Bills’ fiscal hearings weren’t bloodbath lawmakers feared

The final fiscal committee hearings of the year in the California Legislature on Thursday weren't quite the bloodbath some expected. Key measures on courts, juries, police use of force, privacy and more survived to reach full floor votes in the coming days.

The fate of two measures designed to fend off a new wave of evictions and foreclosures was more muddled, however. The bills, AB 1436 and SB 1410, may have gotten held up in bickering between the Assembly and Senate.

Each of these bills was complex, laying out a process by which landlords can sign deals with tenants who can't pay due the economic shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the state doesn't have the money to provide direct aid that could keep people in their homes while preventing landlords from being foreclosed on and losing their homes or rental property.

Instead, the bills aim to have landlords receive tax credits, while tenants would agree to eventually repay the money. AB 1436 also includes provisions allowing landlords to delay mortgage payments.

SB 1410 ended up getting held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, apparently dying for the year unless it is revived today, the last day for bills to pass fiscal committees.

AB 1436 initially passed Senate Appropriations on a 5-2 party-line vote. But two hours later, committee Chair Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada-Flintridge, announced AB 1436 was coming back up for reconsideration. It ended up being referred to the Senate Rules Committee, possibly for last-minute amendments.

The annual judiciary omnibus bill -- normally a relatively noncontroversial piece of legislation -- also survived a trip to the dreaded Senate Appropriations Committee. AB 3364 is 27,000 words of mostly minor changes to the branch. It includes provisions on things like evidence standards, debt collection and enforcing judgments.

The bill received a few changes designed to help save money, including delaying some mandates under SB 10. This is a 2018 law to phase out cash bail in the state, currently facing a November voter referendum.

Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, had a good day. Six of his bills passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. These include SB 145, which aims to end discrepancies in how gay and straight convicts are treated on the sex offender registry.

Wiener, an attorney, also carried SB 592. This bill is designed to create more representative jury pools by drawing from local tax records, rather than driver's license or voter records. Another juror bill that survived was AB 3070, which would ban peremptory challenges based on characteristics like race, sex or sexual orientation.

Another prominent lawyer-legislator got a priority bill through. SB 908, by Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, would force debt collectors to be licensed by the state. Known as a consumer advocate, Wieckowski could be a candidate to chair the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee next year after the departure of longtime chair Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Monica, due to term limits.

Two bills relating to police use of force also survived. SB 776 would mandate the records relating to all uses of force would be subject to the California Public Records Act, not just those causing death or significant bodily injury. AB 1506 would create a division in the California Department of Justice to investigate use of force incidents.

Both bills were flagged due to potential costs. According to a Senate Appropriations Committee analysis, AB 1506 could cost the Department of Justice $80 million annually. But each bill was also put forward as a means of helping bring down the millions in legal settlements police use of force cases have been leading to each year.

The committees also advanced several privacy measures. AB 713 would create exemptions in the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 for certain medical information and seek to better align the law with federal statutes.