Every spring, LSPC and All of Us or None organize Quest for Democracy (Q4D)—a large-scale statewide rally at the California State Capitol with legislative advocacy visits led by formerly incarcerated people and families with incarcerated loved ones. Q4D provides an opportunity for people to come out and support formerly and currently incarcerated people in our fight for inclusion, and our determination to speak in our own voice.
Our goals are to:
- Release incarcerated people,
- Restore the human and civil rights of formerly incarcerated and convicted individuals,
- Reunify system-impacted families, and
- Provide Relief to impacted people and communities.
The platform is broken down into four tracks, each one connected to our goals above.
Release
SB 1009: Community First, Detention Last Act (Becker)
📍Status: Passed 7-0 at April 13 hearing to Senate Appropriations. Placed on suspense file. No date yet.
This bill addresses gaps in California’s youth detention laws by establishing a clear evidentiary standard for pre-adjudication detention, clarifying the basis on which youth may be detained in juvenile hall, providing youth with a meaningful opportunity for courts to reconsider the necessity of continued detention in juvenile hall, and strengthening the legal requirements governing custodial placement
decisions at disposition.
AB 2122: Bench Warrant Bill (Kalra)
📍Status: Amended and passed 7-2 at April 14 hearing. Re-referred to Assembly Appropriations. No date yet.
This bill would prohibit the issuance of a warrant of arrest from a judge (a “Bench Warrant”), when the underlying crime is an infraction, such as failure to appear, failure to pay bail, or a fine imposed for the violation of a state or local traffic law.
AB 1647: The Juvenile Potential Protection Act (JPPA) (Bryan)
📍Status: Public Safety April 20.
AB 1647 aims to reduce transfers of youth to the adult system, and ensure that young people have an opportunity to speak at their transfer hearings without those statements being used against them later in related proceedings.
Restore
AB 2095: Fair Chance Improvement Act (Lee)
📍Status: Passed 7-3 on April 14. Re-referred to Assembly Appropriations. No date yet.
This bill aims to improve the California Fair Chance Act (FCA), which went into effect in 2018, expanding employment opportunities for millions of Californians. This bill will close loopholes that currently allow employers to still unfairly deny qualified candidates. If passed, this bill will strengthen the Fair Chance Act to better accomplish its original goal to remove unfair barriers to stable employment for people with records.
Budget Request (McKinnor): Jails to Jobs (J2J) (more information to come)
📍Status:
This budget request would invest $40 million as a one-time investment in the State’s FY2026-27 budget to launch “Jails to Jobs” (J2J), a three-year, multi-county pilot program integrating workforce development for Californians into pretrial proceedings.
The first pilot cohort would include Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Santa Clara counties, where local partners are prepared to demonstrate how embedding workforce development and meaningful employment pathways at the pretrial stage can expand economic mobility, enhance public safety, help meet urgent workforce needs, and lay the groundwork for a future statewide model.
AB 2483: Wildland firefighters: Formerly Incarcerated Firefighter Certification and Employment Program (Elhawary)
📍Status: Re-referred to Committee on Public Employment and Retirement. April 22
This bill would implement a process to issue official certifications for all trainings completed by incarcerated hand crews in the Conservation Camp Program. The bill would also create a permanent pathway to good jobs and gainful employment for formerly incarcerated hand crews who wish to pursue careers in firefighting upon release. The agencies do not currently have a process to issue official certifications for every completed training. This means that incarcerated individuals are putting in the work to fulfill these essential training requirements but are not receiving the recognition and credentialing. Without these certifications, incarcerated individuals can’t qualify for entry-level positions in firefighting upon release, and would likely have to recomplete them, which can be both costly and cumbersome. It makes little sense for the state to expend the time and resources to train incarcerated people in firefighting skills only to deny them the certificates they’ve earned.
Reunify
AB 1646: The HUG Act (Bryan)
📍Status: Passed public safety committee 7-0, referred to appropriations. No date yet.
This bill ensures that young people confined in a juvenile hall or facility are able to have physical contact during in-person visits, ensuring that parents can hug and hold hands with their children when visiting.
AB 1645: The HUGS Act (Gonzalez & Bryan)
📍Status: Referred to Assembly Appropriations. Placed on suspense file. No date yet.
The HUGS Act ensures that normal, appropriate physical contact—such as hugging, holding hands, and comforting children—is clearly allowed in prison visiting rooms by defining and limiting what can be considered “excessive contact.” It aims to prevent visits from being unfairly restricted or terminated, while supporting family connection, emotional well-being, and successful rehabilitation
AB 1201:The ReUNITY Act (Jackson)
📍Status: July 1, 2025: Set, first hearing. Hearing canceled at the request of author. Bill turned into a two-year bill awaiting to be heard on the senate floor.
California’s family policing system (child welfare system) disproportionately harms low-income families and communities of color through “automatic bypass” laws that order permanent placements when the parents have experienced chronic substance abuse or prior terminations of parental rights, denying parents access to reunification services without evaluating their current circumstances.
The ReUNITY Act replaces automatic exclusions based on violent felony convictions with trauma-informed, evidence-based evaluations in specific cases, thus ensuring more equitable outcomes for families.
SB 498: Prison Communications (Becker)
📍Status: The bill will be introduced soon.
This bill would provide free phone calls lasting longer than 15 minutes and free texts for people in California prisons to strengthen bonds between incarcerated people and their loved ones.
AB 2434 (Bonta) Visitor Protections and Safety Act
📍Status: Passed out of Public Safety on April 14. 8-1. Re-referred to Assembly Appropriations
The Visitor Protections and Safety Act will protect visitors from arbitrary and discriminatory visit denials in CDCR prison visiting rooms. The bill would establish clear, enforceable standards limiting when a visit can be denied, requiring written documentation any time a visitor is turned away, and establishing guardrails for searches. AB 2434 strengthens existing CDCR search regulations for prison visitation. Such regulations include searches that are non-contact; same-gender; private; and witnessed by a second same-gender staff member.
Relief
AB 2428: End Poverty Fees (Rodriguez)
📍Status: Passed out of Public Safety on April 16 8-0. Amended and re-referred to Assembly Appropriations. Will be heard on May 6, 2026.
This bill would eliminate poverty fees statewide. In California, “poverty fees” include fees for bounced checks, fees to enter into payment plans, and fees to participate in community service, which are charges that burden the people least able to pay, with little benefit to public safety or government revenue.
AB 1537: No Side Jobs for ICE (Rodriguez)
📍Status: Passed out of Public Safety 5-3. Re-referred to Assembly Appropriations. No date yet.
This bill would enact a ban in California on local and state law enforcement officers from engaging in secondary employment with ICE, CBP, or other entities engaged in the arrest or detention of immigrants, including private security companies which contract with ICE.
SB 1095: Expose Data Deportation Centers Fusion Centers (Perez)
📍Status: Passed out of committee April 13 7-1. Referred to Public Safety April 21
SB 1095 would limit the sharing of information between fusion centers and federal immigration enforcement agencies. This bill would help prevent state and local law enforcement data from being used in immigration enforcement.
AB 1932 C.R.I.S.E.S. Act 2.0 (Elhawary)
📍Status: Passed out of committee April 14. 6-0. Referred to Assembly Judiciary
AB 1932 reauthorizes the Community Response Initiative to Strengthen Emergency Systems (CRISES) program, originally established by AB 118 (Kamlager, 2021). The program funds community-based alternatives to law enforcement as first responders in crisis situations that are not related to fire department or emergency medical service (EMS) response.
AB 2499: Climate Justice in Prison (Gipson)
📍Status: Passed Assembly Public Safety 3/24, Ref. Labor & Employment 4/22. Sent to Assembly Appropriations. Will be heard on on May 6, 2026
AB 2499, formerly put forth as AB 1424 (2025), would expand worker rights to include incarcerated people, adding protections from dangerous work conditions due to extreme weather by setting indoor temperature standards, improving emergency plans, and strengthening safety measures.
