…& Legislative Update
May, 2026
How is Sacramento spending our tax dollars this month? Let’s sniff out the ways…
Compiled by Jennifer Zeiter
REALLY BAD STATE BILLS:
AB 2017 – Muslim Holy Days As Official CA State Holidays
This Bill would add two religious holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as official state holidays in CA. If locally approved, this bill allows public schools and community schools to celebrate these two religious holidays and close for the day. It would require schools to give students excused time and permit state employees to use paid leave to observe these days.
SB 73 - Elections: Prohibits law enforcement access to and inspection of CA voting systems. The bill will be signed by the Governor before the June 2nd Election!!!!
AB 1678: Dangerous bill that WAIVES THE CAP ON SALES TAX INCREASES
This Bill would exempt two new sales taxes in Los Angeles and Contra Costa counties from state law that CAPS local sales taxes at a total of 2% above the state sales tax rate of 7.25%. No Californian should be paying a sales tax higher than 9.25%, but the sales tax is much higher in many places because the Legislature passes sneaky bills like AB 1768 to EXEMPT new sales tax increases from the cap.
637 BILLS were on the Asm. Appropriations Committee agenda two weeks ago! That’s a lot of Bills – do we NEED all those new “laws”?
These Bills have passed the Assembly, now headed to the Senate:
SUPPORT these bills:
AB 1546 (Shultz) Vehicles: Vehicles: DUI (increases punishment)
AB 1628 (Rodriguez) Child protection Safe Surrender (extends from 48 hours to 30 days)
AB 1687 (Lackey) Driver’s licenses: revocation increased for DUI convictions
AB 1705 (Bauer-Kahan) Pornographic websites (provides more minors protection)
AB 1825 (Krell) Parole boards must consider prior state hospital commitment prior to decisions
AB 1830 (Petrie-Norris, Lackey) Interlocking Devices following DUI conviction
AB 1847 (Harabedian) Extends mortgage forbearance in state of emergency: wildfires
AB 2022 (Gonzalez) Prop. Property tax exemption for disabled vet homeowners
AB 2044 (Petrie-Norris) New building standards must show cost of compliance
AB 2727 (Nguyen) Elder Release: Raise release age to 65 & minimum served time of 25 years
SB 994 (Cabaldon) Local government: Prohibits nondisclosure agreements in local government. Passed by Senate - moves to the Assembly
OPPOSE these bills:
AB 1539 (Addis) Certify under oath presidential candidate qualifies under the 22nd Amendment or will not be placed on ballot
AB 1578 (Jackson) State and local officials: mandated sexual harassment training and education: anti-hate speech training
AB 1627 (Avila Farias) Public Employees: disqualified if employed by Homeland Security or ICE
AB 1655 (Byron) Cal Works would allow pay during absence due to immigration detention.
AB 1675 (Lee) No Tax Breaks for ICE Contractors
AB 2230 (Avila Farias) Prohibits Immigration enforcement at polling places and child day care facilities
AB 2624 (Bonta) Privacy for immigration support services providers
AB 2651 (Bonta) Informed Parents: Healthy schools another step to coerce vaccine compliance
These bills DIED in Committee. No votes recorded.
AB 1535 (Davies) Hate Crimes: adds political affiliation to list of hate crimes
AB 1764 (Sanchez) Elections: voter registration (require use of SSA and Health Care info to clean voter rolls) THIS SHOULD HAVE PASSED!
AB 2019 (Gipson) Community colleges: deported or detained faculty would keep getting paid
AB 2064 (Sharp-Collins) Discrimination: formerly incarcerated status add to protected class
AB 2600 (Bonta) Immigration: access to legal counsel
These Bills have passed the Senate, now headed to the Assembly:
SB 998 (OPPOSE)(Gonzalez) Education equity: Adds new “discrimination prevention coordinators” positions in our schools.
SB 1004 (OPPOSE) (Wiener) Law enforcement: Prohibit masks
SB 1164 (OPPOSE) (Cervantes) Elections: replaces CVRA with “prohibition of voter suppression and dilution of votes” in minority communities
SB 1194 (OPPOSE) (Caballero) Immigration Legal Fellowship Project provides free legal assistance to immigrants
FEDERAL BILLS
Americans First Immigration Act (H.R. 8586) – Impacts of Mass Immigration on Affordable Housing. Housing affordability has become a nationwide crisis. Across the country, families are struggling with high rents, rising home prices, and limited inventory, while new construction often fails to keep pace with demand. At the same time, the United States continues to experience rapid population growth, now driven largely by immigration. Congress is now deliberating over ways to increase housing supply. But the focus should also be placed on housing demand—namely, how mass immigration is creating additional pressure on already-strained housing markets, especially in metropolitan areas. We need to slow immigration by passing this Act in Congress.
(Thanks to Olena from Pixabay for the logo image)