Pandemic, police focus of new laws in 2021
Legislators OK’D bills on aid, care, reforms
Responses to the coronavirus pandemic and police brutality dominated legislative sessions in 2020, leading to scores of new laws that will take effect in the new year.
Virus-related laws include those offering help to essential workers, boosting unemployment benefits and requiring time off for sick employees. A resolution in Alabama formally encouraged fist-bumping over handshakes.
Legislatures also addressed police use of force against Black people and others of color after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis led to widespread protests against police brutality.
New laws will mandate oversight and reporting, create civilian review panels and require more disclosures about problem officers.
States including California, Delaware, Iowa, New York, Oregon and Utah passed bans on police chokeholds.
While legislatures tackled some elements of the coronavirus outbreak this year, most sessions ended before the current wave of cases, deaths and renewed stay-at-home orders. Lawmakers of both major parties have vowed to make the pandemic response a centerpiece of their 2021 sessions.
The virus refocused attention on the nation’s heath care system. Tackling issues of coverage and costs were common themes in 2020.
A Washington measure caps the monthly out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $100 until Jan. 1, 2023, and requires the state Health Care Authority to monitor the price of insulin. A new Connecticut law requires pharmacists to dispense a 30-day emergency supply of diabetes-related drugs and devices, with a price cap, for diabetics who have less than a week’s supply. Both laws take effect Jan. 1.
Other notable laws taking effect in the new year:
■ Voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved measures legalizing recreational marijuana. New Jersey’s Democratic-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy are working to set up a legal marketplace and to update laws already on the books to decriminalize marijuana possession.
■ Colorado will prohibit landlords from refusing to show, rent or lease housing based on a person’s source of income or involvement in the type of contract required to receive public housing assistance. Landlords can still do credit checks, but the act makes it an unfair housing practice unless they’re conducted checks for every prospective tenant.
■ New Hampshire will make multiple changes to state laws regarding sexual assault. Starting Jan. 1, the definition of sexual assault will be expanded to include any sexual contact between school employees and students between the ages of 13 and 18.
■ Georgia will require an audit starting in 2021 before movies and television productions are awarded the state’s generous tax credit, which has allowed the highest subsidies of any state.
■ California will require companies based there to have at least one board director by the end of 2021 who is a racial or sexual minority, with larger numbers required by 2022. Companies with 100 or more employees also must start sending information on employees’ race, ethnicity and gender to the state.
■ Connecticut employers must start taking deductions from their employees’ paychecks for a new paid family and medical leave program, under a state law passed in 2019.
■ Oklahoma will extend a property tax exemption for religious institutions to include property owned by a church if it conducts instruction of children from pre-k through grade 12.