SACRAMENTO – Thousands of licensed mental health professionals have signed a letter (attached) urging Governor Gavin Newsom to sign Senate Bill (SB) 903, authored by Senator Steve Padilla. This bill would protect individuals seeking therapy or psychotherapy services by prohibiting the advertisement of AI chatbots as “therapy” and setting common sense guardrails for AI use in mental health treatment. SB 903 passed the Senate unanimously and the Assembly with bipartisan support by a vote of 71 to 4 and now awaits Governor Newsom’s signature into law.

Sacramento, California — (September 16, 2026) — Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 1322, authored by State Senator Laura Richardson (D South Bay), into law, marking a significant expansion of California’s tribal housing grant program and opening new pathways for sovereign tribal nations to secure critical housing resources.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill 1276, the End Child Exploitation Act, authored by Senator Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), legislation to protect children from sexual exploitation by clarifying that it is a crime to knowingly watch a livestream of a sexually exploited minor. SB 1276 closes a loophole that allowed predators to evade accountability for knowingly viewing the sexual exploitation of children through livestreaming platforms.

Senator Maria Elena Durazo, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, & Mayor Bass are calling on Governor Newsom to sign AB 817 and SB 716, holding corporations accountable.

SB 1048 earns bipartisan support, heads to Governor’s desk

Bores, Didech and Wiener propose independently verified agreement to pace frontier AI development
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The lawmakers behind the country’s three strongest state-level frontier AI safety laws—Senator Scott Wiener (CA), Assemblymember. Alex Bores (NY), and Rep. Daniel Didech (IL)—today called on leading AI companies to establish an independently verified agreement to pace the development of increasingly powerful models until safety research catches up.

Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) announced the launch of the Historic South LA Black Cultural District’s Featured Destinations program with a culinary crawl held this week in the Windsor Hills neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The new program spotlights local businesses, artists, organizations and cultural spaces—creating new opportunities for residents and visitors to discover, experience and support the people and places that make the Black Cultural District unique.

SB 1301 and SB 1209 Sent to Governor to Improve Ratepayer Protections
SACRAMENTO – Senator Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) advanced a pair of policies out of the Legislature to protect ratepayers from unnecessarily losing their insurance coverage or falling victim to bad business practices.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (September 3, 2026)—State Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Bakersfield) secured $171 million in the 2026–27 state budget package for the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program, protecting critical drinking-water assistance for communities across California.
SAFER helps meet that need through emergency water supplies, system repairs, technical assistance, infrastructure improvements and permanent solutions for struggling water systems.

Senator Allen Seeks to Establish Low-Interest Loans for Home Hardening Renovations
SACRAMENTO – Few policy priorities go hand-in-hand like resilience and affordability. The benefits of increasing fire resilience, through thoughtful structural and community design, ripple beyond protecting homes and saving lives. These improvements simultaneously expand access to better, more affordable insurance policies and save public resources, infrastructure, and tax dollars.