California State Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, announced that 18 of her bills have successfully passed out of their respective Assembly policy committees, with most now moving to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

“My legislative package this year is focused on putting money back in people’s pockets to reduce the stress of everyday costs to families, as well as focusing on our three main policy priorities, our three Hs, housing, homelessness and health care,” said Schiavo. “As the chair of the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, we also have bills to support our veterans and servicemembers and we have done a lot of listening in our district to ensure our legislation is meeting the key needs of our community. With many bills receiving bipartisan support, I am hopeful that these bills will continue to advance through the process.

Below is a summary of the bills:

Protecting Californians’ Pocketbooks

AB 2863: “Click to Cancel” – Protecting Consumers from Expensive Subscriptions

Puts money back in people’s pockets and helps protect consumers by making it easier for people to cancel costly subscriptions easily and transparently.

AB 2424: Protecting Homeowners During Foreclosure

In an effort to protect homeowners’ equity during the foreclosure process, this bill provides common-sense provisions, such as preventing bank foreclosures when owners have an opportunity to recover more of their investment by selling or by establishing minimum bid-requirements on an attempted foreclosure.

AB 2135: Protecting Workers from Wage Theft

To ensure workers’ hard earned wages are protected, this bill extends the period of time that the Labor Commission is able to review complaints of wage theft, as well as ensures investigations by the Labor Commission are not unduly cut short, which often leaves victims of wage theft without a resolution.

AB 1854: Reservist Financial Support

Members of the Guard and Reserve are often called to active duty on very short notice, and sometimes don’t learn of the financial protections they’re offered until it is too late to take advantage of them. This bill will allow them to apply for retroactive deferment of payment and interest on specified debts, such as credit cards, vehicle loans, mortgages.

Housing & Homelessness

AB 2674: Supporting Foster Youth and Affordable Housing

Establishes programs to support funding for affordable housing projects that include units dedicated to current and former foster youth, as well as low-income Californians struggling to pay for housing.

AB 1820: Eliminating Roadblocks for Housing Development

This bill provides fee transparency to housing developers, which helps to get housing built faster, prevent surprise fees that stall projects and create predictability for financing, all which will help to remove roadblocks to needed housing development.

AB 2343: Childcare Access for Parents and Children Experiencing Homelessness or Domestic Violence

This bill would allow some child care agencies to provide enhanced support for families experiencing homelessness or surviving domestic violence. These services may be provided in partnership with homeless service agencies, domestic violence agencies, or other supportive housing groups

Healthcare, Mental Health and Abortion Care

AB 2999: Healthy Homework Act to Protect Student Mental Health

Given the current student mental health crisis, and that recent studies show students cite homework as a top three stressor in their life, addressing homework requirements will allow us to protect student mental health. This bill will require school boards to consider mental health, physical health and inequities when creating guidelines for homework, including using research to determine how much homework to assign, grading practices, and if homework is optional and not graded.

AB 2670: Abortion Access Transparency

Launches a public awareness campaign to provide medically accurate information as to the availability of abortions via the abortion.ca.gov web site, so that all people seeking abortion information and resources know where they can find reliable and safe information.

AB 2637: Support for Healthcare Facilities

Connects hospitals and health facilities with needed long-term financing to cover operating costs, salaries, and more, beyond the current limit of two years, to help support these facilities that are providing care to millions of Californians.

AB 2015: Addressing Nursing Shortage

Helps to address our nursing shortage by providing both teaching nurses and their prospective employers greater confidence in the hiring process by decoupling the teaching credential approval process from the hiring process.

AB 3106: Protecting School Employee Health

Seeks to ensure school employees who are symptomatic can access exclusion pay consistent with the California Department of Public Health isolation period.

Veterans

AB 1908: Increasing Transparency for Department of Veterans Affairs

Improves government transparency and performance by requiring the California Department of Veterans Affairs to report to the Legislature on the findings of its internal audits.

AB 1994: Strengthening Representation for Minority and Underrepresented Veterans

Strengthens representation of minority and underrepresented veterans by making the Deputy Secretary of Minority and Underrepresented Veterans Affairs permanent with those deputies whose appointments are specified in statute. Minority veterans are less likely to receive benefits that they were entitled to, or could have established eligibility for, and often live in areas where there are service gaps.

Community Safety and Protections

AB 2499: Crime Survivor Trauma Leave

Will allow employees to take their sick leave if they or a family member was a victim of a qualifying act of violence. It will prohibit an employer from discharging or discriminating against an employee who is a victim, or has a family member who was a victim, of an act of violence after taking time off to obtain relief.

AB 3074: Derogatory Mascot Ban

Aims to ban derogatory or culturally insensitive terms from being used as a public school mascot. Will give schools time to find a different name and reorder uniforms or remove any inappropriate signage or logos. Exempts tribal schools.

AB 2233: Expanding Accessibility for Seniors and those with Disabilities

Seeks to increase the number of bathrooms in new buildings to have multiple stalls with grab bars for those with movement disabilities.

AB 2086: Transportation Funding Oversight

Requires Caltrans to enhance an existing public online dashboard, such as Rebuilding California, to display how annual project investments are advancing the vision and goals of the California Transportation Plan to provide good jobs, protect vulnerable communities and meet environmental goals.

Schiavo also has one additional bill in the Senate Appropriations committee to address gun violence through stricter concealed carry requirements with AB 1133.