2014 Rings In New Laws For California

TOM FUDGE: Our top story on Midday Edition today, the first of the year is a handy date for putting new laws into effect and tomorrow we will see a few items delivered in the 2014 statutory gift bag. This includes laws on collecting data for rifle sales in California, and another the low student to identify with another gender to use that under other gender as restroom. Dan Eaton joins me to talk about laws coming your way in the new year. Happy New Year. Starting tomorrow January 1, California schools will allow students who identify with a sex other than their own to participate in single-sex activities and use single-sex facilities. Tell me more about this. DAN EATON: The actual operative language of the law is under forty words. Students in school will have to be allowed to participate in single-sex programs such as sports in connection with their gender identity even if it is different from their gender with which they were born. TOM FUDGE: In the minds of most people this means that a boy can use a girl's restroom? DAN EATON: Exactly what it means. A girl can be a member of the boy's basketball team or football team. TOM FUDGE: A lot of folks are not happy about this. DAN EATON: Within moments that Governor Brown signed this law, signatures were gathered and submitted - about 614,000 signatures - of which they have to have just under 505,000 signatures. Their positions are now under review. TOM FUDGE: Does it look like they're close to qualifying? DAN EATON: They are very close. I checked yesterday. They need just over 80% of the signatures to be valid. They are right about 79% now. TOM FUDGE: Okay, another law that takes effect this year, this law does not take effect until July. I'm talking about the hike in California minimum-wage. DAN EATON: It was last changed in 2008, it went to eight dollars an hour and in July 1 is going to jump to nine dollars an hour and then scheduled on January 1 to jump again. It's a substantial increase in California. TOM FUDGE: Will California have the highest minimum wage? DAN EATON: Washington has the highest state with minimum wage is $9.32. There is one city in Washington that has been minimum-wage of fifteen dollars. This is consistent with some other states like Connecticut that have increased their own minimum wages. TOM FUDGE: Obviously in California we have a high cost of living, that may have something to do with this. I think the national US minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. DAN EATON: $7.25 an hour. TOM FUDGE: I mentioned that because I think the minimum-wage increase is part of a national movement and a progressive movement leading up to the coming election. DAN EATON: According to a front-page story on the New York Times, President Obama and Democrats are planning to make this a big issue. There are certain economists that will tell you that raising the minimum wage will have a bad effect on employment. Apparently they want to praise the middle wage to $10.10 an hour. If it's higher than the California minimum-wage, the higher federal standards will apply. TOM FUDGE: So that is the California minimum-wage to go up in 2014. Another law, one involving guns. I think California's going to start treating rifles like they do handguns. Tell us about that. DAN EATON: This law goes into effect tomorrow and this was enacted into October 2011. In a plies the same standard of data collection from handguns into longer guns like rifles. There a lot of second amendment advocates saying that this is one step shy of gun registration. TOM FUDGE: How is this not gun registration if you're still keeping records? DAN EATON: Existing gun owners do not have to give this data to the California state Department of Justice. It only applies for gun sales and transfers. Gun owners themselves are not sending these information. It's the one to sell the guns. They are getting a lot of angst from law-abiding gun owners. TOM FUDGE: It sounds like a razor thin piece of papers between what this is doing and what registration is. DAN EATON: That is the concern because of course you have federal challenges working their way through the courts. The other 2008 decision on the federal court regarding an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. At some point, to start seeing challenges to these kinds of laws to the extent that they intrude on the rights of gun owners. TOM FUDGE: My guest is Dan Eaton, a San Diego attorney here to talk to us about laws the going to affect in 2014. One thing that could affect a lot of us, a new law in California that allows voters to demand a confirmation that their mail-in ballot was actually counted in the election. A lot of people vote by mail these days, what is going on? DAN EATON: I do except for the presidential election. This is a law that allows you to confirm whether or not your vote was actually counted. Or to tell you if it wasn't counted white was not. Because into effect right away. The voters registrars has to have free access to this information right away. TOM FUDGE: Can you imagine the situation where this law could cause a problem in election? DAN EATON: Sometimes we have very close elections. You'll have a lot of people overwhelming the system. The first case that this is tested may have implications in real time for elections. TOM FUDGE: It sounds like the county registrar is going to have to have a person check the vote and inform the voter that their vote is been counted. That will take some time and man hours. DAN EATON: The person will have to be involved but the checking presumably would be done by a computer. Someone has to do this in person at some point and that is where the complication will come in. TOM FUDGE: When I go to polling stations and put in my vote, there is no confirmation that I received that my vote is counted, this will be something different from mail-in ballots. DAN EATON: You're talking about recounts and such, those complications will come into play. When you talk about combining this with the Internet or phone numbers, you're talking about a great deal of angst only in close elections where this will come into play. TOM FUDGE: There is a wide margin in an election year. Another law concerns data that companies gather about us. What our company websites now supposed to do if they track consumer habits online? DAN EATON: This is about tracking information, there has been a lot of talk of in the media about the NSA and so on. This will require websites to be transparent about how they gather information. It does not require them to honor track requests. It does require them to tell you what their policies are there will be some kind of competitive pressure to make sure that companies honor the request to users. TOM FUDGE: The Wall Street Journal as had articles called what they know, and they do know quite a bit. It sounds like this law in California is not going to prevent them from the continuing to track me and my buying habits. DAN EATON: Not at all, but it will make it more obvious to you whether they are tracking. The Wall Street Journal found out that one visit to website causes fifty-three instances of tracking and that Bob is the mind. There's a lot of information be used and it is being used for targeted advertising and other commercial purposes, the idea is to make the consumer more aware of what is going on. TOM FUDGE: Put this into political context. I think you told me yesterday, you think this is due to toward the concerns of the NSA and concerns about surveillance. DAN EATON: I think that there is a greater concern that is one step closer to big brother watching you. There are some agencies that think we need this law. It is a step towards giving consumers greater control over who is watching them. TOM FUDGE: A couple other laws that we want to talk about, one of laws discrimination against veterans. DAN EATON: We are all familiar with employment laws that outlawed determination against gender and genetic identity and so on, and veteran status, there is no evidence that there is discrimination going on, but in San Diego as a big military town this is a big issue here. It's an important that veterans are not discriminated against. TOM FUDGE: Is this looking for a problem that we don't really know is even there? DAN EATON: Like most of the laws that we have talked about, it was largely spurred by anecdotal evidence. Proponents of the measure said that it should stop. TOM FUDGE: There a lot of new laws come into effect starting tomorrow. Another one, sexual harassment does not have to be tied to sexual attraction. Where does this come from? DAN EATON: Never did though, the law was very clear that sexual harassment is either because of sexual interest or because a person is a member of a particular gender, this is an effort by the legislature to clarify the law. The law was already fairly clear on this point. In this town we are particularly sensitive this. TOM FUDGE: Another law is telling me that I have to be nice to my kids, because I am not able to inherit my child's estate upon their death if my parental rights have been terminated, or if I'm estranged from my children. DAN EATON: Send the birthday card your children. TOM FUDGE: I'm nice to my children. DAN EATON: If you are not in communication, or if there is an estrangement there may be a problem. TOM FUDGE: Finally, there's an interesting new whistleblower law that involves ratting out immigrants to border patrol. DAN EATON: Unlawful immigrants who complain about unsafe working conditions or failure to pay wages on time or at all, if they complain they are employer cannot under this law use the threat of going to federal immigration authority to try to stop their speech. Undocumented workers are very vulnerable and this will help to protect them. TOM FUDGE: So illegal immigrants can still complain about the job. DAN EATON: Yes and if they are threatened by retaliation, they will have a separate cause of action to sue the employer. As these laws go up, labor officials are going to have a lot of additional work to do under this law. TOM FUDGE: Thank you for coming in, and Happy New Year.