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Gazette Newspapers: Long Beach's Lena Gonzalez Authors Bill To Help Bring High-Speed Internet To All

State Sen. Lena Gonzalez will introduce a bill Monday in the California Senate to create a way local governments can finance high-speed broadband connectivity to areas where it doesn't exist now.

The Sacramento Bee: Lawmaker Introduces Abortion Access Bill On Roe v. Wade Anniversary

California insurers would be required to cover abortions without imposing a co-pay, deductible or any type of cost-sharing, under a new bill introduced by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach.

Electronic Frontier Foundation: California Legislation to Make Significant Investments in Public Broadband

BY ERNESTO FALCON
The California Legislature finished the 2020 session without doing anything to address broadband access in response to the pandemic. While the California Senate sent much-needed legislation to the Assembly, it was not allowed to move forward from there. That meant no help for the more than 1 million students lacking sufficient Internet access to engage in remote education, or for the countless other Californians relying on their home access to engage in remote work. This year, Senator Lena Gonzalez, the original author of EFF’s sponsored legislation S.B. 1130 to convert the California Internet infrastructure program, is back with a new bill to take action this year, after close work with many of her colleagues.

dPrimeramano: Sen. Gonzalez and Sen. Connie M. Leyva Co-chair Joint Oversight Hearing on K-12 Distance Learning: How Students Across the State Are Being Served and Are Accessing Online Learning

Sacramento, Calif. – Senator Lena A. Gonzalez (D- Long Beach) chair of the Senate Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response and Senator Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) chair of the Senate Education Committee will co-chair a joint oversight hearing on Monday, October 26, 2020 at 1:00pm. This oversight hearing will examine the level and quality of access that students in California have had to distance learning instruction, as well as whether they have had access to fast and reliable internet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Testimony and information on these subjects will be provided by education leaders, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the California Public Utilities Commission and telecommunications stakeholders. Knowledge obtained through this joint oversight hearing will help guide the development of new measures to address internet connectivity and remote instruction inadequacies impacting students all around the state.

dPrimeramano: Sen. Gonzalez Chairs First in a Series of Fall Oversight Hearings of the Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response

Sacramento, Calif.- Today, Senator Lena A. Gonzalez (D- Long Beach) will chair the first in a series of Senate oversight hearings by the Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response since the end of the California legislative session. The oversight hearing will shed light on workplace health and safety issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on sectors with essential workers. The hearing’s findings will be used to help prevent future outbreaks and develop accountability measures for those employers who haven’t followed state public health and safety guidelines during the pandemic.

CHEAC: Senate Convenes Oversight Hearing on COVID-19 Workplace Health and Safety

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.

Equality California: Governor Newsom Signs “The Equal Insurance HIV Act” Enacting Anti-discrimination Protections in State Law

Samuel Garrett-Pate, Equality California

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.

Gazette Newspapers: Long Beach's Lena Gonzalez Had To Be Nimble In First State Senate Term

Lena Gonzalez has had a most unusual welcome to the California state Senate.