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.
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.
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.
Nearly 1 in 3 school-aged children lack access to the robust broadband networks they need for remote learning, SB 1130 would help close the digital divide.
