Free College at West Valley-Mission Community College District and Sixteen Other Bills Signed into Law

On Sunday night I got a call from Governor Newsom’s staff letting me know the Governor signed my last two bills on his desk, bringing me to a perfect 17 for 17 bills signed this year. The next day my staff told me, to my surprise, that this is the fifth year in a row with no Gubernatorial vetoes. My strong record with the Governor is a reflection of my focus on commonsense policy proposals and robust stakeholder engagement to ensure the best possible results for my constituents and all Californians.

One of these new laws is AB 3158, which enables your local community college district, West Valley-Mission, to waive tuition fees for all students living in its service area. The new law marks a major victory for local students who grapple with the soaring costs of living in our community. The passage of AB 3158 means thousands of students will no longer have to choose between taking the extra class they need to graduate or working an extra shift so they can afford groceries or pay rent.

Sixteen More Berman Bills Signed into Law

Scroll down to read more about my full legislative package this year, including new laws to prevent AI-enabled child sexual abuse, crack down on retail theft, defend our democracy from deceptive deepfakes, and continue to support California’s higher education students.

Protecting Californians from AI Abuse & Promoting Safe & Responsible Use of AI

• AB 1831 ensures that the sexual exploitation of children in California is illegal—including AI-generated pictures and videos of children being sexually abused. This new law will address the rapidly accelerating dangers posed by AI-generated content that is disturbing, harmful, and virtually indistinguishable from actual children.
• AB 2655 responds to the growing epidemic of online disinformation with a first-in-the-nation solution to put more responsibility on large social media platforms to restrict the spread of election-related deepfakes meant to deceive and disenfranchise voters. We have already seen firsthand how deepfakes are a powerful and dangerous tool in the arsenal of those who want to wage disinformation campaigns.
• AB 2876 will integrate AI literacy into the core curriculum for all K-12 students in California. This new law will equip all California students with the skills and training they need to be safe, ethical, and successful users of AI as it becomes more mainstream.

Putting Public Safety First

• AB 3209 will help protect our local businesses, employees, and shoppers by creating a Retail Crime Restraining Order—a needed enforcement tool to combat organized and repeated retail theft. The creation of this restraining order, which received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Legislature, is a key component in the comprehensive retail theft legislative package signed into law by the Governor.
• AB 2642, or the PEACE Act, is a first-in-the-nation policy to protect voters and election workers by keeping guns out of our polling places. Increasingly violent rhetoric and election conspiracy theories have led to threats of intimidation at polling places and an exodus of election workers, which threatens to undermine our democracy.
• AB 1962 was brought to me by Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen after a local victim of revenge porn was left without justice due to a glaring legal loophole. My bill closes this loophole, strengthens our revenge porn laws, and ensures consequences for individuals who distribute secretly recorded private sexual images of another person without their consent.

Education: Helping Students Achieve Their Higher Education Dreams

• AB 2458 enables student parents to obtain the financial aid they are eligible to receive by taking into account their childcare expenses. These expenses pose significant barriers for the over 300,000 undergraduate student parents working to complete their higher education journey.
• AB 2057 enacts four high-impact recommendations to improve the overly complex transfer process from community college to four-year university for students majoring in STEM fields. This policy continues my eight years of work to ensure California’s higher education systems meet the needs of students.
• AB 2176, which was brought to me by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, will help address the root causes of unacceptably high chronic absenteeism in our court schools. We must ensure that all children have access to school, even while they are incarcerated.

Elections: Ensuring Every Voice is Heard

• AB 3184 expands opportunities for voters to ensure that their vote will count by extending the time and establishing a uniform deadline for voters to fix a missing or mismatching signature on a vote by mail ballot envelope in the 2024 general election. 
• AB 2127 continues oversight of DMV implementation of our New Motor Voter law that allows Californians to register to vote or update their registration when they obtain or renew their driver’s license.

Advancing Mental Health and Wellbeing

• AB 2154 was developed with a group of San Mateo County parents who shared with me their experiences of family members facing a mental health crisis. This bill ensures that if a person is involuntarily detained, then their family member would be provided a copy of the Department of Health Care Services’ patients’ rights handbook. Providing family members with valuable information and resources enables them to support their loved ones during a mental health crisis.
• AB 2164 responds to concerns I heard from doctors and medical students that sometimes they feel that they cannot participate in counseling or recovery programs for fear that they will jeopardize their license, even if they are confident that they can still practice medicine safely. This new law restricts the authority of the Medical Board of California to require applicants and physicians to self-disclose conditions or disorders, including participation in a mental health or substance use disorder treatment program that does not impair their ability to practice medicine safely.

Expanding Access to Public Lands and Protecting the Environment

• AB 1937 transfers a Caltrans property in Pacifica to California State Parks so that it can eventually serve as a trailhead for the California Coastal Trail. As California strives to expand public coastal access, it’s critically important that we keep public land in public hands so it can be used for public benefit.
• AB 2511 supports jobs and manufacturing in California and protects the environment by extending the operation of our successful Plastic Market Development program that incentivizes the reuse of empty plastic beverage containers for remanufacturing into new plastic products.

Reducing the Cost of Responsible Housing

• AB 2199 streamlines infill housing projects in unincorporated areas in order to help tackle the housing crisis.

While I am proud of what we accomplished this year, we’re already starting to plan for 2025. Many of the bills I introduce come from ideas or problems that constituents share with me. Do you have a bill idea I should consider for next year? Tell me about it here.

Sincerely,

Marc Berman
Assemblymember, 23rd District