Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed Sen. Jerry McNerney’s SB 1168, which is designed to protect Californians from skyrocketing utility rates caused by data centers.
SB 1168 directs the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to examine data centers’ use of excessive amounts of energy and ensure that Californians don’t face rate hikes as a result.

VAN NUYS, CA - Following a challenging year of budget negotiations, Senator Caroline Menjivar (D–San Fernando Valley) has secured $19 million in state funding for Senate District 20, delivering on priorities that Valley families, first responders, and community organizations have long pushed for.

SB 1218 allows jurisdictions to boot vehicles involved in violations for illegal dumping

Today, Senator Thomas J. Umberg (D-Santa Ana), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 884, the Protect Our Polls Act. The new law takes effect immediately, establishing safeguards against voter intimidation and arrests by federal agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), at polling places ahead of the November general election.

On Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1418 by Senator Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), a bill that directly improves defenses against election interference in California. SB 1418 builds on Senate Bill 73, which the Governor signed into law earlier this year, by extending many of the chain-of-custody protections for voted ballots in that bill to other forms of election records. To provide these protections for the November midterm elections, SB 1418 includes an urgency clause that allows its provisions to take effect immediately. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sponsored the bill.

The California Voting Rights Act of 2026 (CVRA 2026), authored by Senator Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday. CVRA 2026, which includes Senate Bills 1164 and 1360, provides stronger protections against vote dilution and voter suppression and expands language access assistance to more limited-English proficient (LEP) voters. CVRA 2026, a long-needed update to the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, also strengthens defenses against other forms of voter discrimination that Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited before the unfortunate U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais.

SACRAMENTO – Sen. Catherine S. Blakespear, D-Encinitas, on Friday issued the following statement regarding the Governor’s decision to veto SB 954, legislation she authored to rein in overly broad CEQA exemptions:

Senator Jesse Arreguin celebrates the approval of vital funding after campaigning to convert the former horse racetrack into a regional park

State Sen. Jerry McNerney today applauded Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order, fast-tracking the implementation of McNerney’s SB 813. This landmark law establishes a first-in-the-nation framework for independent, third-party assessments of potential safety risks posed by artificial intelligence systems.

Senator Wiener authored legislation requiring kill switches in 2024 and worked with the Governor to pass SB 53, the nation’s first AI safety law, in 2025.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Governor Newsom issued an executive order to strengthen the state’s response to recent rogue AI attacks, including the Hugging Face attack. The executive order advances, among other things, a proposal to require AI companies to build “kill switches,” or emergency shutdowns, into advanced AI models in case something goes wrong.