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These 5 bills that got the ax in the state legislature this year

September 6, 2024

About 2,120 bills were introduced by California legislators this year — but over 900 didn’t quite make it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk before the legislative session ended last weekend.

Those bills included ones that dealt with social media guardrails and wildfire insurance to AI and sentence reductions for convicted felons.

Here’s a closer look at five that didn’t make it across the finish line this year.

Fining social media companies for harming young users

Social media companies would have had to pay civil penalties for causing harm to young users if AB 3172 was signed into law.

Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, initially proposed imposing penalties of up to $1 million on social media companies if proven in court that they knowingly offered products or design features that “resulted in harm or injury to minors,” according to the bill analysis, but that fine was eventually lowered to a maximum of $250,000.

Lowenthal proposed AB 3172 to hold social media platforms accountable for harm caused to youth, specifically in light of growing concerns about the impact of social media on children’s mental health and addiction. He pulled the legislation with less than two days left to go in the legislative session, as reported by Politico, after it had been amended to a weaker version.

Lowenthal said he intends to reintroduce the bill next year.

“While this is a setback, this effort is not going away. Instead of bending to special interests, (California) must work for kids (and) families especially when the federal government remains unable to act,” he said.

The bill saw bipartisan support in the Assembly and Senate.

The Chamber of Progress, a trade group that represents tech companies and is funded by over a dozen of them, including Amazon, Apple, Meta and Google, opposed the legislation, saying the “responsibility of ordinary care and skill to a child” is excessively vague.

“Faced with the risk of a deluge of litigation seeking high payments based on unclear standards, websites will be forced to strip any content or features that could be possibly considered inappropriate (or risk severe penalties), which is precisely the sort of ‘chilling’ that the Supreme Court’s vagueness doctrine is intended to prevent,” they said.

One-time rebates for household electric bills

Legislation that aimed to help relieve Californians of their steep electric bills died in the legislature after Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, pulled it from a committee.

Petrie-Norris said members in both the Assembly and Senate “preferred to continue the conversation,” which is why she chose to pull the bill in favor of pursuing additional options for short-term rate relief and improve affordability.

California has one of the country’s highest monthly fixed-rate utility fees.

Households would have received a one-time rebate payment between $30 to $70. The money for those payments, approximately $500 million, would have come via cuts to several utility programs meant to help low-income residents and schools in areas served by Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Decreasing wildfire insurance costs

Legislation that aimed to provide incentives to property owners who invest in wildfire prevention measures died after the Senate failed to take it to a vote by the end of this year’s legislative session.

Authored by Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, AB 2416 called on insurance companies to offer more discounts to homeowners and business owners who take steps to harden their homes against wildfires, including using noncombustible construction materials, according to the bill analysis.

It would have required the state insurance department to periodically review and update a list of non-combustible materials, additional wildfire mitigation programs and measures to harden homes.

“Incentivizing home and business owners to invest in home hardening measures will help our communities reach higher levels of fire safety, which will reduce catastrophic losses of life and property,” said Connolly.

In the Assembly, lawmakers split along party lines on the bill.

Preventing AI from making biased hiring decisions

While one artificial intelligence safety bill that requires advanced AI developers to enact safety guardrails headed to the governor’s desk, another that sought to prevent cutting-edge technology from making biased hiring decisions failed to move forward.

Introduced by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-San Ramon, AB 2930 aimed to establish regulations for companies that develop and use AI tools in their hiring process so that they don’t discriminate against people based on various classifications including perceived race, ethnicity, sex, religion, age, national origin, limited English proficiency and disability, according to the bill analysis.

The legislation, when first introduced, sought to regulate the usage of AI in a variety of fields, including the workplace, school admissions, housing, health care, adoption and legal services, to prevent the technology from negatively impacting the availability of and access to those services. However, it was ultimately amended to only include regulation of AI when it comes to hiring, termination and other decisions made in the workplace.

Bauer-Kahan said the legislation protects individuals from algorithmic discrimination by requiring developers and users to assess AI tools that make consequential decisions.

“These tools can exacerbate the harms they are intended to address and ultimately hurt the people they are supposed to help. As the use of decision-making via algorithm becomes more prevalent in our daily lives, it is crucial that we take the necessary steps to ensure that they are used ethically and responsibly,” she said.

In the Assembly, Republican and Democratic lawmakers split along party lines. The full Senate did not vote on the legislation.

Reducing sentences for felons

Should some convicted felons be able to appeal for reduced sentences? That was the idea of Sen. Dave Cortese, D-Campbell, who introduced SB 94, aimed at allowing felons — excluding those convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer, killing three or more people or registerable sex offense — to appeal for a shorter sentence if they had committed a crime before June 5, 1990, and had already served at least 25 years.

The legislation was not considered for a vote by the Assembly and thus died.

Cortese said he is “incredibly disappointed that SB 94 was not granted the opportunity to be heard and the amendments considered for vote by the full legislature.”

In the bill analysis, the senator said that “the majority of people serving a life without parole sentence are classified as low risk,” and that “many of these individuals have shown decades of exemplary behavior, participated in extensive positive programming and have devoted themselves to becoming positive members of society.”

However, Republican lawmakers called the legislation “pro-criminal.”

“The fact that Democrats are debating whether or not to keep violent murderers behind bars shows how out-of-touch they really are,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City. “SB 94 is an insult to the victims of these killers, their families and the millions of Californians who are sick of criminals running rampant on our streets.”

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