discourage further growth in this state, and it will certainly discourage out-of-state companies from locating here.”
“Today marks a new era for worker protection in California,” said Jim Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, one of the largest and most diverse labor unions in the US and Canada. The Teamsters lobbied hard for AB 1897, largely through a public campaign against Taylor Farms, a food processor that supplies to big fast-food chains like McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Subway. Most of Taylor Farms’ workers were temporary, not full employees.
AB 1897 is the latest in a series of “labor-friendly” bills that the state has passed recently. Just last year, Gov. Brown signed a law that would gradually raise the California minimum wage to $10 an hour and tie it to an inflation index. He also approved a bill that would require employers to provide full-time workers with a paid sick leave, making California the only state, besides Connecticut, with that mandate.
Save the environment: one plastic bag ban at a time
Brown also approved the nation’s first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags, an issue that has been in debate for months with the growing concern of littered waterways and plastic bags harming the natural environment and its inhabitants.
SB 270 was one of the last major bills pending on Tuesday afternoon, which was Brown’s deadline to sign or veto the hundreds of bills sent during the last few weeks of the legislative season.
The measure will prohibit large grocery stores from carrying single-use bags, instead encouraging them to charge 10-cent fees for reusable or paper bags, which will effectively provide up to $2 million in competitive loans to grocery businesses who have switched from plastic to reusable. The new law will eventually expand to smaller stores, and is expected to be in full effect by July 2015.
“This bill is a step in the right direction—it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks, and even the vast ocean itself,” Gov. Brown announced. “We’re the first to ban these bags, and we won’t be the last.”
More than 100 cities and counties across California, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, already have their own plastic ban measures in place.
Other important new measures that Gov. Brown recently approved: a bill allowing up to 15 community colleges to launch four-year pilot bachelor’s degrees programs, a Senate proposal that pushes for a repeal on restricted bilingual instruction in Prop. 227, and new legislation that reduces the penalty for posession of crack cocaine—three to five years in prison—as opposed to powder cocaine, which is at most four years.
(With reports from CBS, ABC News, Los Angeles Times, and The Sacramento Bee)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek October 1-3, 2014 Sec. A pg.1)
