About 2,120 payments had been launched by California legislators this yr — however over 900 didn’t fairly make it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk earlier than the legislative session ended final weekend.
These payments included ones that handled social media guardrails and wildfire insurance coverage to AI and sentence reductions for convicted felons.
Right here’s a more in-depth take a look at 5 that didn’t make it throughout the end line this yr.
Fining social media firms for harming younger customers
Social media firms would have needed to pay civil penalties for inflicting hurt to younger customers if AB 3172 was signed into regulation.
Associated: Check out 7 intriguing bills that made it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk
Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, D-Lengthy Seaside, initially proposed imposing penalties of as much as $1 million on social media firms if confirmed in courtroom that they knowingly provided merchandise or design options that “resulted in hurt or damage to minors,” in response to the invoice evaluation, however that effective was finally lowered to a most of $250,000.
Lowenthal proposed AB 3172 to carry social media platforms accountable for hurt brought about to youth, particularly in gentle of rising issues concerning the impression of social media on youngsters’s psychological well being and dependancy. He pulled the laws with lower than two days left to go within the legislative session, as reported by Politico, after it had been amended to a weaker model.
Lowenthal said he intends to reintroduce the bill next year.
“Whereas it is a setback, this effort just isn’t going away. As an alternative of bending to particular pursuits, (California) should work for youths (and) households particularly when the federal authorities stays unable to behave,” he mentioned.
The invoice noticed bipartisan assist within the Meeting and Senate.
The Chamber of Progress, a commerce group that represents tech firms and is funded by over a dozen of them, including Amazon, Apple, Meta and Google, opposed the laws, saying the “duty of extraordinary care and talent to a toddler” is excessively imprecise.
“Confronted with the chance of a deluge of litigation searching for excessive funds based mostly on unclear requirements, web sites will probably be compelled to strip any content material or options that could possibly be presumably thought-about inappropriate (or danger extreme penalties), which is exactly the type of ‘chilling’ that the Supreme Courtroom’s vagueness doctrine is meant to forestall,” they mentioned.
One-time rebates for family electrical payments
Legislation that aimed to help relieve Californians of their steep electric bills died within the legislature after Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, pulled it from a committee.
Petrie-Norris mentioned members in each the Meeting and Senate “most well-liked to proceed the dialog,” which is why she selected to tug the invoice in favor of pursuing further choices for short-term charge reduction and enhance affordability.
California has one of the country’s highest monthly fixed-rate utility fees.
Households would have acquired a one-time rebate cost between $30 to $70. The cash for these funds, roughly $500 million, would have come through cuts to a number of utility packages meant to assist low-income residents and colleges in areas served by Southern California Edison, Pacific Gasoline & Electrical and San Diego Gasoline & Electrical.
Lowering wildfire insurance coverage prices
Laws that aimed to supply incentives to property homeowners who put money into wildfire prevention measures died after the Senate didn’t take it to a vote by the top of this yr’s legislative session.
Authored by Assemblymember Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, AB 2416 known as on insurance coverage firms to supply extra reductions to owners and enterprise homeowners who take steps to harden their homes against wildfires, together with utilizing noncombustible building supplies, in response to the invoice evaluation.
It will have required the state insurance coverage division to periodically evaluate and replace a listing of non-combustible supplies, further wildfire mitigation packages and measures to harden houses.
“Incentivizing house and enterprise homeowners to put money into house hardening measures will assist our communities attain larger ranges of fireplace security, which can cut back catastrophic losses of life and property,” mentioned Connolly.
Within the Meeting, lawmakers cut up alongside occasion strains on the invoice.
Stopping AI from making biased hiring selections
Whereas one synthetic intelligence security invoice that requires superior AI builders to enact security guardrails headed to the governor’s desk, one other that sought to forestall cutting-edge know-how from making biased hiring selections failed to maneuver ahead.
Launched by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-San Ramon, AB 2930 aimed to ascertain laws for firms that develop and use AI instruments of their hiring course of in order that they don’t discriminate towards folks based mostly on varied classifications together with perceived race, ethnicity, intercourse, faith, age, nationwide origin, restricted English proficiency and incapacity, in response to the invoice evaluation.
The laws, when first launched, sought to control the utilization of AI in quite a lot of fields, together with the office, college admissions, housing, well being care, adoption and authorized providers, to forestall the know-how from negatively impacting the supply of and entry to these providers. Nevertheless, it was in the end amended to solely embody regulation of AI in terms of hiring, termination and different selections made within the office.
Bauer-Kahan said the legislation protects individuals from algorithmic discrimination by requiring builders and customers to evaluate AI instruments that make consequential selections.
“These instruments can exacerbate the harms they’re meant to handle and in the end damage the folks they’re supposed to assist. As the usage of decision-making through algorithm turns into extra prevalent in our day by day lives, it’s essential that we take the required steps to make sure that they’re used ethically and responsibly,” she mentioned.
Within the Meeting, Republican and Democratic lawmakers cut up alongside occasion strains. The complete Senate didn’t vote on the laws.
Lowering sentences for felons
Ought to some convicted felons be capable to attraction for lowered sentences? That was the concept of Sen. Dave Cortese, D-Campbell, who launched SB 94, aimed toward permitting felons — excluding these convicted of first-degree homicide of a police officer, killing three or extra folks or registerable intercourse offense — to attraction for a shorter sentence if that they had dedicated a criminal offense earlier than June 5, 1990, and had already served no less than 25 years.
The laws was not thought-about for a vote by the Meeting and thus died.
Cortese said he’s “extremely disillusioned that SB 94 was not granted the chance to be heard and the amendments thought-about for vote by the complete legislature.”
Within the invoice evaluation, the senator mentioned that “nearly all of folks serving a life with out parole sentence are labeled as low danger,” and that “many of those people have proven a long time of exemplary conduct, participated in in depth constructive programming and have devoted themselves to changing into constructive members of society.”
Nevertheless, Republican lawmakers known as the laws “pro-criminal.”
“The truth that Democrats are debating whether or not or to not preserve violent murderers behind bars exhibits how out-of-touch they are surely,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, R-Yuba City. “SB 94 is an insult to the victims of those killers, their households and the tens of millions of Californians who’re sick of criminals operating rampant on our streets.”
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