Sacramento – Today the Senate Public Safety Committee approved a bill by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) to protect immigrants from irrelevant disclosures of their immigration status in open court. SB 785 requires that any discussion or questioning about the immigration status of any witness, victim, or defendant first be deemed by a judge to be relevant to the subject of the litigation.
Press Releases
Sacramento – Yesterday, the Transportation and Housing Committee approved Senate Constitutional Amendment 6 introduced by Senator Scott Wiener (D- San Francisco) to set the voter approval threshold for transportation funding measures at 55%, down from the current threshold of 2/3, or 66.6%. This would put transportation funding measures on the same level as school funding measures, which were set at 55% by California voters in the year 2000.
Sacramento – Today the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee approved Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) bill to authorize the implementation of a solar mandate, which would require solar panels to be installed on most new buildings in California. This would make California the first state in the country to require solar installation on new construction. SB 71 has previously been approved by the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee.
Sacramento – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) announced a bill to protect immigrants from irrelevant disclosures of their immigration status in open court. SB 785 requires that any questions about the immigration status of any witness, victim, or defendant first be deemed by a judge to be relevant to the subject of the litigation before.
Sacramento – Today the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) that will help create more impartial juries by better identifying bias in the civil jury selection process. SB 658 will prevent unreasonable and arbitrary restrictions during voir dire by requiring judges to consider specific factors when setting time limits and types of questions. SB 658 is sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Sacramento – Today the Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved Senator Scott Wiener’s Senate Bill 35 – which will create a streamlined approval process for housing when cities are not meeting the housing creation goals required by the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). This will expedite the construction of affordable housing. SB 35 has already been approved by the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.
Sacramento – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) released the following statement about the proposed repeal of the federal estate tax by President Donald Trump, and the need to replace this cut with a California Estate Tax:
Sacramento – Today the Senate Environmental Quality Committee approved three bills by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) that will protect and conserve California’s water. These bills form a broad approach to water policy, by protecting waterways like San Francisco Bay and the California coastline from tar sands oil spills, creating a framework for onsite water reuse statewide, and establishing landscape standards to better improve water conservation.
State Senator Scott Wiener took to Medium over the weekend to pen a nearly 1,700-word essay on the merits of new market-rate housing construction in the Bay Area and California.
In piece titled “Market-Rate Housing Isn’t a Bad Word, and We Won’t Solve the Housing Crisis Without It,” Senator Wiener alleges that lawmakers and community groups show “skepticism and even hostility” toward any new construction that is not “exclusively or largely [focused] on publicly subsidized, income-based affordable housing,” creating a culture of anger toward those who want to sell new homes at market rates.