Legislative Deep Dive by State Net Capitol Journal

California has a handful of new pay disclosure laws going into effect in 2023. To get  a sense of the impact those measures could have, we spoke with former California State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, author of the Golden State's 2015 Fair Pay Act, which forces employers to prove that pay disparities between workers are not due to gender. 

A new executive order from President Joe Biden aims to bolster U.S. privacy protections in a way that ensures such data transfers comply with EU laws, thus theoretically streamlining the flow of that data across the Atlantic to the U.S. Such transfers have been a troubled and complex issue for years . On today's show we are joined by Crowell & Moring Senior Counsel Christiana State, who focuses on privacy and cybersecurity from the firm’s San Francisco office. She specializes in and advises on issues related to technology and commercial transactions, and M&A corporate activities like the ones we are talking about today. 

In 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law that essentially allowed only Nevada to have legal sports wagering. Dozens of states have since legalized either in-person or online sports betting, or both. But California, the nation's biggest potential market, has not been one of the. Which brings us to two very hotly contested opposing ballot measures that would legalize online sports wagering here in California, Propositions 26 and 27. To date, the two campaigns have spent a staggering amount of money trying to persuade voters for or against these proposals. Alas, if polls are to be believed it might all be for nothing because there is every indication both of these ballot proposals are going to go down to defeat. But you could say it is the safest of bets that the parties most interested in bringing online sports wagering to California are not going to fold their hands and walk away. To help us suss out what is going on with these two measures and what we can likely expect to happen after November 8th, I’m joined today by Ari Plachta, who covers politics and government for the Sacramento Bee and who has written extensively on this issue.  

California Gov.  Gavin Newsom recently signed a bill ( AB 2273) that requires any business serving up web pages likely to be accessed by California youths to consider the children’s best interests when designing their sites. Since California children can easily access websites from anywhere, the law could apply to websites published anywhere – or at least anywhere in the United States, which, in turn, could make any American business with a website subject to California law.In this episode of the State Net Capitol Journal Legislative Deep Dive host Rich Ehisen talks with SNCJ correspondent Brian Joseph about his recent story detailing  AB 2273's signing and the impact this wide-ranging bill could have outside the Golden State. 

The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) is pending federal legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would for the first time impose comprehensive national standards for how companies manage consumers’ personal identifying information, or PII. The ADPPA is not the first data privacy bill ever introduced in Congress, but it is the first one to gain committee approval and be eligible to be heard in the full House of Representatives.  The bill in its current state contains numerous tents of great interest to corporate compliance teams around the nation, including a private right of action that would allow consumers to file suit against data collectors and processors in federal court for damages, injunctions, litigation costs, and attorney’s fees for a data breach, data misuse, and not reporting on or deleting PII when requested. It would further give  consumers the right to access and review their PII collected by an organization, the right to fix any incorrect data contained there, and in most cases the right to have that PII erased. While most observers doubt this measure will become law, there is strong speculation that it could lay the groundwork for more successful privacy legislation in the near future. To help us unpack this complex legislation, we are joined by Joseph Duball, who covers all things data privacy for the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Joe will help us glean what is in this bill and how it could impact the data privacy landscape going forward at both the state and federal levels. 

We're joined on this episode by our old friend Jennifer Rubin, head of the ESG Practice Group for Mintz, based in the San Diego office, who will give us her insights into fast-moving legislation in the CA Capitol to require companies to list pay ranges with job postings and to report a wide range of salary data to the state. August is traditionally one of the busiest and most volatile months of the California legislative season, as lawmakers, lobbyists and activists all push to get their favorite bills to the finish line or to kill the ones they oppose. One of the more closely watched bills this month has been CA SB 1162, a gender pay equity measure introduced by Sen. Monique Limón, a Democrat who represents SD 19, which covers much of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. The many tenets of this bill include: By 2027, California companies with 250 or more workers would be required to submit salary data for their workers to the state, with an emphasis on breaking the data down between gender, race and ethnicity. Companies with 15 or more workers would also be required to provide employees with the pay scale for any job they currently hold, and to list the pay scales for positions in any job postings.  It would impose fines on companies that don’t adhere to a 2020 CA law that requires the state’s largest employers to collect wage data and report the information to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. But lawmakers also stripped out a amendment that would have required the state to make public the wage data that companies submit to it, a tenet that had drawn intense opposition from the business community. 

In this episode of the SNCJ Legislative Deep Dive, host Rich Ehisen welcomes Alexandra Barrage, a partner with Davis Wright Tremaine LLC in Washington D.C. to discuss the state of cryptocurrencies in the midst of the so-called "crypto winter," and more specifically to talk about state and federal efforts to create some form of regulatory framework for a marketplace that has often been described as the digital wild west. Barrage co-leads DWT's Crypto Working Group and counsels clients on resolution planning, regulatory risk, third-party risk management, digital assets, and bankruptcy matters. Previous to that, she was with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, where she was the Associate Director of Policy for the Division of Complex Institution Supervision and Resolution. While crypto is down, it is hardly out. The industry is still raising billions of dollars in venture capital, and is in fact poised this year to top last year’s record total of $26.9 billion. States are also getting into the act, with many working to grease the wheels for crypto in their jurisdictions. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states this year collectively introduced around 150 bills dealing with cryptocurrency and digital assets.  Meanwhile, governors like California Gov. Gavin Newsom are also jumping into the fray via executive order. And after years of taking a hands-off approach, there are now a handful of bills in Congress as well.   

In today’s show, we discuss the draft rules California regulators released in May in advance of the state’s latest privacy law – the California Privacy Rights Act – going into effect next January. To get a handle on what those highly anticipated draft rules did and did not contain and what happens now, we are joined by reporter Joseph Duball, who covers all things data privacy for the International Association of Privacy Professionals. The Basics: A growing number of states have adopted their own data privacy laws similar to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. First and foremost among them has been California, which adopted the CA Consumer Protection Act (CCPA), which lawmakers approved in 2018 and which went into effect in 2020. Voters subsequently approved a follow up ballot measure (Prop 24) later that year which enshrines even more protections into the state’s privacy law, including the creation of a dedicated state agency to implement and enforce those laws. The new law, the CA Privacy Rights Act, goes into effect in January, 2023 and begins enforcement in July. To that end, regulators on June 8th released their initial set of proposed CPRA rules. These are NOT the final rules by any means, but they are a significant step toward what will eventually be the most stringent state data privacy standard in the U.S. 

When the pandemic hit, millions of U.S. workers were forced to make a sudden, immediate shift to remote work. We all quickly became familiar with the pros and cons of daily – sometimes hourly – zoom calls and having our kitchen tables do double duty as our workspace. And just as quickly, the prevailing theory that workers must be in an office to maximize their output was blown to smithereens. Which is why it was big news recently when the world’s richest man, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk told his senior executives he is doing away with telework and that anyone who doesn’t like it can hit the road. The question is, will other CEOs follow suit?To help answer that question, we’re joined today by Law360 employment editor-at-large Vin Gurrieri, who recently wrote a great piece for that publication on this very issue. We’ll go over a bit of what the mercurial Musk had to say, and then get into some of the reasons why this time it might not behoove CEOs to follow his lead. Want a free State Net product demo? Of course you do! If your job includes keeping up to date on all kinds of legislation and regulation, the State Net team is invaluable. Click here to learn more about how SN can help you be the best you can be. 

If you listened to our podcast from April 26th, you know that a California court struck down a state law that required corporate boards to have a certain number of people from marginalized communities. At the time, we were also awaiting a ruling on a similar California law that required corporate boards to have a minimum number of women. The law in question – SB 826, authored by then-Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson – requires publicly traded corporations based in California to have a certain number of women on their boards: companies with five members needed to have at least one female member by the end of 2019 and at least two women by the end of 2021. Boards with six members or more would need to have at least three women. Well, as you might have heard, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has struck down that measure as well.  So what now? To better understand what happened with this case and what could happen going forward, we are once again joined by Jennifer Rubin, head of the ESG Practice Group for Mintz, based in the San Diego office.  If you missed our show on the previous court ruling, I encourage you to check that out via the podcatcher of your choice. 

Like it or not, artificial intelligence and computer algorithms are determining the outcome of more and more of your life’s most significant events. Like whether you get a job. Or a home loan. Or get into college. Or get a vaccine, or perhaps have your health care completely taken away. Or if you go to jail, and for how long. As data scientist and author Cathy O’Neil of the Public Interest Tech Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School says, “If you had a human bureaucratic process 15 years ago, it probably is being run by an algorithm now.” In theory, all of this is intended to level the playing field for anyone in these situations. But as this use increases, so does concern that built in cultural and gender biases are not only not leveling the playing field, they are actually exacerbating the problems they were intended to solve. With that in mind, pressure is growing on states, municipalities and the federal government to regulate the use of algorithms, and specifically to require companies who use them to perform regular assessments to ensure they are not inherently biased. To better understand this complex issue, we are joined today at the Deep Dive by Shae Brown and Jovana Davidovic of the University of Iowa, who have studied and written extensively on this issue. 

The term metaverse was originally coined by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. But defining exactly what constitutes the metaverse we are seeing develop now can be challenging. Stephenson defined it as “an all-encompassing digital world that exists parallel to the real world.” The generally accepted definition these days is a three-dimensional version of the Internet, i.e. a virtual platform for social interactions between users and their virtual surroundings, accessed via virtual reality, augmented reality and machine learning. However you might feel about that, the bottom line is that real companies are buying property and otherwise doing business in the virtual world. A lot of business. Some analysts see the metaverse becoming an $800 billion market by 2024. We’ll have to see how that goes, but whatever the potential might exist in the virtual world, there is a very serious hurdle rooted firmly in the real world – data privacy. To get at the heart of that concern, we’re joined today by global data privacy expert Sheila FitzPatrick, founder and president of Fitzpatrick & Associates and a person who regularly collaborates on privacy issues with technology firms around the world. FitzPatrick weighs in on a number of key issues surrounding data privacy in this strange new world, including: How serious are the privacy concerns around the metaverse for those who partake in that world?How can the metaverse impact people’s privacy? What is the exposure for companies in regard to liability in this area? The impact of  cryptocurrency on the development of the metaverseHow she is counseling her clients in regard in this area, and the key components to building a solid compliance strategy in this area. 

Housing costs have gone through the roof all over the country, with most experts in agreement that a big driver of this situation is simple supply and demand – less housing stock means higher prices. In that regard, we have also seen in recent years a handful of states adopt laws that allow for greater housing density projects in areas that have previously been zoned only for single family homes,  essentially taking power over those decisions away from local governments. As you might imagine, this has been highly controversial and engendered fierce resistance, including litigation. To get at the heart of this issue I am joined today by Brooks Rainwater, Senior Executive and Director of the National League of Cities' (NLC) Center for City Solutions. 

Responding to numerous incidents of discrimination against Black children in schools and adults in the workplace – predominantly women – a coalition of advocacy groups, Dove USA and California State Sen. Holly Mitchell came together in 2019 to craft the CROWN Act, which stands for “Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.” This legislation prohibits discrimination based on hair style and texture, including braids, locs, twists and bantu knots. The bill was signed into law that year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and has since become law in more than a dozen other states and is pending in several more. Dozens of municipalities around the country have also adopted the law and, on March 22nd of this year a federal version of the law cleared the U.S. House of Representatives and is now pending in the Senate. In this episode of the Deep Dive we are joined by now Los Angeles County Second District Supervisor Holly Mitchell to talk about her landmark bill and where the CROWN Act might go from here. 

When Gov. Jerry Brown signed California's first-in-the-nation board diversity law (AB 979)  in 2018, he did so with the acknowledgement that it would likely be challenged in court and that it had "flaws" that "may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation." He proved prophetic, as in early April Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green sided with Judicial Watch, the activist group that had filed suit seeking to invalidate the law. But that hardly ends the story. While we watch to see if the state will appeal Judge Green's ruling, a new bill in the California Assembly (AB 1840) would actually expand the law's reach even further by adding numerous cultural groups and the disabled to those covered by the law. In this episode, SNCJ Managing Editor Rich Ehisen is joined by Jennifer Rubin, head of the ESG Practice Group for the Mintz law firm in San Diego, to better understand the law, the court case and the potential future of both as we go forward. 

After at least a decade of debate and dashed hopes, advocates for paid family leave in Maryland have finally seen their efforts rewarded as majority Democrats easily overrode Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) veto of a measure that makes the Old Line State the 10th to formally ensure workers can take paid time off to care for ill family members.  But while Maryland is the first this year to adopt a paid family leave law, it is not likely to be the last . At least 12 more states have pending paid family leave measures that would apply to both public and private sector workers, some of which would grant workers up to three months of paid leave in certain situations. 

The Federal Trade Commission says that over the past five years, Americans have reported losing $1.3 billion to online dating scams. According to the most recent FTC data, these scams are up nearly 80 percent since 2020, with approximately $547 million lost to swindlers in 2021 alone. Romance scams are now in fact the largest category of fraud now the FTC tracks.To talk about this and what lawmakers might be doing about it, SNCJ Managing Editor Rich Ehisen talks with correspondent Brian Joseph about his recent story on how lawmakers are addressing the scourge of romance scams. 

A growing number of U.S. states have imposed their own sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.  But are those sanctions legal? And what other tools might states have at their disposal to show support for the U.S. government's sanctions against Russia's universally-condemned actions against Ukraine? In this episode, Deep Dive host Rich Ehisen talks with U.C. Berkeley assistant professor of finance Anastassia Fedyk about state-level sanctions, the impact of free market actions against Russia and the pressure states will face in the light of President Biden blocking further imports of Russian oil and gas. 

The broad sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are complex on a level we have not seen before, making compliance a real challenge for the people and financial institutions tasked with implementing them. To better understand this situation and the challenges they present, host Rich Ehisen is joined for this episode of the Deep Dive by Dr. Christopher Swift, a partner and litigator with Foley & Lardner LLP and a member of Foley’s Government Enforcement Defense & Investigations Practice, where much of his focus is in the areas of national security and international law. Previous to joining Foley & Lardner, Swift served in U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, where he enforced sanctions targeting rogue states, terrorist syndicates, and weapons proliferators.In a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Swift explains why these sanctions are unique and offers practical insights for how financial institutions can best manage this historic situation. Dr. Swift's full bio is available here. 

Sanctions against foreign governments are usually the purview of the federal government, but states have a long history of imposing their own sanctions as well. Such is the case right now as numerous states have moved to impose sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In this week's show, Deep Dive host Rich Ehisen talks with Stateline reporter Sophie Quinton about her story from last week about how states are taking their own actions against Russian aggression, and how those actions might not be legally sound. If you want to read the story as well - and we think you should - you can do so here.