SB 2, the Building Homes and Jobs Act – the top priority bill in Sen. Toni Atkins’ 2017 legislative package – cleared the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee today.
SB 2 [2] creates a permanent source of funding for affordable housing through a modest fee on the recording of certain real-estate documents, not including sales of residential or commercial property. It will generate roughly $250 million to provide affordable housing for struggling families and individuals throughout California.
Meanwhile, just in time for San Diego Pride weekend (July 14-15), two LGBTQ-rights bills authored by Atkins – SB 179, the Gender Recognition Act, and SB 310, the Name and Dignity Act – also passed out of policy committees in the Assembly this week.
SB 179 [3] creates a third gender marker on state-issued identification documents for people who identify as nonbinary – neither male nor female – and streamlines the process for transgender, intersex and nonbinary Californians to obtain identification documents that accurately reflect their gender. It cleared the Assembly Transportation Committee on Monday, July 10.
SB 310 [4] establishes the right of people in state prisons and county jails to access the courts to obtain a name or gender change. It also requires corrections officials to use the new name of a prisoner who has successfully obtained a name change. It cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, July 11.
Also passing the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday was Atkins’ SB 230 [5], which would help prosecutors convict predators who traffic in sex slavery. The bill adds the crimes of sex trafficking, pimping and pandering to the list of exceptions to a rule prohibiting the introduction of character evidence during trial. SB 230 now heads to the Assembly floor.
In addition, the following bills authored by Atkins cleared policy committees in the Assembly.
###
Links
[1] https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300
[2] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB2
[3] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB179
[4] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB310
[5] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB230
[6] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB625
[7] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB379
[8] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB587
[9] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB437