New year, same hustle: It’s bill season!

California legislators return to Sacramento today to kick off the second year of the Legislature’s two-year session. In addition to dealing with a state budget deficit projected to reach nearly $18 billion this year and a 2026 primary election, lawmakers will introduce and weigh in on new bills. Expect many: In 2025, more than 900 bills were sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

One proposal in the pipeline is a bill that would enable Californians to file lawsuits against federal agents. Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco drafted the bill in response to ongoing immigration raids under President Donald Trump. Assemblymember Mark González, a Los Angeles Democrat, also introduced a measure that aims to restore the 988 suicide and crisis hotline for LGBTQ+ callers in L.A. County, following Trump’s elimination of the specialized service.

California Republicans in the Senate also laid out their priorities going into the year, which would require considerable bipartisan support given the Democrat’s super-majority in the Legislature. The GOP’s top issues include funding the implementation of the anti-crime measure Proposition 36, investigating Medi-Cal fraud and addressing the state’s high cost of living. 

Many new California laws went into effect on Thursday as well, including ones that allow residents to get grant money for new roofs, require tortilla products to contain folic acid and mandate consumers to pay an extra fee on products with a non-removable battery. Read our rundown on the new laws that could affect your life, and check out the most talked-about measures from CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow.

Meanwhile, two state laws facing legal challenges from critics have been blocked by federal judges. One measure, which passed last year, grants the state more authority to regulate working conditions for private-sector employees. And on Friday a federal appeals court ruled that the state’s 2023 law restricting concealed firearms is unconstitutional.

Speaking of new bills, California lawmakers plan to reintroduce a proposal requiring parents or legal guardians to enroll their 5-year-olds in school. Though the Legislature has attempted to mandate kindergarten nearly a half dozen times in past years, some legislators are optimistic that a bill could advance this year, reports CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones.

Data shows that children who attend kindergarten have higher math and reading test scores, are more likely to graduate high school and are less likely to drop out of school. But while California requires all school districts to offer kindergarten, it doesn’t require families to enroll their children. 

State Sen. Susan Rubio, a West Covina Democrat, unsuccessfully proposed two bills to make kindergarten mandatory. One died in the appropriations committee in 2024; the other was spiked by Newsom in 2022, who cited budget restrictions. 

But this year could be different, Rubio says, because the Legislature experienced a significant turnover since it last voted on a kindergarten bill in 2024. Several legislators also said they’d consider sponsoring a kindergarten bill, and California’s public school chief Tony Thurmond pledged to support any bill that addresses it. 

Read more here.

This year marks Newsom’s last year as California’s governor. In this final year, how the governor responds to the state’s budget, housing and affordability issues could have a major effect on his expected bid for the presidency, writes CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang.

In the past seven years, Newsom expanded transitional kindergarten, created an office to control rising health care costs and enacted policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His policy and politics battles against the Trump administration, particularly in 2025, has also thrown Newsom into the national spotlight. 

But the governor has fallen short of some of his promises too, which he could continue to tackle in 2026: California housing costs are some of the highest in the nation and homelessness has increased under his tenure. Amid federal and state budget cuts, some advocates also worry that Newsom will walk away from his goal to expand health care coverage, such as when he proposed to freeze new Medi-Cal enrollments for undocumented immigrants.

Read more here.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to curb how license plate reader data is stored and used, citing a CalMatters report that found that some Southern California law enforcement agencies violated state law by sharing license plate information with federal agents. CalMatters’ Khari Johnson and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on the proposed rules as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.