Senate Bill 48, introduced by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), would require schools and county offices of education to deny permission to immigration enforcement officers to enter a campus or question a student unless they have a judicial warrant or court order.
On Wednesday, the Senate Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response convened an oversight hearing on workplace health and safety issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hearing featured two panels with the first focused on state activities related to prevention, outbreaks, and enforcement activities from representatives of the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), California Division of Occupational Health and Safety (Cal/OSHA), and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). The second panel featured perspectives from essential workers and employee labor unions.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Today, Governor Newsom signed SB 1255 –The Equal Insurance HIV Act by Senator Lena Gonzalez (D- Long Beach) and the Senate Committee on Insurance. The Equal Insurance HIV Act will end the unjust practice of insurance companies discriminating against HIV-positive individuals. For more than thirty years insurers have been allowed to deny life and disability income insurance coverage based solely on a positive HIV test and this bill now signed into law is a significant step forward to reflect the advancements in medical treatments for people living with HIV and to ensure HIV positive individuals and their families have access to life and disability income insurance.
As chair of the Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response, I will be hosting several oversight hearings over the next few months on our state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past we have addressed key issues such as testing and contact tracing efforts, skilled nursing facility concerns and the impact of COVID-19 at the California border region. Moving forward, we will be conducting oversight hearings on the state’s management of workplace health and safety, and the inequities that exist in our education system including distance-learning disparities for our most vulnerable students and lack of internet access.
On Tuesday, September 1, 2020 the California Legislature adjourned its two-year session, bringing a constitutionally mandated close to a historic and unprecedented legislative session. Despite facing a number of unique and extraordinary challenges, the Legislature continued to work throughout the year to serve the people of California. Legislation focused primarily on topics that would better address the immediate health and safety impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the subsequent economic repercussions. An on-time and balanced budget was passed in June and this month the Legislature concluded its work by sending over 400 bills to the Governor’s desk that will help our neighborhoods thrive in the face of this shared adversity.
Lawmakers in California have approved a bill that would prohibit life and disability income insurance providers from denying coverage to HIV-positive individuals.
The Equal Insurance HIV Act, sponsored by Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach), passed the Senate 39-0 after being unanimously by the State Assembly as part of a larger omnibus bill.
Khmer Girls in Action, a nonprofit active in the Long Beach Cambodian community for 23 years, has been selected as the 2020 California Nonprofit of the Year by Senator Lena Gonzalez.
As a result of COVID-19 many aspects of work, school, healthcare, and even family time, have moved online. Getting connected to the internet has never been more important than it is today, and this in turn calls for immediate attention to the issue of the digital divide in our state. The internet access inequity that exists today means that not everyone has the high-speed broadband they need to meet the demands of current day-to-day life.
