As State Senator for the 35th District, Steven Bradford has delivered for his community on a number of critical bills that were signed into law, outlined below:

 

Banking and Financial Institutions

• SB 455: Financially Empowering Californians

Creates the California Financial Empowerment Fund administered by the Department of Business Oversight to award grants to nonprofit organizations, which provide effective financial education and empowerment tools to unbanked and underbanked individuals and families.
 

• SB 1055: Encouraging Savings and Improving Financial Security

Authorizes banks and credit unions in California to offer prize-linked savings accounts, which incentivizes savings and building financial security for vulnerable consumers.

 

• SB 1361: Increasing Transparency between Government and Financial Institutions

Requires the Department of Business Oversight to disclose information about specific civil penalties that it has charged against banks, savings associations, credit unions, trust companies, money transmitters, and other financial institutions.

 

Business and Economic Development

• SB 182: Eliminating Bureaucracy for Working California Drivers

Prohibits a local jurisdiction from requiring a transportation network company driver to obtain more than one business license, regardless of the number of jurisdictions in which they operate.

 

• SB 1294: Cannabis Collaboration and Inclusion Act

Ensures that individuals from diverse backgrounds, underserved communities, or who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs, are able to participate in California’s legalized cannabis industry. 

 

Education

• SB 206: The Fair Pay to Play Act

Enables all student athletes enrolled in public or private four-year colleges and universities to earn money from sponsorships, endorsements and other activities that use their name, image, and likeness.

 

• SB 344: Easing Interdistrict Transfers for Families

Provides parents and guardians more time to prepare for an appeals process when they seek to transfer their children to a different school district.

 

• SB 621: Ensuring Fair Pay for Private School Teachers

Clarifies that the minimum salary standard for classifying part-time private school teachers as exempt employees is in proportion to the full-time instructional schedule for which the employee is employed.

 

Elections

• SB 1250: Clarifying Elections Law

Reinforces existing law and further clarifies the residency requirements for elected officials to ensure they live within current district boundaries, but may also have other residences that do not constitute their domicile.

 

Energy and the Environment

• SB 155: Clarifying Energy Procurement Rules

Clarifies existing requirements that help the State achieve its existing renewable and zero-carbon energy goals.

​

• SB 255: Expanding Diversity in California’s Energy Sector​

Adapts the existing energy supplier diversity initiative to suit our twenty-first-century electric grid by including new market participants.
 

• SB 676: Smart Transportation Electrification

Lowers the overall costs associated with Californians’ growing number of electric vehicles by integrating their electricity demand into the grid in smart, optimal ways.

 

• SB 519: Streamlining Remediation for Groundwater Cleanup

Authorizes the State Water Resources Control Board to grant money in the Site Cleanup Subaccount to Water Replenishment Districts thereby quickly and effectively funding projects in order to protect valuable water resources.

 

• SB 549: Holding Utilities Accountable for Safety Spending

Requires an electrical or gas corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to report back when money authorized by the CPUC for maintenance or safety are redirected for other purposes.

 

• SB 618: Ensuring Tomorrow’s Electrical Grid is Renewable and Strong

Makes clear that the integrated resource plans (IRPs) of all investor-owned utilities, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators must contribute to a diverse resource portfolio in order to meet environmental and reliability goals.

 

• SB 1110: Preventing Public Utilities Stranded Assets

Protects taxpayers from the outstanding bond debt of certain public power plants, which were built to increase reliability after the energy crisis.

 

• SB 1135: Strengthening the Family Electric Rate Assistance program

Codifies the Family Electric Rate Assistance Program (FERA) into statute and increases the discount granted to families participating in this bill assistance program from 12% to 18%.

 

Criminal Justice Reform & Public Safety

• SB 269: Fair Compensation for the Wrongly Convicted

Extends the time to apply for compensation for individuals who were wrongly convicted and have proven their innocence in a court of law. Also provides additional compensation for individuals who wrongfully spent time on parole, under state supervision, or on the sex offender registry.

 

• SB 620: Restoring Judicial Discretion

Allows a court, in the interest of justice and at the time of sentencing, to strike a sentence enhancement for using or discharging a firearm during the commission of a felony.

 

• SB 978: Transparent Law Enforcement Policies and Procedures

Requires local law enforcement agencies to post on their websites all policies and procedures that they must already make available under the existing California Public Records Act.

 

• SB 1232: Providing Support for Victims of Crime

Extends the time period in which a young person can submit an application to the California Victims Compensation Board from 3 years after their 18th birthday to 3 years after their 21st birthday.

​

Governmental Organization

• SB 582: Allowing Advertisement by Los Angeles Sports Venues

Extends an existing exception in the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Act pertaining to the general prohibition against advertising arrangements between retail, wholesale, and manufacturer licensees to include the Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

 

• SB 1283: Supporting the Growth of the Craft Brewing Industry

Expands the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control’s Type 75 license to allow brewpub-restaurants to sell their products for off-site consumption and donate their products to non-profit organizations, under specified circumstances, and provides further enforcement tools for ABC to eliminate bad actors.

 

Healthcare

• SB 322: Protecting Employee Reporting Rights during Health Inspections

Allows workers to speak freely and privately with a state hospital or health facility inspector during an inspection by the Department of Public Health to ensure the safety of all workers and patients.

 

Insurance

• SB 534: Ensuring Diversity in California’s Insurance Industry

Reinstates the Insurance Supplier Diversity Survey and expands on current definitions in the survey to include diverse communities and categories that have been historically excluded, such as LGBT and veteran-business enterprises. Also codifies the Governing Board Diversity Survey and Insurance Diversity Task Force in order to continue collecting vital information and advise the Department of Insurance on how best to achieve its diversity goals.

 

• SB 380: Incentivizing Child Support Compliance to Combat Poverty

Excludes from the CalWORKs assistance unit calculations a child for whom an adult in the assistance unit receives child support payments.

 

• SB 189: Clarifying Workers’ Compensation Rules for Small Businesses

Decreases the ownership threshold for corporate officers and owners from 15% to 10%, reducing the number of small businesses that would be required to purchase workers compensation insurance when the owners are employees of the business.

 

• SB 489: Improving Workers’ Compensation for Emergency Services

Makes necessary technical changes to allow for timely payments of emergency treatment for injured workers.

 

• SB 490: Offering a New Payment Option for Salon Employees

Allows beauty salon employees to be paid a percentage or flat sum commission under specified conditions, including that employees are appropriately licensed, as defined, and that they also receive a base hourly pay rate of at least twice the state minimum wage.

 

• SB 1412: Removing Employment Barriers for the Rehabilitated

Ensures that job applicants with an expunged criminal history are not denied employment for a position if the crime they committed is irrelevant to the job.

 

Revenue and Taxation

• SB 343: Income Tax Relief for Carousel Housing Tract Residents

Grants residents of the Carousel Housing Tract in Carson, CA, relief from state taxes on payments made to them by the Shell Oil Company as it temporarily relocates them to clean-up toxic substances beneath their homes.