Schiavo announces 2026 legislative package

Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, has introduced her 2026 legislative package, introducing and coauthoring a slate of bills focused on lowering costs, protecting consumers, strengthening public safety, supporting children and families, and addressing housing and public health challenges facing communities across Assembly District 40, according to a news release from her office. 

“Families across our community are working hard, and can still barely keep up with rising costs, whether it’s housing, health care, utilities, or child care,” Schiavo said in the release. “This legislative package is about making sure our state is working for people, not against them — lowering costs, protecting people from scams and exploitation, improving access to care, supporting survivors, and ensuring our communities are safe and healthy places to live.” 

The release provided the following summaries of the bills being introduced: 

• Timely Healthcare Act – Assembly Bill 539: This bill helps to hold insurance companies accountable and increase access to care by extending approved prior authorization to one year, reducing delays and costs and speeding up patient care. 

• Utility Rate Transparency Act – AB 1715: Makes sure utility companies receiving public grants or low-cost government loans are transparent and report the savings to ensure customers are not overcharged to bolster company profits — helping lower bills for ratepayers. 

• Healthcare Debt Protection Act – AB 2746: Protects patients’ credit scores and saves them from higher borrowing costs in the future by ensuring that medical credit card debt is treated the same as other medical debt, so it can’t be reported to credit agencies. 

• Protecting Families from Financial Delay Act – AB 1660: Ensures banks and financial institutions follow the law and promptly turn over financial information and assets when ordered by the court, such as when an individual without family dies. If they refuse or delay, courts can fine them — holding institutions accountable and protecting the financial security of vulnerable individuals and their estates. 

• Whistleblower Protection and Privacy Act – AB 2021: Helps protect personal and sensitive data, such as personal medical information or location, from misuse and abuse by establishing whistleblower protections for individuals who report illegal actions by companies to the California Privacy Protection Agency. 

• Protect Small Business from Predatory Lending Act – AB 2116: Creates clear rules for business financing companies so small businesses aren’t taken advantage of by predatory lenders. By requiring lenders to register with the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, this bill increases transparency, promotes fair competition, and helps small businesses access financing they can trust. 

• Stop the Scams Act – AB 2674: Requires state banks to implement fraud prevention procedures and intervene in suspicious transactions — protecting people’s hard-earned money — while establishing enforcement and liability protections for banks who protect their customers. 

• Planning for Childcare Access Act – AB 1914: This act recognizes child care as essential infrastructure by requiring cities and counties to incorporate child care into long-term growth strategies and general plans. 

• Multifamily Housing Fast-track Cleanup Act – AB 2390: Current law allows for rapid approval for some multifamily housing projects that meet very specific standards. This act will make sure that much-needed housing projects in the fast lane are not slowed down or saddled with major changes in building standards while in the approval process. 

• Sexual Predator Accountability Act – AB 2147: Helps protect and support crime survivors and improves the ability to prosecute perpetrators of serial sexual offenses occurring across multiple counties by allowing prosecutors to try the perpetrator in a single jurisdiction when at least one offense occurred there. 

• Human Trafficking Victim Support Act – AB 2720: Strengthens support for survivors of human trafficking by ensuring law enforcement agencies assign specially trained officers to handle these sensitive cases. 

• DUI Ignition Interlock Devices – AB 1830 (coauthor): Makes streets safer by requiring anyone convicted of a DUI to install an ignition interlock device, or a breathalyzer, where current law only requires one being installed after two or more DUIs. 

• Faster Services for Veterans Act – AB 2219: Ensures California’s veterans receive faster, more consistent, and higher-quality support by standardizing services across County Veteran Service Officers, reducing wait times through a statewide work queue, strengthening accountability, and ensuring local offices have the resources to effectively serve those who served. 

• Protecting Veteran Pension Act – SB 1407 (coauthor): Saves California’s veterans money by excluding military retirement pay and spouse payments until 2030. 

• Public Hospital Physician Stability Act – AB 2311: Helps struggling public hospitals maintain the workforce to serve local communities by allowing them to directly hire physicians — improving workforce stability, expanding access to care — while maintaining strict protections for independent clinical judgment. 

• Workplace Safety Inspector Study – AB 2488: Protects workers by requiring a study on staffing shortages within the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and how those gaps impact workplace safety, while advancing recommendations to strengthen recruitment, training, and career pathways for safety inspectors to ensure timely inspections and stronger on-the-job protections. 

• Landfill Safety Act – AB 28: Enhances monitoring, reporting and transparency of elevated temperature events at landfills in an effort to prevent public health emergencies. Requires landfill operators to submit corrective action plans to local enforcement agencies and notify impacted communities while imposing fees for noncompliance that fund community relief measures. 

• Electric Vehicle Charger Affordability Act – AB 1820: Lowers upfront costs for homeowners and businesses by making EV adoption more affordable. Caps excessive permitting fees for electric vehicle chargers by limiting local government charges to the actual cost of processing permits.

These bills will be heard in policy committees in the coming months, with opportunities for stakeholders and the public to provide input.  

The post Schiavo announces 2026 legislative package appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.