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2024 Reparations Priority Bill Package: New California Laws Taking Effect

A guide to new laws addressing racial discrimination and civil rights inequities, sponsored by members of the California Legislative Black Caucus and stemming from the findings of the California Reparations Report

Bill Summary and Finding Legislative History

SB-1340 Discrimination.

SB-1340 was introduced in February 2024 by Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) and signed into law on September 26, 2024 as 2024 Cal. Stat. ch. 626. The act amends Section 12993 of the Cal. Government Code, relating to discrimination. You can find the bill text, bill analysis, and other documents relating to this law's legislative history on the California legislature's website. 

See our California legislative history guide for information on how these documents all work together as persuasive legal authority in determining the intent behind the law as well as clarifying significant additions or deletions as the bill moved through the legislature.

SB-1340 Bill Summary (via Legislative Counsel's Digest)

The Unruh Civil Rights Act generally prohibits business establishments from discriminating on specified bases. The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (act) prohibits discrimination in housing and employment on specified bases. Existing law establishes the Civil Rights Department (department) and prescribes its functions, duties, and powers, including to receive, investigate, conciliate, mediate, and prosecute complaints alleging employment discrimination pursuant to specified laws, including the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the act. Existing law specifies that while it is the intention of the Legislature that the act occupy the field of regulation of discrimination in employment and housing, the act does not limit or restrict the application of the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

This bill would also specify that nothing in the act limits or restricts efforts by any city, city and county, county, or other political subdivision of the state to enforce local law prohibiting discrimination in employment against classes of persons covered by the act if certain requirements are met, including a requirement that local enforcement is pursuant to a local law that is at least as protective as the act. The bill would require the department to promulgate regulations governing local enforcement pursuant to those provisions.