Special Notice / Hearing: None__
Vote Required: Majority
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Michael P. Callagy, County Executive
Connie Juarez-Diroll, Chief Legislative Officer
Subject: State and Federal Legislative Update #7
RECOMMENDATION:
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Accept the November 2025 informational report on the 2025-26 state and federal legislative sessions.
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BACKGROUND:
On October 13, Governor Newsom took final action on bills for the 2025 legislative session. The Legislature introduced approximately 2,800 bills during the past session, with nearly 1,100 of those bills designated as “2-year” bills, meaning they are eligible for further consideration and action in 2026. Slightly over 1,200 legislative proposals reached the Governor’s desk, and of those bills, 1,124 were signed, and the Governor vetoed 123. This report will highlight the outcome of key measures of interest to the County of San Mateo and summarize key advocacy areas in 2025.
On November 12, 2025, President Trump signed into law a Continuing Resolution and funding package (CR) to end the federal government shutdown that began on October 1st. The 43-day shutdown is the longest in history.
DISCUSSION:
State Legislative Update
The Intergovernmental and Public Affairs (IGPA) Unit monitored over 300 bills during this legislative session. In collaboration with your Board, County departments, and various boards and commissions, it issued over 50 position letters regarding legislative proposals and state budget matters this year.
Below is a summary of the disposition of some of the key legislation acted on by the County in the 2025 state legislative session:
San Mateo County Supported Bills Signed into Law
• SB 346 (Durazo-D) - Will require a short-term rental facilitator, in a jurisdiction that has adopted an ordinance, to include in the listing of a short-term rental any applicable local license number associated with the short-term rental and any transient occupancy tax certification issued by a local agency.
• AB 1288 (Addis-D) - Will make various changes to the scope, education, training, and examination of registered environmental health specialists and environmental health specialist trainees, as well as to the Environmental Health Specialist Registration Committee.
• SB 378 (Wiener-D) - Will require an online cannabis marketplace to address in its terms of service whether it permits Californians to view the advertisements and business information of unlicensed sellers of cannabis or cannabis products on its marketplace and whether the marketplace verifies the licenses of sellers of cannabis or cannabis products whose advertisements and business information are viewable on its marketplace.
• SB 59 (Wiener-D) - Will extend the confidentiality provisions that already apply to specified petitions by minors, including for a change of gender and sex identifier, to adults, and prohibit such records from being posted publicly.
• SB 413 (Allen-D) - Will provide specified attorneys access to a juvenile case file without a court order for specified purposes.
• SB 456 (Ashby-D) - Will exempt an artist who creates, restores, or preserves a mural from licensure under the Contractors State License Law.
• AB 1139 (Bennett-D) - Will expand an existing California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) exemption for a change in use to allow public access on nonmotorized, pre-existing trails to include a county park agency as an agency that can use the exemption, provide more specifics regarding when the exemption can be used, and require an agency using this exemption to adopt a natural resource plan that includes the identification of resources and management strategies for the affected areas.
• AB 49 (Muratsuchi-D) - Will prohibit school officials and employees of a local educational agency from allowing an immigration authority to enter a nonpublic area of a school site for any purpose without being presented with a valid judicial warrant or a court order.
• AB 752 (Avila Farias-D) - Will revise provisions governing co-located daycare centers by clarifying use by right, prohibiting local charges or fees, striking CEQA exemptions and references to "legally established community amenities," maintaining compliance with state safety and licensing laws, and updating definitions of multifamily housing, co-located, local jurisdiction, and use by right.
• AB 413 (Fong-D) - Will require the Department of Housing and Community Development to review all guidelines it has adopted or amended to determine whether those guidelines explain rights or services available to the public.
San Mateo County Opposed Bills Signed into Law
• AB 339 (Ortega-D) - Will require the governing body of a public agency to give the recognized employee organization no less than 45 days’ written notice before issuing a request for proposals, request for quotes, or renewing or extending an existing contract to perform services that are within the scope of work of the job classifications represented by the recognized employee organization.
• SB 596 (Menjivar-D) - Will revise a provision of law exempting a hospital from financial penalties for nurse-to-patient ratio violations if the hospital immediately used and exhausted its on-call list of nurses, by defining an “on-call list” as being comprised of nurses who are scheduled to be on call for the shift and unit where an alleged violation occurred, or nurses who are assigned to a regularly scheduled float pool shift to cover any shortages across one or more specified units.
San Mateo County Supported Bills Vetoed by Governor
• SB 326 (Becker-D) - Would have required the Office of the State Fire Marshal to prepare, and regularly update, a Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework, a Wildfire Risk Baseline and Forecast, and a Wildfire Mitigation Scenarios Report; and would have required, contingent upon an appropriation, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to provide local assistance to local governments to achieve wildfire risk reduction consistent with the aforementioned plans, for defensible space inspections, and to facilitate compliance with forthcoming ember-resistant zone regulations.
• SB 787 (McNerney-D) - Would have required specified state agencies to enter into a memorandum of understanding to carry out specific duties to develop equitable clean energy supply chains in California; would have established the Equitable Clean Energy Supply Chain and Industrial Policy Fund in the State Treasury and would have required the California Energy Commission (CEC) to designate a person within the CEC or an external candidate to serve as the Senior Counselor on Industrial Policy and Clean Energy Development.
San Mateo County Opposed Bills Vetoed by Governor
• SB 404 (Caballero-D) - Would have established a comprehensive scheme for the regulation of metal shredding facilities that would be administered by the Department of Toxic Substances Control pursuant to authority separate from laws governing the control of hazardous waste.
Included below are additional bills of interest to urban counties that were acted on in this session:
Healthcare, Behavioral and Mental Health
• SIGNED: AB 348 (Krell-D) - Deems an individual with a serious mental illness presumptively eligible for a full-service partnership program if specific criteria are met.
• SIGNED: AB 416 (Krell-D) - Requires a county behavioral health director to include an emergency physician as one of the practice disciplines eligible to be designated by the county, when developing and implementing procedures for the county’s designation and training of professionals as authorized under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act.
• SIGNED: AB 543 (M. González-D) - Requires the Department of Health Care Services to implement a Medi-Cal presumptive eligibility program for persons experiencing homelessness; also establishes requirements regarding the delivery of street medicine services.
• SIGNED: AB 1312 (Schiavo-D) - Makes changes to hospital processes related to establishing patient eligibility for participation under the hospital’s charity care policy.
Administrative/General Government
• SIGNED: AB 538 (Berman-D) - Requires the awarding public body, if a request is made by the public through the awarding body and the body is not in possession of certified payroll records, to obtain those records from the relevant contractor and make them available to the requesting entity.
• SIGNED: SB 707 (Durazo-D) - Reflects an effort to modernize open meetings by adjusting and extending several recent laws and establishing entirely new provisions of the Ralph M. Brown Act.
Housing and Homelessness
• SIGNED: AB 610 (Alvarez-D) - Beginning with the upcoming 7th housing element cycle, requires a local government's housing element to include a statement disclosing potential and actual governmental constraints that the local government anticipates adopting during the first three years of the eight-year planning period.
Human and Social Services
• SIGNED: AB 896 (Elhawary-D) - Requires county child welfare agencies to adopt a policy for supporting foster children who are transitioning between placement settings and who are transitioning from foster care to reunification.
Administration of Justice
• SIGNED: SB 27 (Umberg-D) - Amends the Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act to expand program eligibility and provide for referral of defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial (IST) to CARE court.
• SIGNED: AB 1376 (Bonta-D) - Prohibits a ward of the juvenile court from remaining on probation for a period exceeding 12 months from the disposition hearing, but authorizes a court to extend the probation period upon proof by a preponderance of the evidence that it is in the ward’s and public’s best interest to do so.
• SIGNED: AB 247 (Bryan-D) - Would increase the hourly wage for incarcerated individual hand crew members from county jails and state prison, and youth placed at the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp, to $7.25 for work performed while assigned to an active fire incident and would require the wage rate to be updated on an annual basis.
Revenue and Taxation
• VETOED: AB 699 (Stefani-D) - Would have authorized the proponents of a local initiative measure, or a local jurisdiction submitting a local ballot measure, that imposes or increases a tax with more than one rate, or authorizes the issuance of bonds, to choose whether financial impact information will appear on the ballot label or in the voter information guide. The Governor cited reduced transparency for voters as his reason for vetoing the measure.
Labor
• VETOED: SB 7 (McNerney-D) - Would have imposed notice, use, and appeal requirements on an employer that uses an automated decision system (ADS) that affects workers. In his veto message, the Governor indicated that, while he shared the author's concern that, in some instances, unregulated use of ADS by employers can be harmful to workers, SB 7 “imposes unfocused notification requirements on any business using even the most innocuous tools” and “fails to directly address incidents of misuse.”
2025 Advocacy Highlights
In addition to engagement on legislation, the IGPA Unit strongly advocated the following critical issues this past session:
Vehicle License Fee (VLF) -
• Successfully collaborated with state delegation members, the County cities, labor, and other key County stakeholders to secure and advocate for $114 million in FY 23-24 VLF funds for San Mateo County and its 20 cities.
• Secured $76,572,000 of the $114,000,000 in VLF shortfall funds in the FY 2025-26 state budget.
• Coordinated efforts with the County Attorney’s office to file a lawsuit against the State of California on the pending FY 23-24 $38 million VLF shortfall.
• Recognized the state delegation on October 21, 2025, Board meeting for their exceptional commitment and effectiveness in securing the County’s VLF shortfall funding.
Immigration -
• Supported key legislation aimed at protecting immigrant communities, including:
o SB 48 (Gonzalez) - Immigration Enforcement: Schoolsites: Prohibitions on Access and Sharing Information - this bill was gutted and amended towards the end of the session. However, the County supported a nearly identical bill noted below.
o AB 49 (Muratsuchi) - Schoolsites: Immigration Enforcement - this bill was signed into law and will take effect on January 1, 2026.
o AB 1025 (Pellerin) - Standby Caretaker Act - this measure is currently a 2-year bill.
• Advocated against the Governor’s proposed healthcare changes for individuals with “unsatisfactory immigration status (UIS)”.
• Through the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) and the Urban Counties of California (UCC), participated in association working groups to address federal cuts (H.R. 1) and impacts to all county residents, including undocumented individuals.
CalWORKs and CalFresh -
• Collaborated with the County’s Human Services Agency to strongly advocate for future investments and updates to the CalWORKs single allocation eligibility administration during the state budget process.
• Submitted correspondence to Senate and Assembly budget committees urging CalFresh investments to mitigate dire impacts from H.R. 1.
• Participation in state association working groups discussing how counties can respond to the suspension of CalFresh entitlements during the federal government shutdown.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Later this month, Senator Monique Limón will transition into her new leadership role as Senate Pro Tem. The Legislature is scheduled to reconvene for the second year of the two-year session on January 5, 2026.
Working with your Board, County departments, and key stakeholders, the IGPA Unit has begun work on updates to the County’s Legislative Program for 2026. An updated program will be brought to your Board for review and approval in early 2026.
Federal Update
The CR, which passed out of the U.S. Senate on November 10 by a vote of 60-40 and the U.S. House of Representatives on November 12 by a vote of 222-209, includes full-year Fiscal Year 2026 funding for three of the twelve appropriations bills, and provides extensions of key agriculture, health, and other programs that expired at the end of FY 2025. The CR funds all other federal agencies at FY 2025 levels through January 30, 2026, setting a new deadline for Congress to pass the remaining nine appropriations bills by that date.
The following are some key elements of the CR:
• Rescinds recent reductions-in-force (RIF), reestablishing the positions of roughly 4200 federal workers who were laid off in an October RIF.
• Prevents sequestration cuts to the Social Services Block Grant, Promoting Safe and Stable Families, and the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program.
• Authorizes the use of U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) carryover funds within the Housing Choice Voucher program to fund renewals of existing rental assistance commitments.
• Establishes a framework for reimbursing states and grantees, including counties that used their own funds to continue federal programs during the lapse.
• Provides $107 billion in mandatory funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which will sustain the program until September 2026.
• Provides $8.2 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
• Includes $660 million for the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program, which provides case management and support to unhoused veterans at risk of becoming unhoused.
• Includes $702 million for HUD’s Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program, which is a collaborative program that pairs HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher program with the VA’s case management and support services.
• Includes $698 million for suicide prevention outreach efforts, including funding for the Veterans Crisis Line.
• Reauthorizes mandatory funding for key local health safety net programs to include community health centers ($1.42 billion), the National Health Services Corps ($15.3 million), and Teaching Health Centers that operate Graduate Medical Education programs ($58.5 million) through January 30, 2026.
• Extends access to enhanced supplemental payments to county hospitals serving individuals who are low-income, indigent or uninsured by delaying Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payment reductions until January 31, 2026. The reduction schedule was also adjusted to extend through FY 2028.