2026 Legislation

PRIORITY

* Indicates a Jewish California-sponsored item

*California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program – $100 million

Provides funding for synagogues and other nonprofits at risk of hate-motivated violence to secure their institutions from hate crimes. The state made a two-year, $80 million annual investment in the program in 2024.

*Holocaust Education Grant Funding – $10 million

Funds the Holocaust and Genocide Education Grant Program created by Senate Bill 472 (Stern). Jewish California sponsored SB 472 last year, which was signed into law without any funding designated for the newly created grant program.

*Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program (HSAP) – $36 million over three years

Provides trauma-informed, at-home care for frail Holocaust survivors to help them age with dignity. The program faces a fiscal cliff on June 30th after seven consecutive years of funding – 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

Develops a pilot program in Los Angeles County's K-12 schools to institutionalize annual surveys that identify and prevent hate – with a focus on antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant, and anti-trans hateful beliefs and behaviors. One-time funding would help build the surveys, but they would ultimately be incorporated into existing annual surveys in schools, leading to comprehensive and evolving data to inform future policy and best practices. If successful, the pilot could expand statewide.

Museum of Tolerance – $9.75 million
One-time capital outlay for comprehensive refurbishment of the Holocaust exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance, and for a second mobile museum to travel across the state.

San Diego Holocaust Center – $1 million

Supports the development of San Diego’s first ever mobile Holocaust Center for schools and the greater community to engage in Holocaust education – being developed by Jewish Federation of San Diego.

SFCJL Modernization – $3 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.

*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

*AB 1836 (Gabriel) – Off-Site Events for Nonprofit Security Grants

Expands eligibility for security grants to be used for high-risk community events held outside an organization's physical address.

*AB 1763 (Lee) – Student Religious Observances

Ensures students receive guaranteed excused absences for religious holidays. Current law allows students to receive guaranteed excused absences for illness, mental health, medical appointments, family funerals, civic participation, cultural ceremonies, and more. However, parents must submit a written request and obtain approval from a principal before an absence for a religious holiday is considered excused, unless the school board establishes a different process.

AB 2047 (Bauer-Kahan)

The California Firearm Printing Prevention Act requires 3D printer manufacturers to equip their products with firearm-blocking technology, which identifies firearm blueprints and blocks them from being printed.

OPPOSE: AB 2159 (Garcia)

Guts Assembly Bill 715: Removes the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism as a basis for understanding antisemitism; strips the prohibition on bias, advocacy, and partisanship in classroom instruction and materials; eliminates the requirement that instruction meet accepted standards of professional responsibility; and demotes the Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator from a governor-appointed, Senate-confirmed position to a civil service hire – while leaving all other discrimination coordinators as appointed positions.

AB 2347 (Ahrens)

Requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to conduct a comprehensive review of existing hate crimes training programs and adopt evidence-based training requirements to address the gaps identified in the review. Part of the three-bill package of the Select Committee on Racism, Hate, and Xenophobia.

AB 2378 (Gabriel, Wicks)

Establishes a new Office of Community Violence Intervention within the California Board of State and Community Corrections to coordinate and oversee community-based violence prevention efforts, including programs like CalVIP. Paired with a supplemental budget ask of $55 million per year from the general fund to maintain CalVIP grant funding at a steady level.

*AB 2664 (Bauer-Kahan) – Safe Worship Zone Act

Establishes a 100-foot "safe worship zone", or bubble zone, around entrances to houses of worship to protect safe access to religious institutions while respecting constitutional protest rights.

SB 998 (L. Gonzalez)
Follows up on last year's AB 715 and SB 48 to adds responsibilities for the religious, racial and ethnic, gender, and LGBTQ coordinators created by SB 48, largely mirroring the responsibilities given to the Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator in AB 715. It also adds a Disability Coordinator and establishes its responsibilities.

*SB 1387 (Stern) – Jewish Ethnicity

Ensures Jewish identity is captured in ethnicity data collection systems – in addition to existing religious categorization – to improve understanding of our diverse community and accuracy in hate-crime, healthcare, and other reporting.

About this bill: According to Pew, 53% of American Jews say that religion is either not at all or not a very important part of their Jewish identity. Many Jews connect with Jewish identity through food, culture, language, values, and community – characteristics of an ethnicity. When government and data collections systems only list us as a religion, we are misunderstood, leading to generalizations, bias, and higher levels of discrimination. Further, we are undercounted or absent from critical data used to enact helpful health, educational, and anti-hate policies. This bill does not create any new program, nor will it change our inclusion in the religious categorization – it simply says that when ethnic data is collected, it must also list Jewish identity as an option.

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.

Refugee Support – $20 million

Provides services to support refugees who entered the U.S. in the last five years. Federal policy changes under the new Administration have largely halted the arrival of new refugees and cut funding in this area – and many refugee resettlement agencies have folded as a result. But there are still recent refugees that have been cut off from their previously-committed support, and resettlement agencies in California are committed to continuing to serve them.

JVS Bay Area Statewide Programs – $7 million over two years
Provides free high-impact workforce training for in-demand sectors – including healthcare, dental, and skilled trades – and support services for 750 underserved Californians. Current state programs that have funded some of this work are either sunsetting or not increasing investment to keep up with costs and demand.

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. The federal government cut human trafficking funding by $10 million, and the subcontractor stopped funding this program.

Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) – $100 million
Administered by CalOES, funds domestic violence support and other similar programs that are being cut at the federal level. Assembly Bill 2432 (Gabriel), which Jewish California supported in 2024, creates a state program to make up lost federal funds, but it will take time to build up that fund.

Deportation Defense Services – $50 million
Increases California's Deportation Defense Services. Jewish California supported SBX1-2 last year, which successfully allocated $50 million for immigrant legal defense, and this would continue that program.

Older Californians Act – $62.3 million

A large-scale adult services budget request led by the California Association of Area Agencies on Aging (C4A). Within this request, JFS Los Angeles is requesting prioritization of $37 million annually for senior nutrition services, which sustain California's statewide network of home-delivered and congregate meal programs serving older adults.

AB 1039 (Hart)
Authorizes state agencies granting funds to nonprofit organizations to provide up to 25% of the funds in advance, and requires all new grants and contracts made after January 1, 2026 to offer advance pay.

AB 1540 (M. González)
Reestablishes the 988 Press 3 LGBTQ+ Youth Suicide Crisis Line. The funding for this program was exhausted in 2024 and new funding was not provided by the federal government.

AB 1542 (Ward)
Bans businesses from selling and sharing sensitive personal information, including immigration status, health data, social security numbers, sexual orientation, genetic data, and precise location. This will stop immigration and law enforcement from seizing information that can be leveraged against immigrant communities.

AB 1573 (Bryan)
Ensures cities and counties consider the housing needs of domestic violence survivors in their planning and reporting processes, intentionally integrating this historically overlooked population into housing policy.

AB 1709 (Lowenthal)
Bans social media for kids under 16 years of age.

AB 1734 (Stefani) - Count Hunger Act
Requires the Department of Public Health to establish a two-year pilot program, in collaboration with UCLA, to study food insecurity. It aims to include specific food insecurity questions in the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) for households at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.

AB 1690 (Ahrens)
Provides meaningful cash support to financially struggling families by extending the California Young Child Tax Credit (YCTC). It will annually phase in higher age eligibility, ultimately extending the credit to include families with children up to age 18.

AB 1981 (Aguilar-Curry)
Requires state agencies to report annually when they're going to implement the new rate system promised in prior budgets, building momentum towards ensuring that child care providers are paid what they were promised – keeping doors open and spots available for young children.

AB 2161 (Bonta)
Protects Medi-Cal coverage for low-income Californians by minimizing the added burden of federal H.R. 1 requirements. Rather than passing federal work requirement burdens directly to individuals, the bill directs the state to first use data it already has to automatically verify compliance – and only contact the person directly as a last resort.

AB 2208 (Stefani)
Caps cost-sharing for Medi-Cal members impacted by H.R. 1 to one cent for all services, protecting families from medical debt and cost-related barriers to care. It also requires user-testing and accessibility improvements for BenefitsCal, CalSAWS, and CalHEERS, and preserves three months of state-funded retroactive Medi-Cal coverage.

AB 2299 (Calderon) – California Anti-Hunger Response and Employment Training (CARET)
Establishes state-funded food benefits for Californians who lose CalFresh eligibility due to harmful federal food benefit time-limit rules. Nearly 660,000 people are projected to lose food assistance, including previously exempted veterans, youth under 25 who age out of foster care, people experiencing homelessness, caregivers of kids ages 14–18, and older adults ages 54–64.

SB 868 (Wiener) – Plug and Play Solar Act

Allows portable solar energy devices to be used by consumers without the same permits required for rooftop solar. Because plug-in systems do not require roof ownership or major construction, they open the solar market to renters, condo owners, and households with shaded roofs or patios. California has roughly 14 million rental units – around 40% of households – making this an especially powerful tool for expanding access to clean energy.

SB 982 (Wiener) – Affordable Insurance and Recovery Act (AIR Act)

Tackles California's growing home insurance affordability crisis by authorizing the Attorney General to take large oil and gas corporations to court for damages related to climate change-fueled extreme weather disasters, like wildfires and flooding. This shifts the responsibility of paying for climate disasters from the consumers impacted to the large corporations who knowingly caused the damage.

SB 1110 (Becker)
Addresses California's underfunded and financially unstable childcare subsidy system by overhauling how the local agencies that administer childcare vouchers and contracts are reimbursed – simplifying the payment structure, guaranteeing a minimum contract for small agencies, and giving them more flexibility in how they use their funds.

SB 1240 (McNerney)
Creates the Office of Nonprofit Empowerment (ONE) to serve as a central connection between state agencies and the nonprofit sector. The ONE would provide resources to both state agencies and nonprofit organizations to streamline and improve grantmaking processes, including provision of technical assistance, training materials, and guides.

SB 1378 (Ochoa Bogh)

Establishes a California Excellence in Service Learning Designation Program, honoring local education agencies and individual schools that demonstrate excellence in implementing service learning programs. Effective service learning programs foster student engagement, provide leadership opportunities, and support social and emotional growth.

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.