California Must Change

DRC stands in total opposition to a new batch of bad bills in the state

California needs a radical shift in its policy direction on homelessness, mental health and public safety, and we need to build a new kind of opposition. The path we are currently racing down is one of cruelty, compounding harm on our most vulnerable friends, family and neighbors, and mass incarceration and criminalization of people who simply need help.

Our state has been in a housing crisis for years, one driven by money and development but upheld by these increasingly harsh and punitive policies. Housing insecurity and homelessness not only disproportionately impact people with existing disabilities, and in greater number black, brown, and multiply marginalized people, but creates new and greater disabilities in those impacted. Poverty is disabling.

Visual homelessness continues to grow as a political liability for policy makers in the state, yet these same policy makers choose to target this population and further tie together the crisis of homelessness, the broad issue of mental health needs, and the criminal legal system. Policies that have encouraged involuntary treatment, institutionalization, and forced conservatorship have expanded rapidly under Governor Gavin Newsom and for the sake of all Californians, we desperately need to change course.

Disability Rights California and many in the disability community demand change rooted in community demand. For too long, harmful legislation has passed with minimal input from disabled people and trusted advocates. Policy makers frequently engage too late, or not at all, with disability-led organizations. Simply being “at the table” has not stopped bad policies from becoming law, and the results of the current prevailing approach has been a continued slide into greater harm. Each legislative session has found policy proposals with worse and worse outcomes for disabled, poor, POC, and other marginalized communities.

Starting with SB 1338 (Umberg) also known as CARE Court, championed by the Governor, big city mayors and nearly unanimously supported in the Legislature, California has moved in this direction and has not looked back. CARE Court established a system for people living with certain mental health diagnoses to enter a court and undergo forced mental health treatment.

Following CARE Court was SB 43 (Eggman), the expansion of the definition of “gravely disabled,” making it easier to conserve people with mental health disabilities.

Next came Proposition 1, a ballot measure and the culmination of the Governor’s massive effort over the last several years to remake mental health services in California. This disturbing policy subjected more people to involuntary detention and treatment without any evidence to support the approach.

One of the primary groups in building this direction has been the California State Association of Psychiatrists (CSAP). In a 2022 letter, they praised Governor Newsom for his CARE Court proposal. They sponsored SB 43 and continue to work alongside legislators to author bad bills. CSAP is a powerful and dangerous organization that does not work with community members with lived experience and pushes forward the worst and most harmful policies.

As we enter into the unofficial second half of the California Legislative Session, DRC would like to inform the community about several bills that we oppose, bills that progress this disturbing creep toward further alignment of poverty, mental illness, and mass incarceration. Our opposition on these bills is absolute, we are not interested in pursuing negotiations and amendment on legislation that is explicitly harmful to our people and driven by agendas and that have not included the consideration and collaboration of impacted communities from the outset.

These bills must die:

SB 27 (Umberg) – Umberg has gotten a CARE Court update bill passed every year since its inception, each of which has increased its coercion and expanded its reach. This bill would vastly widen the kind of diagnoses that justify the state for involuntary commitment and treatment, and would expedite their ability to do so, significantly eroding due process. The bill pushes to secure more funding for the court system not and not to expand actual health services. This is the scariest and most central bill in pushing this awful policy direction aggressively forward. Legislators who originally voted for Care Court said it was limited and narrowly focused. Now those same legislators face a choice: will they back this sweeping expansion?

SB 258 (Wahab) - This bill criminalizes intimate relationships for individuals with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) by ignoring their capacity to consent. It is part of a troubling part of this policy direction that seeks to parent adults by the state and carve away at people’s autonomy and right to self-determination.

SB 331 (Menjivar) - This bill would classify any diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a “mental health disorder” eligible for involuntary commitment. This would mean that people could be forced into locked wards even if their only diagnosis is, for example, gender dysphoria (the diagnosis many trans people need to obtain insurance coverage for gender-affirming care,) caffeine withdrawal, or restless leg syndrome.

SB 367 (Allen) – A bill that would make it easier to lock people into conservatorships and harder to get them out. This bill has been moved to a two year bill but remains part of the overall ideological drive.

SB 664 (Ochoa-Bogh) - The bill creates a statewide DMV program where disabled individuals carry a blue envelope to disclose their condition during police encounters. It's voluntary, for now, but it sets the stage for forced compliance, deeper police entanglement, and potential pathways to institutionalization. It also funnels even more money into law enforcement, not true solutions. It was moved to a two-year bill. Disabled people have expressed time and time again that we do not want to be put on a registry, especially one that is monitored by the DMV or law enforcement.

SB 820 (Stern) - This bill would create a new way to expedite involuntary medication orders for jailed misdemeanor defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial. It is pushing harsh involuntary mental health approaches, forcibly medicating more and more citizens with less and less cause.

ACR 60 (Pacheco) - ACR 60 promotes the “special needs sticker” program in Whittier, where disabled individuals are encouraged to mark their homes and vehicles for law enforcement. This kind of labeling does nothing to reduce police violence, and instead only expands surveillance of disabled people.

California continues to propose dangerous policies targeting disabled people without any evidence to show that these are solutions that disabled people want or that these policies work toward the common good. The harm of these policies continues to compound, and as new bills sprout up, we will add to this list and do everything in our power to stop them and shine a light on those responsible.

As our understanding of disability continues to grow and expand, we need all Californians to stand with the movement for Disability Justice & Disability Rights, because the continued creep of this trend in policy will, whether sooner or later, reach us all.

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Eric Harris is Disability Rights California’s Associate Executive Director of External Affairs with an extensive career working closely with disability leaders, community members, and elected officials throughout the country to progress change for the disability community.