With each New Year come champagne, parties, kisses, hopes for a great new year but it also come with a set of new laws.Some of these are only applicable in California, some country wide.
Here are a couple that we here at DAU found interesting:
Plastic Bag Ban: Grocery stores across California must follow the lead of cities like Los Angeles and stop bagging items in single-use plastic bags and allowing them to charge 10¢ for paper bags, the first statewide plastic bag ban in the nation.
Birth: Birth certificates will receive a makeover in California to accommodate same-sex couples. Instead of being able to select only mother or father when identifying a parent, birth certificates will include “parent” as an option.
Eggs: Proposition 2 passed by California voters in 2008 outlaws cramped cages for egg laying hens and other animals. After a long delays farmers must comply in 2015. The measure prohibits ranchers from keeping chickens, veal’s, calves and breeding pigs in pens that are too small for them to stand up and turn around and stretch!
Homeowners Associations: Homeowner Associations can no longer fine residents who fail to water their grass during droughts. Also, they cant penalize residents who allow plants to die or install draught resistant landscaping.
Federal Employees: Federal employees including uniformed military service members will receive a 1% pay raise. This is as a result of an executive order 13686 by President Obama on December 19, 2014. Note that his does not apply to the President and his current salary of $400,000.00
Education: All public high schools will be required to submit grade point averages electronically for each graduating senior to the California Student Aid Commission to increase the number of students who receive Cal Grant award offers for higher education. Students or schools failing to send GPA information is among the more common reasons students don’t receive Cal Grants.
School pesticides: Parents will have the right to know what pesticides are used at K-12 schools and many licensed child care centers. Pesticides can be used on school campuses to get rid of cockroaches, vermin and weeds, but the new law will make chemical pesticides a last resort and increase disclosures of what is used.
What new laws do you find interesting?