Current Legislative Updates and Board Legislative Positions as of March 1, 2024

2023-2024 LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

The Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Hearing Aid Dispensers Board took the following positions on pending legislation during the 2023-2024 legislative session.


AB 381 (Rubio, Blanca) Teacher credentialing: services credential with a specialization in health: occupational and physical therapists.

Status: 2/1/2024-From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56.

Summary: Current law sets forth the minimum requirements for a services credential with a specialization in health. Current law authorizes the holder of a services credential with a specialization in health to perform, at all grade levels, health services approved by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Current law specifies that services as an occupational therapist or physical therapist are not health services for this purpose. This bill would delete the provision specifying that services as an occupational therapist or physical therapist are not health services for purposes of a services credential with a specialization in health.

Position: Neutral if Amended

AB 477 (Waldron) Legislative review of state boards.

Status: 2/1/2024-From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56.

Summary: Current law requires the Joint Sunset Review Committee to review eligible agencies and prepare a report that is made available to the public and the Legislature on whether the agency should be terminated, or continued, or whether its functions should be revised or consolidated with those of another agency, as specified. This bill would require the report prepared by the committee to be made available to the public online.

Position: Watch

AB 996 (LowR0) Department of Consumer Affairs: continuing education: conflict-of-interest policy.

Status: 9/14/2023-Failed Deadline pursuant to Rule 61(a)(14). (Last location was INACTIVE FILE on 8/17/2023)(May be acted upon Jan 2024)

Summary: Current law provides for the licensure and regulation of professions and vocations by entities within the Department of Consumer Affairs. Under current law, several of these entities may require licensees to satisfy continuing education course requirements, including, among others, licensed physicians and surgeons licensed by the Medical Board of California and certified public accountants and public accountants licensed by the California Board of Accountancy. This bill would require those entities to develop and maintain a conflict-of-interest policy that, at minimum, discourages the qualification of any continuing education course if the provider of that course has an economic interest in a commercial product or enterprise directly or indirectly promoted in that course and requires conflicts to be disclosed at the beginning of each continuing education course.

Position: Watch

AB 1028 (McKinnor) Reporting of crimes: mandated reporters.

Status: 9/1/2023-Failed Deadline pursuant to Rule 61(a)(11). (Last location was APPR. SUSPENSE FILE on 8/28/2023)(May be acted upon Jan 2024)

Summary: Would, on and after January 1, 2025, remove the requirement that a health practitioner make a report to law enforcement when they suspect a patient has suffered physical injury caused by assaultive or abusive conduct, and instead only require that report if the health practitioner suspects a patient has suffered a wound or physical injury inflicted by the person’s own act or inflicted by another where the injury is by means of a firearm, a wound or physical injury resulting from child abuse, or a wound or physical injury resulting from elder abuse.

Position: Watch

AB 1816 (Schiavo) Deceptive practices.

Status: 1/12/2024-From printer. May be heard in committee February 11.

Summary: The Consumers Legal Remedies Act makes unlawful certain unfair methods of competition and certain unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by a person in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to a consumer, including representing that the consumer will receive a rebate, discount, or other economic benefit if the earning of the benefit is contingent on an event to occur subsequent to the consummation of the transaction. This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to those provisions.

Position: Watch

AB 1900 (Weber) Consumer Legal Remedies Act.

Status: 01/24/2024-From printer. May be heard in committee February 23.

Summary: The Consumer Legal Remedies Act makes unlawful specified unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by a person in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to a consumer, including inserting an unconscionable provision in a contract. Current law authorizes a consumer who suffers damage as a result of the use or employment by a person of a method, act, or practice declared to be unlawful by that provision to bring an action against that person to recover or obtain certain relief, including actual damages. This bill would additionally include as an unlawful act requiring a consumer to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise prohibit a consumer from publishing or making negative statements about the business as a condition of receiving a refund.

Position: Watch

AB 1928 (Sanchez) Worker classification: employees and independent contractors.

Status: 2/12/2024-Referred to Coms. on L. & E. and JUD.

Summary: Current law, as established in the case of Dynamex Operations W. v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903 (Dynamex), creates a presumption that a worker who performs services for a hirer is an employee for purposes of claims for wages and benefits arising under wage orders issued by the Industrial Welfare Commission. Current law requires a 3-part test, commonly known as the “ABC” test, to determine if workers are employees or independent contractors for those purposes. This bill would repeal the above-described provisions that codify the ABC test. The bill would declare that its purpose is to suspend and nullify the California Supreme Court’s decision in Dynamex and provide that this decision does not apply for purposes of California law.

Position: Watch

AB 1949 (Wicks) California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020: collection of personal information of a consumer less than 18 years of age.

Status: 2/12/2024-Referred to Com. on P. & C.P.

Summary: The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020 (CCPA) requires a consumer, as defined, to have various rights with respect to personal information, as defined, that is collected or sold by a business, as defined, including the right to direct a business that sells or shares personal information about a consumer to third parties to not sell or share the consumer’s personal information. The act prohibits a business from selling or sharing the personal information of a consumer if the business has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless the consumer, or the consumer’s parent or guardian, as applicable, has affirmatively authorized the sale or sharing of the consumer’s personal information. This bill would remove the condition that the business have actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age and would revise the above-described prohibition to prohibit a business from selling or sharing the personal information of a consumer less than 18 years of age, unless the consumer, or the consumer’s parent or guardian, as applicable, has affirmatively authorized the sale or sharing of the consumer’s personal information.

Position: Watch

AB 2011 (Bauer-Kahan) Unlawful employment practices: small employer family leave mediation program.

Status: 2/12/2024-Referred to Coms. on L. & E. and JUD.

Summary: Current law requires the Civil Rights Department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency to create a small employer family leave mediation pilot program for the resolution of alleged violations of prescribed provisions on family care and medical and bereavement leave, applicable to employers with between 5 and 19 employees. Current law requires the department to generally initiate the mediation within 60 days following a request, prohibits an employee from pursuing a civil action until the mediation is complete or the mediation is deemed unsuccessful, and tolls the statute of limitations for the employee, including for all related claims not subject to mediation, from the date of receipt of a request to participate in the program until the mediation is complete or the mediation is deemed unsuccessful. Under existing law, the mediation is deemed complete when one of specified events occurs, including that the mediator determines that the core facts of the employee’s complaint are unrelated to the specified family care and medical and bereavement leave provisions. Current law repeals the pilot program on January 1, 2025. This bill would expand the program to include resolution of alleged violations of prescribed provisions on reproductive leave loss. The bill would revise the above-described provisions relating to the statute of limitations to toll the statute of limitations for all related claims arising out of the claims subject to mediation. The bill would also deem the mediation to be complete if the mediator determines that the employer does not have between 5 and 19 employees, except as specified.

Position: Watch

AB 2269 (Flora) Board membership qualifications: public members.

Status: 02/09/2024-From printer. May be heard in committee March 10.

Summary: Current law establishes specified boards, bureaus, and commissions in the Department of Consumer Affairs for the purpose of licensing and regulating various professions and vocations. Current law prohibits a public member or a lay member appointed to a board, as defined, from, among other things, having a specified relationship with a licensee of that board within 5 years of the public member’s or lay member’s appointment. This bill would prohibit a public member or a lay member of any board from having a specified relationship with a licensee of that board, for services provided pursuant to that license, within 3 years of the public member’s or lay member’s appointment.

Position: Watch

SB 635 (Menjivar) Health care coverage: hearing aids.

Status: 1/25/2024-Stricken from file. Veto sustained.

Summary: Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law sets forth specified coverage requirements for health care service plan contracts and health insurance policies. This bill, the Let California Kids Hear Act, would require a health care service plan contract or health insurance policy issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2025, to include coverage for hearing aids for enrollees and insureds under 21 years of age, if medically necessary. The bill would limit the maximum required coverage amount to $3,000 per individual hearing aid, as specified. Because a willful violation of the bill’s requirements relative to a health care service plan would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.

Position: Support

SB 763 (Durazo) Criminal records.

Status: 2/1/2024-Returned to Secretary of Senate pursuant to Joint Rule 56.

Summary: Current law requires the Department of Justice, on a monthly basis, to review the records in the statewide criminal justice databases and identify persons who are eligible for automatic conviction record relief. Current law makes this conviction record relief available for a defendant convicted, on or after January 1, 2005, of a felony for which they did not complete probation without revocation if the defendant appears to have completed all terms of incarceration, probation, mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision, and parole, and a period of 4 years has elapsed during which the defendant was not convicted of a new felony offense, except as specified. This bill would extend that relief to apply to convictions on or after January 1, 1973.

Position: Watch

SB 802 (Roth) Licensing boards: disqualification from licensure: criminal conviction.

Status: 7/14/2023-Failed Deadline pursuant to Rule 61(a)(10). (Last location was B.&P. on 5/4/2023)(May be acted upon Jan 2024)

Summary: Current law provides for the licensure and regulation of various professions and vocations by boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs. Current law authorizes a board to deny a license on the grounds that the applicant or licensee has been subject to formal discipline, as specified, or convicted of a crime substantially related to the qualifications, functions, or duties of the business or profession for which the application is made, as specified. Current law requires a board to notify the applicant in writing, as specified, if a board decides to deny an application for licensure based solely or in part on the applicant’s conviction history. This bill contains other existing laws.

Position: Watch

SB 908 (Cortese) Public records: legislative records: electronic messages.

Status: 1/9/2024-From printer. May be acted upon on or after February 8.

Summary: Would prohibit an elected or appointed official or employee of a public agency from creating or sending a public record using a nonofficial electronic messaging system unless the official or employee sends a copy of the public record to an official electronic messaging system, as specified. By imposing additional duties on local agencies, the bill would create a state-mandated local program.

Position: Watch

SB 935 (Becker) Department of Consumer Affairs.

Status: 01/17/2024-From printer. May be acted upon on or after February 16.

Summary: Current law establishes in state government, in the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, a Department of Consumer Affairs. This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to that provision.

Position: Watch