FINAL REPORT ON THE STATUS OF THE 2009 CFILC LEGISLATIVE AGENDACFILC SPONSORED BILL
AB 398 (Monning/Chesbro) Acquired Brain Trauma: State Administration Description: CFILC co-sponsored AB 398 in conjunction with Traumatic Brain Injury Services Association of California (TBISCA). TBISCA is the statewide association of the seven TBI service providers contracted by the State to provide programs and services to TBI survivors and their families. AB 398 transfers administrative oversight of the California Traumatic Brain Injury Program from the Department of Mental Health (DMH) to the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR). TBISCA has long advocated for the transfer because TBIs are primarily physical injuries, rather than a mental health condition. They argued that DOR is the state agency best suited to administer the TBI Program because it has the staffing and administrative experience to offer TBI survivors a broader range of rehabilitative and independent living programs and services. Status: Signed into law by the Governor. ACCESS
SB 209 (Corbett) Civil Actions: Access by People with Disabilities Description: SB 209 was a cleanup bill that made important technical changes to the final agreement to SB 1608 (Corbett), an omnibus bill enacted in 2008 that addressed the lack of enforcement of Federal and state laws relating to the accessibility of people with disabilities in privately owned places of public accommodations. SB 209 made the changes previously agreed to, but that were not incorporated in the final version of SB 1608, due to end of session time constraints. They ensure the confidentiality of specified reports prepared for the courts. Status: Signed into law by the Governor. AB 501 (Emerson) Architects: Continuing Education of Architects on Disability Access Laws and Regulations Description: AB 501 required architects to complete additional continuing education requirements relating to health, safety, and welfare as a condition of license renewal. CFILC was concerned that the bill would have a negative impact on the continuing education requirements that were agreed to last year in the omnibus SB 1608 (Corbett) that dealt with the enforcement of disability access laws and regulations in privately owned places of public accommodations. The Governor vetoed AB 501 based on this belief that any changes to the continuing education requirements should be made administratively, rather than by statute. Status: Vetoed by the Governor. DIVERSITY AB 386 (Ruskin) Postsecondary Educational Materials: Accessibility to Disabled Students Description: AB 386 amended existing law that requires publishers and manufacturers of instructional materials used in postsecondary education institutions to ensure that they are accessible to disabled students. AB 386 expands the definition of these materials to include audiovisual materials, podcasts, and web clips. It also requires that the electronic versions of the materials be compatible with audiovisual captioning software for the deaf. Status: Signed by the Governor. EMERGENCY PREPARATION AB 611 (Fong) Emergency Services: Limited English Proficiency: Description: AB 611 required the Secretary of California Emergency Services to incorporate the language needs of limited English speaking populations for the purposes of all state emergency preparedness planning, response, and recovery initiatives. It required the Secretary to work in collaboration with ethnic media and community-based organizations in developing communication alerts and warning information and to create a registry of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to assist in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery, as deemed necessary. Status: Vetoed by the Governor. EMPLOYMENT AB 501 (Emerson) Limited Licensing of Physicians and Surgeons with Disabilities Description: AB 501 closed a gap in existing law that prohibited disabled physicians and surgeons licensed in other states from being issued a special license to practice medicine in California under specified limited conditions. Thus, the bill opens new employment and medical practice opportunities for these disabled medical professionals. Status: Signed by the Governor. HEALTHCARE AB 1269 (Brownley) Medi-Cal Eligibility Description: AB 1269 was a high priority for the disability community. It dealt with the California Working Disabled (CWD) Program that allows individuals to retain their Medi-Cal health coverage while employed. AB 1269 allowed CWD participants to retain their Medi-Cal coverage during periods of up to 26 weeks of temporary employment, as long as they continued paying their premiums. It also exempted certain savings from being considered as part of determining an individual’s eligibility for the program. Status:Signed by the Governor. HOUSING AB 123 (Portantino) Housing for Elderly and Blind Persons Description:AB 123 allows residents in certain types of affordable housing to remain in their residences and have access to community-based supportive services that might keep them from having to move into an assisted living environment or skilled nursing facility. Status:Signed by the Governor. AB 720 (Caballero) Housing Description: AB 720 authorizes any city or county that uses funding from its Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund in a redevelopment project area to count that unit in calculating its required share of the regional housing needs for low, very low, or extremely low income households. The change increases the availability of low-income housing. Status: Signed by the Governor. SB 290 (Leno) Tenancy: 60-Day Notice Requirement for Tenants Description: SB 290 repeals the existing sunset date for a statute that requires the owner of a residential rental property to give at least 60-day notice, rather than 30-day notice, prior to terminating the period tenancy of a tenant who has lived in the unit for one year or more. The repeal of the sunset would make the requirement permanent. Status: Signed by the Governor. TRANSPORTATION
AB 144 (Ma) Disabled Parking: Distinguishing Placards and Special License on Motor Vehicles Description: AB 144 addresses long-standing problems associated with the lack of local enforcement of disabled parking laws. It increases the fines and special penalty assessments for the misuse or misappropriation of disabled parking placards and special license plates issued to disabled persons. In addition, rather than requiring these violations to be prosecuted in the court system as misdemeanor crimes, it allows them to be adjudicated in the same manner as all other locally issued motor vehicle and parking ticket violations. Cities and counties would be required to adopt local ordinances patterning the state statutes enacted by AB 144. The increased fines and penalty assessments are designed to deter violations by disabled persons who allow others to use their portable placards and by those who misappropriate the placards. The bill also provides incentives for local governmental entities to enforce disability parking violation laws by increasing access to increased revenues from the collection of the fines and penalty assessments. Finally, the adjudication of these violations in the same manner as other tickets will increase and facilitate local enforcement and relieve the already burdened courts from being required to hear and from requiring prosecutors to prosecute them as criminal misdemeanors. Status: Signed by the Governor. |
