SACRAMENTO – Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, unveiled legislation today to prevent the automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for people who are unable to pay fines or fees for minor traffic tickets and require courts to determine violators’ ability to pay before setting fine amounts.
OAKLAND — According to a lawsuit filed today by civil rights groups, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is violating the constitutional rights of homeless people by confiscating and destroying their property in ongoing sweeps.
California tenants have a new arrow in their quiver: a law to protect them from being unfairly placed on rental blacklists that jeopardize their credit ratings and shut them out of the housing market.
Signed this week by Gov. Jerry Brown, the measure is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. [2017] Unpopular with landlord groups, the bill was a squeaker in the Legislature, narrowly passing through the Assembly in May and the Senate in August.
Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill Number 2819! A California law to protect innocent tenants from damaged credit and blacklists if eviction actions are resolved in their favor.
Thousands of low-income Alameda County families will no longer pay juvenile probation and public defender fees. On July 12, 2016 the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to end the assessment and collection on all fees charged to parents and guardians with children in the juvenile justice system. The repeal, which is the first of its kind in the state, ends all fee assessment and collection, offering immediate relief to more than 2,900 families with outstanding debt and shielding thousands of families who pass through Alameda’s juvenile courts every year from future financial hardship.
Fueled by the injustice he encountered as a student advocate, Phil Hernandez ’16 has turned a simple idea into a California bill to protect tenants involved in eviction lawsuits.
This Isn’t My Debt: Consumerist feature on EBCLC’s SB 641
Governor Brown signs AB 816, an EBCLC sponsored bill that would facilitate the creation of worker-owned businesses in California.
The Fresno Bee Op-Ed by EBCLC’s Consumer Clinic Director Sharon Djemal, law student intern Darby Lin O’Donnell, and client Sharon Randall on the Economic Equity and Financial Stability Initiative of 2015.
EBCLC’s Director of Programs, Elisa Della-Piana, is featured in Berkeley Law’s story covering the report “Not Just a Ferguson Problem – How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California” on the need for traffic court reform.
