2025 Legislation

PRIORITY

Core Jewish Issues

At a time when antisemitic and hate-motivated incidents have reached record highs, our agenda supports policies that protect vulnerable communities and prevent further discrimination.

* Indicates a Jewish California-sponsored item

Green: Indicates victory!

Blue: Indicates bill is on Governor’s Desk, awaiting his signature or veto by October 13th

Two Year Bill: Indicates bill will be considered in 2026

Included in the budget ($80 million): *California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program – $80 million: Reaffirms the second allocation in the two-year commitment for the state’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NGSP), which provides funding for synagogues and other nonprofits at risk of hate-motivated violence to secure their institutions from hate crimes.

Included in the budget ($14.5 million for one year): *Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program (HSAP) – $36 million over three years: Provides $36m over three years for the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program (HSAP) to provide trauma-informed at-home care for frail Holocaust survivors. The state previously funded this program for three years, which is set to expire in June – just as the last generation of survivors ages into a time in life where they require this support.

Identifying and Preventing Hate in K-12 Schools – $5 million: Provides funding for an initiative to address Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Anti-Arab, Anti-Immigrant, and Anti-Trans hateful beliefs and behaviors in K-12 schools. This initiative is led by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Professor Ron Avi Astor, a leading expert in school safety.

San Diego Holocaust Center – $4.5 million: Funds the purchase of a vehicle for San Diego’s first ever mobile Holocaust Center, being developed by Jewish Federation of San Diego.

SFCJL Modernization – $6 million: Funds critical modernization projects at the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living (SFCJL). The campus has buildings over 50 years old, with infrastructure has aged over time. SFCJL is working on $36 million of capital projects to modernize and upgrade these buildings, over the next five years, to ensure it can continue to serve future generations of California’s older adults.

Merged into SB 19 (below): AB 237 (Patel): Closes a loophole that complicated prosecution of criminal threats. This bill will clarify that it is criminal to threaten to commit a crime at a daycare, school, university, workplace, house of worship, medical facility, or public venue with reckless disregard for safety.

Two Year Bill: *AB 395 (Gabriel): Requires State bodies to make every reasonable effort to avoid scheduling public meetings of State agencies, K-12 first days & graduations, and public higher ed first days on religious holidays.

Vetoed by the Governor: AB 449 (Jackson): Requires California to launch statewide and regional media campaigns – on radio, social media, and TV – to combat discrimination and hate crimes. Campaigns should be based upon, but not limited to, disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation – and ensure the advertisements are proportional to the communities most impacted as reported under the AG’s annual hate crimes report.

Two Year Bill: AB 458 (Stefani): Requires a comprehensive vetting process for members of the gun industry seeking to supply state law enforcement agencies. This bill addresses a problem recently exposed by a Brady investigation which found law enforcement agencies across CA have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to buy firearms from manufacturers and dealers with repeated violations of federal firearm regulations.

Included in the budget ($5 million): AB 644 (Gabriel) // $5m Budget Request: Authorizes the construction of an official California State Holocaust Memorial, a monument that will stand as a lasting testament to California’s commitment to remembering the horrors of the Holocaust and upholding the values of justice, truth, and empathy.

Signed into law: *AB 715 (Zbur, Addis): Countering Antisemitism in K-12 Schools – Counters antisemitism and other forms of discrimination in California’s K-12 schools by giving schools the tools to identify, respond to, prevent, and counter antisemitism; creating an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator to train educators and school leaders about antisemitism, track incidents, advise on accountability measures, and recommend future legislation; and requiring an annual notification to all schools on the protections, requirements, and responsibilities in this bill.

Two Year Bill: AB 785 (Sharp-Collins): Establishes a Community Violence Interdiction Grant Program to fund community driven solutions to decrease violence in neighborhoods and schools. Eligible programs include supportive programs that preemptively reduce and eliminate violence and gang involvement, programs that create recreational opportunities during peak times of violence, health programs that address youth trauma, youth diversion programs, and school-based health centers.

Signed into law: AB 822 (Elhawary): Extends the sunset repeal date of the existing Commission on State of Hate from 2027 to 2031 – which has undertaken significant work to analyze and address hate crimes and hate incidents in California. Jewish California sponsored the 2021 bill (AB 1126, Bloom) that established the Commission.

Signed into law: AB 1127 (Gabriel): Prohibits the sale of any semi-automatic handguns in California that are easily convertible into a fully automatic machine gun by using a converter attachment.

Signed into law: SB 19 (Rubio): Safe Schools and Places of Worship Act – Prosecutors across California have found it difficult to hold people accountable for making criminal threats against places of worship and other sensitive places unless they identify a specific person in their threat. SB 19 closes this loophole and allows prosecution for threats made against a daycare, school, university, workplace, house of worship, or medical facility.

Signed into law: SB 48 (Gonzalez): Creates coordinators to combat hate motivated by race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and LGBTQ identity. These coordinators will be housed in the Office of Civil Rights – created by AB 715 – and sit alongside the Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator. They will each work to train educators and school leaders about discrimination, track incidents, advise on accountability measures, and recommend future legislation.

Signed into law: *SB 472 (Stern): Holocaust and Genocide Education (HGE) – Supports Holocaust and Genocide Education across California schools through increased data collection, accountability, and a new grant program. This bill is designed to implement two of the recommendations from the Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education.

Core Jewish Values

We aim to uphold the Torah’s most enumerated commandment – v’ahavta lere’acha kamocha (loving the stranger as yourself) – by working to combat hunger and poverty, expand access to healthcare, support vulnerable communities, and combat climate change.

No-Cost Senior Transportation Pilot Program – $8 million: Funds a pilot No-Cost Senior Transportation Program – a program run by Jewish Family Service of San Diego – in four counties across the state, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and Fresno Counties.

San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking (SFCAHT) Hotline – $280 thousand: Funds the Human Trafficking Hotline that NCJW San Francisco runs, the sole Bay Area-wide coordinated referral platform that confidentially and safely connects services and resources to the survivors of human trafficking. SFCAHT is set to lose its funding due to cutbacks in human trafficking funding.

Included in the budget ($100 million): Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) – $176 million: Backfills funding for domestic violence support and other programs supporting victims of crime, which are being cut at the federal level. The Governor’s January budget includes a $103 million proposed allocation, which isn’t enough to meet the demand amidst federal cuts.

Included in the budget ($83.8 million): Home Safe – $88.3 million: Funds the Home Safe Program, which offers a range of strategies to address and prevent homelessness and support ongoing housing stability for Adult Protective Services (APS) clients – older adults and adults with disabilities who are victims of abuse, neglect or exploitation. This includes intensive case management, financial assistance, deep cleaning to maintain safe housing, eviction prevention, landlord mediation, and more. This request is for $88.8 million/year over three years.

Signed into law: AB 260 (Aguiar-Curry): Makes several upgrades to protect reproductive and transgender care. It would also require Medi-Cal to permit the use of tele-health for reproductive health providers and patients, including for a new patient relationship – important for reaching harder to serve populations.

Two Year Bill: AB 537 (Ahrens): Extends eligibility for tuition assistance that is already targeted to low-income students and/or dreamers to part-time students that also meet those eligibility requirements.

Signed into law: AB 561 (Quirk-Silva): Expands access to elder abuse restraining orders.

Two Year Bill: AB 701 (Ortega): Requires the Department of Justice to conduct a one-time comprehensive study on the use of solitary confinement in all detention facilities in California, including jails, prisons and private detention facilities. It defines solitary confinement as the practice of isolating individuals in a cell for 17 hours or more per day, which has significant negative implications for mental health, rehabilitation, and public safety.

Signed into law: AB 1034 (Avila Farias): Teacher Mental Health Training – Ensures that university teacher preparation programs include mental health first aid or similar training as part of their coursework for K-12 teacher candidates. Requires additions to the TPEs (teaching performance expectations), which are criteria that the Commission on Teacher Credentialing provides to teacher preparation programs in order for them to maintain their status as approved programs. As currently written, it would also require corresponding changes to the credentialing exams, the TPAs (teaching performance assessments).

Two Year Bill: AB 1049 (C. Rodriguez): Removes a complicated rule in the eligibility determination process from the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) called sponsor deeming. Sponsor deeming adds the income and resources of an immigrant’s sponsor when determining eligibility for benefits. This can cause confusion about eligibility during the enrollment process, making it harder for immigrant Californians to get the food they need.

Two Year Bill: AB 1243 (Addis) /SB 684 (Menjivar): The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025 – The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act addresses the financial injustices imposed on taxpayers and working families from climate related disasters by requiring fossil fuel polluters to offset the costs pushed down on the taxpayer for the damage caused and enhanced by their products.

Signed into law: AB 1362 (Kalra): Human Trafficking Prevention and Protection Act for Temporary Immigrant Workers – Requires that all contracted foreign labor recruiters register with the state and follow rules aimed at preventing them from exploiting migrant workers. By expanding to all foreign labor recruiters, this bill ensures that immigrant workers such as domestic workers, agricultural workers, and nurses are protected against wage theft, human trafficking, and other labor violations.

Signed into law: SBX1-2 (Wiener): Provides direct legal services for immigrants and other vulnerable Californians at risk of detention, eviction, wage theft, deportation, intimate partner violence, and other actions that may be taken under new federal policies.

Signed into law: SB 59 (Wiener): Protects the privacy and safety of transgender Californians by making all court records related to name and gender marker changes confidential and thus reducing the risk that they will be outed and exposed to danger. The bill also prohibits these records from being posted publicly on the internet or elsewhere. With harassment and violence against people increasing across the country, SB 59 safeguards their privacy by preventing personally identifying information from being made public without their knowledge or consent.

Two Year Bill: SB 225 (McNerney): Expands California’s free summer meals program to allow a parent, guardian, or caregiver to receive a meal with their child, helping to fight hunger during these uncertain economic times. The State Department of Education would reimburse summer meal program operators for caregiver meals.

Two Year Bill: SB 324 (Menjivar): Strengthens participation of community-based nonprofits as Medi-Cal providers through adequate funding and red tape reductions.

Vetoed by the Governor: SB 411 (Perez): Fights child hunger by creating a single statewide SUN Bucks application website and establishing the BOOST Nutrition benefit to provide food support during school breaks and emergencies.

Vetoed by the Governor: SB 771 (Stern): Hate on Social Media – Prohibits social media algorithms from delivering content amounting to hate crimes or unlawful intimidation/harassment directly to users of the targeted population group. If a social media platform is found in a civil trial to have violated these laws, the bill would increase the financial consequences proportional to the life-and-death stakes, and to a level that will not likely be viewed by them as an easily absorbable cost of doing business. Penalties would range from one month’s gross California revenue to three months gross revenue, doubled if the platform knew the victim was a child.