New laws, including ban on flavored tobacco, to launch in 2021.
Five new regulations will go into effect Friday
The new year is coming, and with it comes a slate of new laws set to go into effect in California.
Though COVID-19 truncated the 2020 legislative session and limited how much lawmakers could do, they nevertheless successfully passed several new laws set to go into effect Friday.
Here’s a rundown of some of the laws:
Flavored tobacco ban
After two years of trying, California lawmakers in 2020 finally succeeded in banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes.
The ban contained several exemptions, including for hookah, loose-leaf and pipe tobacco and cigars priced at $12 or more.
The ban met resistance from several groups as it made its way through both houses of the Legislature, including from some lawmakers who feared it would contribute to over-policing of Black communities.
Despite those concerns, the bill
passed through both the Senate and the Assembly with a comfortable margin and was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in late August.
However, the fight isn’t over yet. The tobacco industry has launched a referendum campaign that seeks to stop the law from going into effect until voters can have their say. The California Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing the petitions for that campaign.
Transgender inmate protections
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will be required by law to ask all inmates for their gender identity and to recognize and address inmates by their gender pronoun in all communications.
The law also stipulates that transgender inmates must be housed at a facility matching their gender identity unless the department can provide “a specific and articulable basis” for denying that housing due to security or management concerns, according to a Senate floor analysis.
Under the law, transgender, nonbinary and intersex inmates must be searched by an officer whose gender identity matches that of the inmate, or by an officer whose gender matches the designation of the facility housing the inmate if the inmate’s gender identity cannot be determined.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation worked with bill author Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, to provide technical assistance on the bill’s language. Then- department Secretary Ralph Diaz said in a statement that the bill “will bolster our ongoing efforts to address the inequalities and complex needs the incarcerated transgender, non-binary and intersex community faces and codify our policies for the screening, treatment, and housing of this population as required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act.”
Sheriff oversight boards
One of the key pieces of legislation to come out of 2020’s police reform efforts was a law signed by Gov. Newsom in September authorizing counties to establish sheriff oversight boards and an office of inspector general.
The law empowers both the oversight boards and the inspector generals to issue subpoenas “when deemed necessary to investigate a matter within their jurisdiction.”
In an Assembly floor analysis, author Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, wrote that “honest oversight of law enforcement is absolutely necessary if we want to rebuild trust between officers and the communities they serve.”
The bill was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union of California, which said in a statement, “Meaningful independent oversight and monitoring of sheriffs’ departments increases government accountability and transparency, enhances public safety, and builds community trust in law enforcement. Such oversight must have the authority and independence necessary to conduct credible and thorough investigations.”
The bill was opposed by the California State Sheriffs’ Association, which argued that the law was unnecessary, as counties already have the authority to exercise civilian oversight of sheriff’s offices.
“Further, county counsels and grand juries already hold subpoena powers. Compelling the production of information, testimony, or documents from a wide array of sources can already occur through existing avenues,” the association said in a statement included in the Assembly floor analysis of the bill. “Specifying this authority in statute will create undue pressure within county governments to create an adversarial relationship with another county office.”
Consumer finance protection
The Department of Business Oversight has been transformed into the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. In January, its mission will expand significantly.
Bolstered by the California Consumer Financial Protection Law, the department will be authorized to regulate previously unregulated services, including debt collectors, credit repair agencies, debt relief agencies and private school student lending, according to department spokeswoman Maria Luisa Cesar.
“The new law gives us expanded power and scope,” she said.
The law also gives the agency the capacity to enforce federal law, which prohibits unlawful, unfair and abusive practices.
In addition, the law creates an Office of Financial Technology Innovation that will engage with new industries and consumer advocates to encourage consumerfriendly innovation and job creation, Cesar said.
Cesar said that the most important thing to know about the law is that people can call the department and file a complaint if they encounter unfair practices in financial services.
The department can be reached at dfpi.ca.gov/file-a-complaint/ or calling 866-275-2677 or 916-327-7585.
Sex offender registry
Perhaps one of the most maligned laws to be signed by Newsom in 2020 is one that is intended to provide parity in criminal sentencing for young LGBTQ people who have sex with other young people.
As word of the law hit the conservative media sphere, its author, Sen. Scott Wiener, D- San Francisco, received a torrent of abusive messages, including death threats and anti-Semitic slurs. The far-right conspiracy theory community known as QAnon perpetuated and spread several falsehoods about the law.
“I’ve been called a pedophile tens of thousands of times,” Wiener said in an interview last September.
The law applies to cases where a person has been found guilty of having oral or anal sex with a minor 14 years of age or older, where the age difference is not more than 10 years. It gives judges, in that case, the leeway to decide whether the convicted person should be required to register as a sex offender.
State law already gave that leeway to judges in cases where a person is found guilty of having vaginal sex with a minor 14 years or older where the age difference is not more than 10 years.
Wiener argued the law is about treating LGBTQ young people the same as straight young people.