California Legislation, Regulations & Policy
CWA has a long history of advocating for children and families in California, through sponsoring and supporting legislation, budgetary requests, and simply educating our representatives in Sacramento about WIC and the benefits and support it provides to their constituents. WIC is the state’s largest nutrition and lactation public health workforce, an excellent resource for decision makers as they consider policy that will impact how the needs of local families are met. CWA works to make sure that California’s legislators are knowledgeable about WIC and have good access to WIC’s wealth of knowledge!
Bills that CWA sponsors, supports, or is monitoring are summarized below.
CWA 2024 Bill List
AB-518 - Paid family leave: eligibility: care for designated persons
CWA Position: Support
SB-1016 - Latino and Indigenous Disparities Reduction Act
CWA Position: Support
AB-2090 - Office of Farm to Fork: food deserts: transportation
CWA Position: Watch
SB-949 - Superior court: lactation accommodation
CWA Position: Support
AB-1975 - Medi-Cal: medically supportive food and nutrition interventions
CWA Position: Support
AB-1965 - Public health: Office of Tribal Affairs
CWA Position: Support
SB-600 - California CalFresh Minimum Benefit Adequacy Act of 2023
CWA Position: Support
AB-311 - California Food Assistance Program: eligibility and benefits
CWA Position: Support
SB-245 - California Food Assistance Program: eligibility and benefits
CWA Position: Support
AB-2263 - The California Guaranteed Income Study and Funding Act
CWA Position: Support
SB-1090 - Unemployment insurance: disability and paid family leave: claim administration
CWA Proposed Position: Support
AB-2123 - Disability compensation: paid family leave
CWA Position: Support
AB-2527 - Incarceration: pregnant persons
CWA Proposed Position: Support
AB-1830 - Corn masa flour: folic acid fortification
CWA Position: Support
AB-3059 - Human milk
CWA Position: Support
AB-2901 - School and community college employees: paid disability and parental leave
CWA Proposed Position: Support
AB-2110 - Medi-Cal: Adverse Childhood Experiences trauma screenings: providers
CWA Proposed Position: Support
CWA 2024 Budget Requests
Hunger and Nutrition
Preserve CNIP (Market Match) Funding
CalWORKs Work Incentive Nutrition Supplements
Adopt the Governor’s Proposal for Minimum Nutrition Benefit Pilot
Maximize the new federal Summer EBT program
Enhance Summer EBT with an additional $80 monthly benefit
Universal Summer Meal Access
Medi-Cal
Ensure and strengthen continuous coverage enrolled children and families
- Allow people to keep their Medi-Cal coverage for a full 12 months, regardless of changes in their income.
- Direct California to seek federal approval, when necessary, to make permanent the federal Medi-Cal flexibilities to reduce and remedy procedural terminations, simplify income verification requirements, increase automatic Medi-Cal renewals, and improve program outreach and customer service.
- Sufficiently fund the multi-year continuous Medi-Cal enrollment (MYCE) protection for young children to meet the January 2025 planned start date. This will ensure that children under the age of five can keep their Medi-Cal coverage without any annual redeterminations which can cause loss of coverage often due to administrative hurdles.
CalWORKs
Reject proposed double-cut to Safety Net Reserve and CalWORKs
Build on Governor’s proposed TANF pilot application to Reimagine CalWORKs
- limit family sanctions to federal requirements
- empower families to self-determine their participation activities
- permanently repeal the county WPR penalty pass-through
Ultimately, the pilot is an opportunity to continue California’s leadership in driving national reforms that strengthen TANF at the federal level and transforming the lives of children experiencing poverty across the county.
End poverty in CalWORKs and SSI/SSP
2023 Final Bill Monitor Report
2019 Final Bill Monitor Report
2018 Final Bill Monitor Report
2017 Final Bill Monitor Report
2016 Final Bill Monitor Report
2015 Final Bill Monitor Report
2014 Final Bill Monitor Report
2013 Final Bill Monitor Report
Vendor Rules
Summary of New CA WIC Vendor Rules, April 2014
CWA Position on Vendor Moratorium, March 2012