New Year, New Laws

SACRAMENTO –Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) authored sixteen new laws that take effect in 2025.

“Many of the laws I authored this year seek to protect Californians from a new frontier of threats driven by the malicious use of advanced technology, including AI-driven child sexual exploitation, revenge porn, and AI-generated elections deepfakes. My work to bolster safety in our communities included passing a bill to crack down on retail theft and another to protect voters and election workers from intimidation at their polling places,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman. “I continued my work to strengthen our elections systems and am proud that California now has one of the most accessible, secure, and transparent voting systems in the country. 2024 marked five years in a row with no Gubernatorial vetoes—a record that reflects my focus on commonsense policy proposals and robust stakeholder engagement to ensure the best possible results for my constituents and all Californians.”

Unless otherwise stated, all laws go into effect on January 1, 2025:

Advancing Public Safety

Assembly Bill 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.

Assembly Bill 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. 

Assembly Bill 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. This law 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.

Strengthening Our Election Systems

Assembly Bill 2655, the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act, protects the integrity of our elections by removing the most malicious deepfake audio or visual media that falsely portray the actions or words of a candidate or elected official in the lead up to an election. 

Assembly Bill 2642, the PEACE Act, is a first-in-the-nation law 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.The new law, which took effect in September 2024, provides explicit civil protections for election worker and voters facing intimidation, threats, or coercion. 

Assembly Bill 3184, which took effect in September 2024, expands opportunities for voters to ensure that their vote will count by simplifying forms and temporarily extending the time and a uniform deadline for voters to fix a missing or mismatching signature on a vote by mail ballot envelope.

Assembly Bill 2127 continues oversight of DMV to ensure implementation of our New Motor Voter law easily allows Californians to register to vote or update their voter registration when they obtain or renew their driver’s license.

Supporting Students through Strong Education Policy

Assembly Bill 3158 provides free college for every West Valley-Mission Community College District student. This means thousands of local 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.

Assembly Bill 2458, the GAINS for Student Parents Act, helps student parents succeed by ensuring financial aid packages factor in childcare expenses. These expenses pose significant barriers for the over 300,000 undergraduate student parents working to complete their higher education journey.

Assembly Bill 2176, sponsored by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, will help address the root causes of unacceptably high chronic absenteeism in our court schools by requiring the Office of Youth and Community Restoration to develop an annual report on chronic absenteeism rates in juvenile court schools, authorize investigations into the reasons for absenteeism, and facilitate assistance to address the identified causes. Research shows that denying access to education increases recidivism, violence in juvenile halls, and suicidal ideation among incarcerated youth. 

Assembly Bill 2057 improves the overly complex transfer process from community college to four-year university for students majoring in STEM fields. This law continues my eight years of work to ensure California’s higher education systems meet the needs of students.

Expanding Access to Public Lands and Protecting the Environment

Assembly Bill 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.

Assembly Bill 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. 

Advancing Mental Health and Wellbeing

Assembly Bill 2154 was developed with a group of San Mateo County parents who shared with me their experiences of family members facing a mental health emergency. This law ensures that if a person is involuntarily detained, then their family member will receive a patients’ rights handbook. Providing family members with valuable information and resources enables them to support their loved ones during a mental health crisis.

Assembly Bill 2164 seeks to reduce stigma for physicians seeking mental health care that does not impair their ability to practice medicine safely when applying for their license. The law 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.

Reducing the Cost of Responsible Housing

Assembly Bill 2199 extends an existing infill housing tool to help tackle the housing crisis.

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Contact: Bermanpress@asm.ca.gov