CPPG 2025 End of Session Report

Legislature Closes out 2025 Session

At approximately 3 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, September 13, the California State Legislature adjourned year one of its two-year legislative session. In the final days of the legislative session, advocates representing public entities, labor unions, private sector companies, and various trade associations worked around the clock to make final pitches to lawmakers and staff to advance client interests.

All told for this first year of session, the total number of measures that were introduced came in at 2,832, with approximately 890 bills advancing through the Legislature for Governor Gavin Newsom’s consideration. Hundreds of pending bills impacting local government touching on housing and land use and operations advanced this year. Due to a rule waiver, the Governor now has until October 13 to either sign or veto legislation. Unless a bill specifically states otherwise, all laws signed by the Governor will take effect on January 1, 2026. Any bill on which the Governor takes no action by the deadline will automatically become law without his signature.

Below is a high-level summary of some of the most intriguing storylines that played out at the end of the 2025 session. Should you have any questions regarding these, or any other piece of legislation, please contact CPPG staff.

KEY MEASURES OF INTEREST

• SB 840 (Limón) Greenhouse gases: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: studies.
  • Status: Governor’s desk
  • AB 1207 and SB 840 represent the Legislature’s agreement on California’s cap-and-trade program. AB 1207 reauthorizes the program—now renamed the California Cap-and-Invest Program—extending it through 2045. SB 840 provides the corresponding expenditure plan for the revenues generated. While a cap-and-trade framework had been anticipated since the start of the year, negotiations stretched through most of the legislative session without resolution by late August. Ultimately, lawmakers reached a deal that paired the long-term extension in AB 1207 with detailed appropriations laid out in SB 840.
• AB 339 (Ortega) Local public employee organizations: notice requirements.
  • Status: Governor’s desk
  • AB 339 was a reintroduction of a similar bill from last year, AB 2557 (Ortega). The bill requires public agencies to give a recognized employee organization no less than 45 days’ written notice regarding contracts to perform services that are within the scope of work of job classifications represented by the recognized employee organization.
• SB 707 (Durazo) Open meetings: meeting and teleconference requirements.
  • Status: Governor’s desk
  • SB 707 proposes a series of changes to the Brown Act. Introduced in late February, the bill underwent significant revisions over the following months. By July, it had absorbed several other measures aimed at expanding teleconferencing flexibility. These were AB 259 (Rubio), AB 409 (Arambula), AB 467 (Fong), and SB 239 (Arreguín). The bill had also been amended to include an extension of AB 992 (Mullin, 2020). In early September, the bill was amended to redefine “eligible legislative body,” effectively exempting most special districts from the requirement to provide remote public comment during open meetings of their boards of directors.
• SB 827 (Gonzalez) Local agency officials: training.
  • Status: Governor’s desk
  • SB 827 adds any department head or other similar administrative officer to the list of local officials that must complete ethics training at least once every two years. The bill also requires any local agency official who makes decisions or recommendations on the local agency’s financial administration, budgeting, or use of public resources to complete fiscal and financial training at least once every two years.

For any questions regarding CARPD's advocacy efforts, please contact our lobbying team at CPPG.