California's sweeping new social policies could set trend
The range of sweeping new laws in the most populous state reflects legislators' desire to set a national trend on progressive social and environmental issues while sidestepping more thorny economic matters.
Many interest groups and politicians see
"Both the vaccine bill and the right-to-die legislation will be seriously looked at by other states," said
She believes over the next five to 10 years, the nation will look more like
Gov.
Advocates pushed for such laws in at least two dozen states this year following the highly publicized death of activist
The legislation faltered elsewhere, but advocates hailed the
With the worst of the state's budget crisis behind them, Democratic lawmakers who control both houses of the Legislature are free to resume a liberal agenda of extending protections to the most vulnerable. But they lack the critical two-thirds majority required to approve tax increases or fees.
Brown won approval for robust climate change legislation. But Republicans and moderate Democrats who are a growing force in the state capital successfully stripped it of a mandate to cut oil use in
The new law requires the state to get half its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, continuing
Similarly, several states already are examining equal pay legislation after its passage in
"It's the panoply of issues that
Despite the Legislature's liberal bent, the year also marked another win for business interests, who defeated 18 of the 19 bills the
In all, lawmakers sent Brown 808 bills, and he signed 675 of them. Other major new laws include:
— Automatically registering all eligible voters when they get or renew their driver's license in an effort to boost voter turnout.
— The strictest rules in the nation to ban routinely giving antibiotics to livestock.
— The first law to specifically ban using the name "Redskins" for school sports teams.
— Barring most people with concealed weapons permits from taking weapons onto college campuses.
Lawmakers also put off dealing with some of the more politically vexing issues that confronted them, such as a
Those problems won't be any easier to solve in 2016, an election year, but there's always the ballot box. State officials are reviewing at least 80 proposed ballot initiatives.
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