Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.
Hello and welcome back to Capitol Confidential!
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed 50 bills so far this week: 35 Assembly bills and 15 Senate bills. It’s a hefty batch, but there’s hundreds more to go – leading to a nail-biting final few weeks for lawmakers eager to see how their bills will fare.
Several lawmakers have been using the wait time over the past week to promote the bills they’ve sent to the governor – or appeal directly to Newsom to give their legislation the final green light. Assembly Member Tina McKinnor, D-Hawthorne, held a rally on the Capitol steps Monday to urge the governor to sign AB1383, which would lower the retirement benefit eligibility age for firefighters and police officers.
Assembly Member Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, posted to social media directly urging Newsom to sign her AB2589, which would require the California Public Utilities Commission to adjust utility rates when federal tax-law changes to ensure savings are passed on to consumers.
While those and many others await a signature, let’s dive into the biggest bills the governor has signed into law so far this week.
Newsom signs first-in-nation wildfire smoke damage bills
California is set to create the nation's first standards for how to make homes and communities safe to live in again after they're devastated by wildfires, after Newsom signed two bills on Monday that will require state agencies to research and regulate how to properly identify and remove contamination from wildfire smoke.
As the Chronicle’s Megan Fan Munce reported earlier this month, survivors of recent devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County have been battling their insurers over what it will take to clean up the wildfire smoke, debris and ash inside their surviving homes.
Los Angeles County wildfire survivors have pushed for legislative solutions to the issue, after widespread complaints that insurers were not uniformly paying the cost to test and remediate their standing homes after the fires.
Altadena homeowner Debbie McMahon walks through her living room wearing protective coveralls and a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear-rated gas mask in September 2025, nine months after the Eaton Fire. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
A Pulitzer Prize-winning Chronicle investigation published last year found that many insurers declined to pay up-front for expensive tests used to detect lead, asbestos and other contamination inside policyholders’ homes. In at least a few cases, companies hired experts who wrote reports that attributed the soot and ash to candles and fireplaces, rather than the wildfire.
Under AB1642, by Assembly Member John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, the state will have until 2028 to develop enforceable standards for what to do when smoke coats still-standing homes in lead and asbestos. By 2029, it will expand those standards to address a list of common heavy metals and other wildfire contaminants. In the meantime, the law will require insurers to abide by federally required limits on how much lead and asbestos is allowable in a home.
Companion legislation by Assembly Member Mike Gipson, D-Carson (Los Angeles County), AB1795, mandates insurers pay the costs of testing for these chemicals. It also requires they assume such contamination is covered by fire insurance, unless it can be proven the contamination came from elsewhere.
Harabedian told the Chronicle AB1642 was the hardest bill he's worked on in his time in the Assembly. He said he hopes its success inspires other states, and the federal government, to follow in California's footsteps.
"Whether you're in California, Colorado, Washington, all the way to the East Coast, wildfires are happening more and more. They're happening internationally," Harabedian said. "What I'm hoping for, in the legacy of this bill, not only is that more states actually incorporate what we did so that it helps more people, but really, the federal government should be hopefully incorporating the standards that we set here in California."
Newsom also signed Harabedian’s AB1842, which creates a new statewide mortgage forbearance program for homeowners when their homes become uninhabitable after a major disaster like a wildfire.
Also from Harabedian, AB1847 was signed into law, which extends mortgage forbearance protections on a more local scale, applicable for homeowners impacted by the Eaton and Palisades wildfires in Los Angeles County. It gives survivors an additional 24 months before mortgage payments resume – including for homes that remain uninhabitable.
Displaced resident Debbie McMahon removes her protective coverall after entering her home damaged by soot and smoke from the Eaton Fire in Altadena on Sept. 25, 2025. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle)
Newsom signs dozens of other bills, including on firearms and Medi-Cal billing
Among the more than 40 bills signed Tuesday, here’s a few that stand out:
AB1615 by Assembly Member Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, gives police officers employed by a county probation department authorization to use a non-rostered handgun as a service weapon if they meet additional safety training requirements.
AB1126 by Assembly Member Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, adds a new Medi-Cal rule limiting extra administrative hurdles when a provider bills a managed care plan for allowable costs for people who also have other coverage. It also allows fee-for-service providers to bill for covered services without joining a managed care plan’s network.
AB1786 by Harabedian expands best-value construction contracting, a process for selecting project bids, to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments and general law cities and counties.
Also, California Democrats celebrate Supreme Court’s mail-in voting ruling
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections, drawing celebration from state Democratic leaders.
The decision puts an end to several weeks of legal back-and-forth over Trump’s executive order, after voting rights groups and Democratic state officials, led by California, challenged the restrictions in court. It would have ordered states to give the U.S. Postal Service lists of voters' names and addresses and include special barcodes on ballot envelopes for them to be valid.
“California stood up for democracy and we won,” Newsom said in a statement Monday. “Trump’s attacks on democracy these last 20 months have been nothing short of un-American.”
Residents drop off their envelopes in an official ballot box outside of San Francisco City Hall during Election Day on March 5, 2024. (Jessica Christian/The Chronicle)
The governor encouraged California voters to vote by mail, echoing assurances of vote-by-mail security by California voting officials.
Trump has long attacked voting by mail, alleging without evidence it is the source of voter fraud he blames for his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
“In California, we trust voters. Today’s Supreme Court decision means California and democracy rise above Trump and Republican attempts to silence and suppress,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, said in a statement.
Democrats in the Assembly and Senate advanced two pieces of legislation last month touted as direct responses to Trump’s executive order before they were struck down by the highest court.
The two bills are AB282 by Assembly Member Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, and SB259 by then-state Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward. AB282 would ban officials from seizing or ordering the seizure of ballots, election records and voting machines before an election is certified. SB259 would ban officials from interfering with a ballot’s delivery to a voter or local election official.
ICYMI
A federal judge blocked the construction of an ICE detention center near Gilroy, ruling the administration skirted environmental review laws.
A pro-MAGA think tank is cheering a new San Francisco homelessness policy, after years of conservative and GOP scorn over the city’s approach to the issue.
Newsom said in an interview with CNN he won’t run for president in 2028 if former Vice President Kamala Harris runs again.
Questions? Thoughts? Interesting tidbits to share? Reach out at [email protected], and follow me on X, @KathrynPlmr.
