New Year Brings New Laws

Sacramento, CA — Laws impacting everything from credit checks to immigrants will go into effect next year in California.

Starting January 1st employers will not be allowed to request a credit report from a potential employee, unless the job is in the field of finance, law enforcement or with the state Justice Department.

The California Dream Act goes into effect next year, which allows students that do not have legal status to be eligible for in-state tuition. The student must have attended high school in the state for three years, graduated from high school, or currently be attending a state college or university.

City and county governments in the state will be barred from requiring private employers to use an E-verify program, which would determine whether their employees are legal residents. This is the opposite of other states, like Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, that passed laws requiring business owners to enroll in the federal E-Verify program.

Starting January 1st, no one under the age of 18 will be allowed to use a tanning bed. By next summer, schools will have to have a formal process to deal with the bullying of gay and lesbian students. And, the accomplishments of gays, lesbians and people with disabilities will be added to school history books as an additional social/ethnic group.

These are only a few of the 750 news laws approved by the legislature this year.