“This year’s bill packet will continue our path forward and build on our past work to advance new initiatives and improvements in voting rights, public safety reforms, reparations, to restorative justice practices,” shares CLBC Chair Assemblymember Wilson, representing District 11-Suisun. “These bills exemplify the objectives of the CLBC, which promotes Racial and Social Justice for African Americans in the state of California.”

All bills prioritized and supported by the CLBC work to continuously extend and expand its role as a trailblazing force for equity, equality, justice and opportunity for all Californians. 

“To offer solutions to the myriad of issues our community faces, I am proud of this year’s selection of bills to offer equity, restoration and accessibility to the Black Californians who are largely unserved and underserved,” states Senator Steven Bradford, CLBC Vice Chair, representing District 65-Gardena. “This year’s array of legislative offers will begin to address the root causes of our systemic issues within our institutions.”

The CLBC’s collective priority bills for 2023 are as follows:

CLBC 2023 Legislative Priorities 

ACA 4 (Bryan) – Restoring Voting Rights– This measure would repeal the requirement regarding the disqualification of electors incarcerated for felony convictions, thereby authorizing an otherwise qualified elector serving a state or federal prison term for the conviction of a felony to vote.

ACA 8 (Wilson) – End Slavery in California– This measure would prohibit slavery in any form, including forced labor compelled by the use or threat of physical or legal coercion.

SB 50 (Bradford) – Vehicles: enforcement- This bill would prohibit a peace officer from stopping or detaining the operator of a motor vehicle or bicycle for a low-level infraction, as defined, unless a separate, independent basis for a stop exists. The bill would authorize a peace officer who does not have grounds to stop a vehicle or bicycle, but can determine the identity of the owner, to send a citation or warning letter to the owner. The bill would authorize local authorities to enforce a violation of the Vehicle Code through government employees who are not peace officers.

AB 93 (Bryan) – Consent Searches-This bill would prohibit a peace officer or law enforcement agency from conducting a warrantless search of a vehicle, person, or their effects, based solely on a person’s consent, as specified. The bill would specify that consent to conduct a search is not lawful justification for a search.

AB 280 (Holden) –Solitary Confinement– This bill would require every jail, prison, public or privately operated detention facility, and a facility in which individuals are subject to confinement or involuntary detention to develop and follow written procedures governing the management of segregated confinement, as specified. specified, and to make those written procedures publicly available. The bill would require those facilities to document the use of segregated confinement by, among other things, providing written orders of that confinement to the individual confined, as specified.

AB 807 (McCarty) – DOJ OSI investigating all deaths -This bill would require the state prosecutor to investigate incidents in which the use of force by a peace officer results in the death of a civilian without regard to whether the civilian was unarmed. The bill would remove the requirement on the Attorney General to operate the Police Practices Division.

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