Highlighting a flurry of signings and vetoes in latest days, Gov. Gavin Newsom headed right into a remaining week to behave on tons of of payments by approving new environmental and fentanyl legal guidelines, prohibiting hidden-fees, and making California the primary state to ban meals dyes and to carry social media corporations accountable for baby intercourse trafficking.
The governor additionally rejected a number of proposed legal guidelines, together with one that may have made the state the primary to ban caste discrimination, and others that may have decriminalized psychedelic medication and evasion of transit fares. In whole, he signed 324 payments and vetoed 144 over the weekend, and has scores left to contemplate by Saturday’s deadline.
Among the many notable new legal guidelines, California would be the first state to ban 4 meals components already prohibited in lots of different international locations over potential well being dangers with signature on a invoice critics had lampooned as a “Skittles ban” threatening to remove the favored colourful sweet.
Newsom in a press release on signing AB 418 stated he was together with a bag of Skittles from Europe the place the components already are banned as “demonstrable proof that the meals trade is able to sustaining product strains whereas complying with totally different public well being legal guidelines, country-to-country.”
The Nationwide Confectioners Affiliation stated the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration considers the substances at subject secure and the invoice would create a complicated and expensive patchwork of state legal guidelines. The banned substances are Purple Dye No. 3, Potassium Bromate, Brominated Vegetable Oil, or Propyl Paraben.
Invoice writer Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat, boasted assist from health icon and former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The accepted invoice eliminated titanium dioxide — added to brighten colours in meals like candies — from the ban, and delayed implementation till 2027 to offer producers time to regulate.
Newsom vetoed one other invoice that may have made California the primary state to ban discrimination primarily based upon caste, a classification in South Asian cultures.
Newsom stated he didn’t assume SB 403 was wanted. The invoice by state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Hayward Democrat, would have made California the primary state to ban discrimination primarily based on caste bias.
The invoice had break up California’s giant South Asian group. Supporters noticed it as a crucial clarification that caste discrimination is prohibited. However critics argued the state’s antidiscrimination legal guidelines are ample and feared it will stigmatize these of South Asian descent.
“In California, we consider everybody deserves to be handled with dignity and respect, irrespective of who they’re, the place they arrive from, who they love, or the place they dwell,” Newsom stated in a veto message. “As a result of discrimination primarily based on caste is already prohibited underneath these present classes, this invoice is pointless.”
Wahab had no touch upon the veto.
Newsom signed greater than a dozen payments coping with environmental coverage over the weekend, together with a first-in-the-nation legislation requiring giant California corporations to report their greenhouse fuel emissions, a transition to electrical college buses, banning bee-killing pesticides and contemplating photo voltaic panels alongside highways.
Newsom additionally signed some payments aimed toward coping with the fentanyl drug abuse downside. AB 701 by Assemblyman Carlos Villapudua, a Stockton Democrat, will increase penalties for possession of great quantities of artificial opioid fentanyl.
SB 234 by state Sen. Anthony Portantino, a Burbank Democrat, would require amusement parks, live performance venues and stadiums to keep up two on-site, unexpired doses of Naloxone, generally identified by the model identify Narcan, which might rapidly revive somebody who’s overdosing on opioids like fentanyl. An earlier provision that additionally would have required Ok-12 public faculties to fill up on Naloxone was eliminated.
And AB 461 by Assemblyman James C. Ramos, a Highland Democrat, would require California group schools and state universities to make fentanyl check strips accessible to college students, which might warn them if black market medication or different merchandise are laced with the potent drug.
Amongst different notable payments Newsom signed:
- SB 274 — Expands on earlier laws prohibiting faculties from suspending or expelling elementary college pupils, and till July 2025, center college college students as properly. SB 274 will prohibit suspensions of center and highschool college students for willful defiance, described as “low-level conduct points,” till July 2029. The invoice, which had no formal opposition, goals to keep away from compounding issues for tough college students by retaining them in class.
- AB 1394 — The bipartisan invoice makes California the primary state to require social media platforms to offer baby intercourse abuse victims a option to demand elimination of movies or photos of their abuse, and to allow them to sue the platforms for knowingly contributing to baby intercourse trafficking.
- SB 478 — Makes it unlawful to promote a great or service that doesn’t embody all obligatory expenses aside from the taxes or charges imposed by a authorities. Legal professional Basic Rob Bonta stated the brand new legislation banning junk charges will make sure that “the worth Californians see would be the value they pay.”
- AB 1136 — Creates a Combined Martial Arts Retirement Profit Fund for getting old fighters, funded by a $1 surcharge on ticket gross sales.
Amongst different notable Newsom vetoes:
- AB 374 — Would have legalized Amsterdam-style “hashish cafes” the place, with native approval, dispensaries licensed to promote marijuana merchandise might additionally promote meals and host dwell concert events. Newsom’s veto message stated he feared it will “undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free office protections.”
- AB 819 — Would have diminished the penalty for a 3rd or subsequent public transit fare evasion from a misdemeanor punishable by as much as 90 days in jail to a high quality of not more than $400. Newsom stated in his veto message that he “can not take an motion to scale back penalties on fare evasion that might, in flip, contribute to a rise in crime on transit.”
- SB 541 — Would have required public excessive faculties to make free condoms accessible to college students. Newsom stated in his veto message that he was involved about creating an “unfunded mandate to public faculties that needs to be thought-about within the annual funds course of.”
- AB 1356 — Would have elevated the discover an employer should present earlier than a mass layoff from 60 to 75 days and increase the legislation’s protection to incorporate contract staff. Newsom stated in his veto message that companies might not be capable to decide the influence on their contractors.
- SB 58 — Would have decriminalized possession of “magic” psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline and different psychedelic medication. Newsom stated in his veto message that it’s untimely.
Employees Writers Paul Rogers and Scooty Nickerson contributed to this report.
