Not sure what it’s like in other states, but in California:
SACRAMENTO — Tighter gun controls, new rights for immigrants and a measure increasing access to abortion are among many hundreds of California laws that take effect with the new year.
Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature also restricted the controversial oil-drilling technique known as fracking and allowed transgender students to choose which school restrooms to use and sports teams to join, based on their gender identity.
California’s willingness to address contentious policy issues, many of which have remained suspended in Washington’s partisan divide, comes in the state’s new era of one-party rule. Democrats hold the governor’s office, every other statewide post and supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature – political dominance not seen here in more than a century.
While Congress was gridlocked on immigration issues last year, for example, Brown and state lawmakers approved more than a dozen bills on the subject.
One bars local law enforcement officials from detaining immigrants in the country illegally longer than necessary so that federal immigration authorities can take them into custody, if they are accused of only minor crimes. Immigrants would have to be charged with or convicted of a serious offense to merit a 48-hour hold and transfer to U.S. immigration officials under the controversial new measure known as the Trust Act.
The stricter gun controls were enacted in the wake of the 2012 shooting deaths of 20 students and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
~~~ California’s minimum wage will rise to $9 an hour from $8, for example, but not until July 1. It will climb to $10 by January 2016.
And a new law permitting driver’s licenses for immigrants who are in the country illegally will start Jan. 1, 2015, after new DMV guidelines are developed. The agency has said it may be able to issue the first licenses late this year, if public hearings and the drafting of rules go smoothly.
~~~ Changing gender: New procedures make it easier for transgender people to amend the gender and name on their birth certificates.
Infertility treatment: Health insurance companies are required to cover infertility treatment for same-sex couples.
Transgender students: Students are entitled to compete on gender-specific sports teams, and use locker rooms and restrooms, based on their gender identity rather than their sex. This law could be put on hold if a proposed referendum on it qualifies for the statewide ballot.
~~~ Food stamps: The income limit for Cal-Fresh eligibility is changed, allowing 227,000 more people to participate in the food stamp program.
