Announcing Catalyst California's legislative priorities for 2025
Catalyst California and its partners succeeded last year in helping pass, even amid a budget deficit, several equity-oriented bills—but the landscape looks very different now. Donald Trump’s second presidency has doubled down on threats to communities of color across the nation.
In recent weeks, this administration and its unelected advisors have taken a chainsaw to institutions that provide important research and services, like the U.S. Department of Education, and agencies that distribute critical benefits, like Social Security. It’s part of a larger plan to invalidate good government and governance.
Catalyst California, along with its movement partners, prepared for this. As part of We Are California, we are analyzing the moment and mobilizing communities to build a powerful collective pushback against these reckless federal actions. But we also continue to press our agenda in the legislature, as we have done in the past, through our priority bills.
The 12 bills in our 2025-2026 legislative package for racial equity address critical issues to protect children, families, and communities now under attack. They reflect our core values and mission to build systems designed for justice, providing equitable access to resources and opportunities for all Californians—not just the privileged few.
Below are the bills we support this session, listed by legislative bill number, author in parenthesis, title, and brief description.
Educational Equity
AB 49 (Muratsuchi): School sites: immigration enforcement.
This bill protects students by prohibiting any agency conducting immigration enforcement from entering schools without valid identification, a warrant signed by a judge, and approval from a school administrator. It would also mandate that administrators limit access to facilities where pupils are not present. As the federal administration continues to target the immigrant community, these protections become more necessary. This bill ensures students have equal access to safe, inclusive, and supportive classrooms where they can learn and thrive.
AB 495 (Rodriguez): Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025.
This bill protects children in immigrant and mixed-status families if their parents/caregivers are deported. It ensures updated emergency contact information and family safety plans that can lessen the stress on children when families suffer such a traumatic separation. It also ensures the legal recognition of caregiving arrangements (i.e. Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavits, Guardianship Nominations, and Short-Term Guardianships) to provide a supportive and stable environment. Legally recognized options ensure children have continuity of support in these situations, including access to health care and supportive schools.
AB 865 (Gonzalez): Dual language immersion programs: instructional materials and grants.
This bill establishes the Dual Language Immersion Education Instructional Materials Grant Program and appropriates $5 million to provide Local Education Agencies (LEAs) with one-time grants of $100,000 so they can provide instructional materials in a diversity of languages for quality dual language immersion programs. The bill enables more schools to respond to parent demand for multilingual programs that foster biliteracy and overall academic achievement, as well as affirm children’s home languages and cultures. AB 865 is critical to state efforts to foster welcoming and safe spaces that support California’s diverse student population to thrive.
SB 48 (Gonzalez, L) Immigration enforcement: school sites: prohibitions on access, sharing information, and law enforcement collaboration.
This bill strengthens California’s ability to provide all students with safe and supportive learning environments, regardless of their immigration status, by preventing unlawful access by immigration authorities to enter or search schools and question students while at school. It provides clear steps in the face of unprecedented deportation threats for LEAs and school administrators to engage with immigration authorities and requires the Department of Justice to release more comprehensive model policies for schools.
Political Voice
AB 868 (Carillo) Primary elections: county officers: top two candidates.
This bill requires that all county elections proceed to the general election, even if one of the candidates receives a majority of the votes in the primary. Primary elections typically have significantly lower and less diverse voter turnouts compared to general elections. The primary electorate traditionally includes fewer young people and communities of color, so candidates work to appeal to a smaller electorate of older, predominantly white voters. Mandatory general elections for all candidates will ensure that the highest and most representative turnout of California's full electorate elects every candidate for public office.
SB 42 (Umberg) Political Reform Act of 1974: public campaign financing: California Fair Elections Act of 2026.
This bill aims to revise the Political Reform Act of 1974 to allow public officers and candidates to accept and spend public money to seek elective office in jurisdictions in which this is now prohibited. Passage would refer the issue to voters through a ballot measure in the November 2026 general election. Currently, wealthy people, corporations, and special interests use their financial resources to finance electoral campaigns, allowing only well-financed candidates to compete in elections. Because wealth is concentrated in Whiter and older communities, this system shuts out candidates from communities of color and low-income communities, denying them a similar voice in elections, policy creation, and decision-making. Giving all jurisdictions in California the ability to adopt campaign public finance models can help balance the political influence between low-income BIPOC Californians and traditional wealthy donors.
Reimagining Safety and Justice
AB 247 (Bryan): Fair pay for incarcerated firefighters.
This bill increases hourly pay for incarcerated firefighters to $19 while assigned to an active fire incident and requires annual rate updates. During emergencies, incarcerated firefighters make approximately $30 total for a full 24-hour shift. Non-incarcerated firefighters doing the same or similar work with CalFIRE receive a monthly base pay of $3,672-$4,643 (or $121-$152 daily). AB 247 is a modest step toward ensuring that incarcerated people saving lives on the front line of emergencies are valued and sufficiently compensated.
AB 1036 (Shultz): Ensuring greater access to evidence for incarcerated people.
This bill modernizes California’s post-conviction discovery laws by improving incarcerated people’s access to evidence. Currently, a person convicted of a serious or violent felony resulting in a sentence of 15 years or more, may petition the court for access to evidence to support their post-conviction motion for release (i.e., habeas corpus). However, the person must demonstrate that they already attempted to obtain the evidence from trial counsel and were unsuccessful. This process is often so burdensome and inequitable that many incarcerated people are unable to obtain evidence to prove their innocence. AB 1036 will help reduce those barriers and prevent innocent people from remaining imprisoned.
AB 1231 (Elhawary): Expanding access to pretrial diversion to improve community safety and end mass incarceration.
This bill gives judges discretion to divert people charged with non-violent, low-level felonies to programs that advance community safety. People who participate in diversion programs instead of incarceration cut their rate of reoffending in half, and improve their rates of employment. Diversion addresses needs through behavioral and healthcare services, substance use treatment, and vocational training.
Office of Strategic Initiatives/Research & Data Analysis
AB 91 (Harabedian): AB-91 State and local agencies: demographic data.
The bill requires the appropriate state and local agencies to collect, categorize, and tabulate demographic data for Californians of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent, also known as Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA). Historically, this group is categorized as White, even though they largely experience the world as people of color. The nuanced experiences of these communities get lost with this practice. Existing in the data allows MENA communities the opportunity to press for resources to address their specific needs.
AB 1157 (Kalra) Tenancy: just cause termination: rent increases.
This bill aims to address California's escalating housing crisis by further limiting allowable annual rent increases, providing some relief to millions of renters struggling with exorbitant rent hikes and the looming threat of homelessness. Many low-income Californians of color spend a significant portion of their income on rent. By increasing limits on rent increases, this bill will make it easier for these renters to afford their rent and cover their other basic needs.
AB 1186 (Patel): Data collection: race and ethnicity: minimum categories.
This bill enables state agencies such as the Department of Finance’s Demographic Research Unit to disaggregate data in alignment with new federal standards for collecting race and ethnicity data. It provides California with an important benchmark for the 2030 Census to help verify critical data so communities can receive fair representation and resources. Disaggregation across state agencies is key to gathering truly representative data that leads to understanding inequities and creating solutions for greater equity.