California Politics 360 Full Episode | New laws taking effect in 2026
On California Politics 360, we dive deep into a handful of new laws impacting Californians.
New year, new laws, the changes impacting your next grocery run. Developing more housing by transit hubs, how soon we could see crews break ground, more transparency on the price of cars, and new protections for people buying used. Preserving California history. We have 4 million books. We have hundreds of thousands of photographs, an inside look into the living archive of the state’s 175 years and counting. By bringing it here, it really expands who it’s available to in the future. You are playing *** part in preserving California history. Thank you for joining us for this week’s California Politics 360. I’m Ashley Zaballa. As we ring in 2026 this week, dozens of new state laws will take effect in California. Today we’re going to break down *** few of those new laws. We start with *** ban on plastic bags. Starting January 1st, grocery stores will no longer be. Able to sell plastic bags at all. Technically, California banned those bags in 2014, but it left an exception for thicker plastic bags that could be reused multiple times. This new law closes that loophole. Earlier I met with Nate Rose with the California Grocers Association. Here’s our conversation. Nate, thank you so much for making time for us. Yes, thank you for having me. Nate. What should people expect when they come to the grocery store starting in 2026 with this ban in effect? Yes, that classic paper or plastic moment will be gone from the grocery store experience. Reusable plastic bags won’t be for sale anymore when you’re checking out. We’ll still have paper available and you can bring your reusable bags from home, but we really want to encourage people to reduce waste, use less plastic, and that will be *** part of the grocery shopping experience going forward. Grocers been preparing for this. We’ve had *** couple of years to get ready, so I’m not really expecting any hiccups. You know anytime there’s *** supply chain change, there’s *** little bit of *** pinch, and the bags, paper bags are *** little bit more expensive than plastic, so it’s possible you might have to pay *** little bit more than the classic 10 cents when you’re grocery shopping. Yes, so for example, like right now *** Trader Joe’s and some other smaller stores might only sell paper bags, but that 10 cents charge, it could be. Depending on the store and location in California, is that right? Yes, that’s exactly right. And *** lot of it depends on the size of the grocer. So *** large grocer it might be easier for them to spread that cost across many locations, but for *** smaller independent store, you know, they might have to recoup some of that, the fact that it is more expensive than the reusable plastic with those thicker plastic bags that were meant to be reusable, I mean, were grocery stores finding that people were reusing them, or is that sort of the push behind the ban we’re seeing now? Yes, that’s what they were always. Meant to be they were always not meant to be disposable. They’re meant to be brought back into the store. They could hold up over many uses. I think there was *** sense, especially coming out of the pandemic, that people just weren’t using them that way anymore. Maybe the 10 cents wasn’t enough or maybe it goes back to when we banned bringing reusable bags into the stores because we’re afraid that COVID might spread that way. So yeah, people sort of lost the habit. That’s the sense, and we need to get back to the original spirit of the law which was really to bring your reusable bags from. Home and to reduce waste. All right, Nate Rose with the California Groceries Association. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me. There are several new laws taking effect impacting California businesses. Edie Lambert takes *** look at the changes. Eli Nunez is here, an HR director with the California Employers Association. Thank you so much for being here. I think one of the big new headlines for the year for businesses and workers is the minimum wage. I didn’t realize until learning from your organization. That there’s also *** minimum salary for exempt employees. So let’s talk through the new numbers and then what happens if you get your first paycheck of the year and you don’t see that raise reflected? Sure, well, hourly minimum wage is increasing to $16.90 effective January 1st, and that also has *** ripple effect because in California exempt salaries have to be at least 2 times the hourly minimum wage, which is going to equal up to $70,304 starting January 1st. So that’s about *** $2000 increase over what they were this year. The important thing to keep in mind is if you get your first check next year and you notice that something’s wrong, you’re not making minimum wage or whatever it is, talk to your payroll department immediately to see what needs to be done to correct that. OK, so go straight in right away. Definitely talk to your manager, talk to the HR or payroll, whoever’s in charge of that in your organization. So speaking of payroll. We have deductions now for tips for overtime, which is time and *** half, um, so up to $12,500 will not be taxed for overtime, $25,000 for the, for your tips not taxed this coming year. Um, what should people know looking at their paycheck? What’s what? Well, the big thing is, I mean this is part of the one big beautiful bill that passed, and when it comes to overtime, it’s important to keep in mind that that applies to federal overtime, which is any hours worked over 40 in the work week. Um, in California we get overtime for any hours worked over 8 as well, but that may not necessarily be part of that deduction for employees, so it’s important to keep that in mind. As far as for tipped income, you know, it’s record keeping is going to be very important for that as well. Employers have to keep track of that and make sure they’re reporting that to their employees at the end of the year so they can take those deductions as necessary. OK, so you should have some kind of documentation saying this is what your tips look like. Absolutely, and usually that shows up either in your W-2 at the end of the year or some other kind of document. OK. Immigration enforcement has been *** big issue with new legislation starting in March. Employers. Must allow employees to designate an emergency contact. So if they are detained at work or during work hours, their employer would have to make that phone call. Yes, they have to notify whoever is the designated contact. Failure to do so, of course, does come with penalties. In California, we have the carrot and we have the stick. This is the stick at this point. So those penalties can be up to $500 per day if the employer does not contact the emergency contact, all the way up to $10,000. So it can definitely get expensive, OK, and the goal here is so that people don’t just disappear and their loved ones and have no idea what, right? Ultimately it’s like an employee safety situation, right? If your employees are not going to be able to make it home, you want their loved ones or whoever is in charge of their household or kids to be able to know and make the correct preparations. And also right along with this, California employers will not be able to give consent to agents coming into areas that are considered. Private, how would you know if an area is considered off limits to that or private unless the agents have *** court order and then they can go where they need to go? Correct? Correct. If agents have *** judicial warrant, then that allows them access into private areas. We recommend that employers go through their job sites and if there’s any areas that are private that are employees only, I always use the example of *** restaurant. You don’t want customers going back into the kitchens or anywhere where they could get hurt. Put up signs say employees only, private, restricted access, that sort of thing. And just make sure that they’re clearly labeled. You can even have some kind of preparation drill or anything in case you do have *** visit, so you know what to do in case you are visited by immigration or law enforcement. Artificial intelligence, of course, is becoming *** bigger issue in so many areas and including now it looks like employee law. So this new law takes effect, actually it started in October, that employers are liable for discrimination caused by these automated systems or AI. What would that? Kind of discrimination look like. For instance, there’s been situations where employers use artificial intelligence to go through resumes or applications, and they found out that that artificial intelligence was rooting out people that were maybe *** certain race or *** certain age, and it was just bringing that on the resumes and kind of exempting them from the candidate pool. It was having *** basically *** negative impact on the group of people. So that’s what that would look like. So it’s up to employers to make sure that if they are using AI or any other kind of automated system. That they’re auditing the results to make sure that there is no kind of negative impact on *** certain group of people. I was going to ask you how you would even catch that. OK, so you’d need to screen yourself and make sure that that’s not being employed. Absolutely. And part of that, the new regulations mean that any kind of decision made by AI or an automatic or automated decision system has to be audited by some kind of human from the organization. All right, Eli, thank you so much. Really interesting information heading into this new year. Ashley, back to you. California taking steps to increase housing. The new law changing the rules to put more housing options by transit. Soon *** new California law will try to encourage housing around transit hubs. Starting July 1st, zoning standards will change around train stations, ferry terminals, and bus rapid transit stops. It will allow apartment buildings and other multi-family homes up to 9 stories near those stops. I spoke with Nolan Gray with California Yes in My Backyard. Here’s our conversation. Nolan, thank you so much again for joining us on California Politics 360. Thanks for having me, Ashley. Nolan, so first I want to just start with, uh, we’ve heard about *** lot of housing laws that have passed not just last year but in the years previously. I mean, what exactly will this do and how is this any different? Well, we know that California has *** debilitating housing shortage, especially in the Bay Area, Metro Los Angeles. The typical family in California no longer has *** path to homeownership. We have the highest rate of renters who are spending. Over *** third or 50% of their income on rent. And then of course we have the largest homelessness population in the country. So in recent years, the state has passed *** lot of legislation to try to get the state building housing again. SB 79 narrows one common sense best practice aspect of that, which is building more housing near transit, building housing where in many cases demand is highest, where people can live car light or car-free if they like to, where they have easy access to job centers. And so SB 79 requires cities to come up with *** plan to allow housing near transit, and many cities have already done this work. And I mean with this law and it’s as it was making its way through the California legislature, there were several, I mean pretty densely populated suburban areas that were carved out of it, for example, in the Bay Area, Marin County, Contra Costa County. I mean how effective can this be if you know there’s there’s not that linkage to the suburban areas? It’s *** great question. You know, as the housing advocacy organization, of course we would like to see as much housing built all across California, and you’re right, there’s significant need in places like. Marin County, uh, you know, the bill really focuses on what we’re calling urban transit counties, so counties that have *** lot of transit. There are *** lot of connections. Uh, Building housing near transit really will make it easier for people to get to job centers. And so that’s mainly the more densely populated areas of the Bay Area, Sacramento County, Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County. Those are the most transit rich parts of the state, and I think the most appropriate places to start on *** lot of this work, the places where the need is most acute. From your perspective, I mean, how soon could we see the impacts of SB 79? Well, the law takes effect on July 1st of 2026, so implementation will start. You know, of course development takes time, so it could take *** year or two years before the first projects start wrapping up construction at the earliest. And then beginning with the seventh cycle of our housing element reviews in 2031 in the major cities, then the law will take full effect, and that’s when we’ll probably start to see *** lot more housing being built. So you know these things take time, of course we have *** crisis right now, and so hopefully cities move quickly and are *** little bit more. the law requires. This is one push in many to address California’s housing crisis. What would you like to see the California legislature zero in on when they return in January to also consider new housing proposals? Well, we have to get the cost of construction down, so we’ve made *** lot of progress removing regulatory barriers to building housing. We’ve made *** lot of progress streamlining the permitting process, but because our construction costs are so high, the cost to actually build the housing is so high, in many cases projects just don’t pencil. So even if they’re allowed and they can get permits, it’s hard for *** developer to go out and get financing and build the project. So we have to reduce that thicket of state and local regulations that drive up costs in *** way that maybe isn’t necessarily tailored to health and safety, but that drives up costs for superfluous reasons. So that’s going to be really, really key, dealing with things like impact fees, which are incredibly high in California, dealing with building code mandates that don’t necessarily make *** lot of sense, getting more projects to pencil, I think, should be the priority of the legislature in 2026. All right, Nolan Gray with California UMB, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. New protections for car buyers. The changes taking effect in late 2026 to make the process of buying *** car more transparent. California is adding new protections for car buyers. Starting October 1st, people can return *** used car for *** refund within 3 days of buying it. The new law also improves transparency on pricing. I spoke with Brian Moss, the president and CEO of the California New Car Dealers Association. Here’s our conversation. Brian, thank you so much for being with us. Thanks for having me here. So let’s start with the first in the nation law that will allow buyers to essentially return *** used car within 3 days of purchase. How are car dealers preparing for that? For about 20 years now, car dealers have offered *** 2 day option that consumers could purchase to return *** car, so this is *** modification of that. Instead, *** consumer gets 3 days to return *** vehicle so long as they don’t drive too many miles and they can return *** used car within that. 3 day period they may have to pay *** restocking fee, but it’s *** first in the nation right. No other state offers this. Will that one extra day really make *** lot of difference in your eyes? No, probably not, but people are used to *** 3 day return right for products sold in the home, so I think there was some symmetry to that. And when we negotiated with The legislature felt that that was an appropriate amount of time. Sure, car buyers, when they’re purchasing *** car, whether that’s new or used, sometimes they don’t know the price of the vehicle until they really start negotiating at the dealership. Some of the laws that are set to take effect in 2026 would require more transparency when it comes to that pricing. I mean, do car dealers, do you all have any stance or response to that now that that could be in effect? Yes, we helped negotiate the language in the bill and wanted to make it clear that when *** dealer advertises *** vehicle, they’re advertising the total price as defined in the law. There’s not going to be any gimmicks. People will know that the advertised price is the price they’re going to pay for the vehicle when they come on the lot, and that was important. It’s good to have consistency amongst all dealers, new car dealers that we represent, and used car dealers, so customers have an understanding if they see an ad. And *** price is advertised, that’s what they’re going to pay. The bill offer and lawmakers who supported these measures that will take effect, they wanted to essentially improve the experience at dealerships across the state, noting some of the challenges that buyers can face when they’re trying to purchase *** vehicle. Is that, do you agree with that? Did that experience need to improve here in California, even though we do have *** lot of buyers’ protections already in place? Uh, we’re always interested in working with the legislature to make the car buying process more transparent, uh, and we were willing to roll up our sleeves and negotiate the language in this bill. To be honest, our new car dealer members do *** pretty good job of being transparent about pricing and what have you. This affects all dealers from new car dealers to used car dealers, so we felt an obligation to try and get this thing right. And make sure it’s something our dealers could comply with and the consumers would benefit from. All right, Ryan Moss, we really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Preserving California history, we take *** trip down to the California State Library. In California’s 175 years of statehood, there’s been so much history, and there’s one place that’s dedicated to preserving it. Lisa Gonzalez takes us inside the California State Library. In the hustle and bustle at the state capitol, there’s *** quieter place not too far away where people from across the state seek out answers and history. My name is Alex Vasser. I’m the communications manager at the state library. Alex, you could say, is somewhat of an expert at the California State Library. I’ve written several books on California history. He’s worked for the state for 20 years, the past 8 here. The opportunity to work at the state library and see where we’ve been. It kind of gives insights into where we’re going. From the moment you walk in, visitors are captivated by *** poem written by California’s first poet laureate. Ina Kubrith was *** poet who wrote *** lot about California history and California as *** place and *** people, and there’s so much to explore. We have 4 million books. We have hundreds of thousands of photographs. We have maps, journals, stories hidden in every aisle. This is the very first newspaper ever printed in California. And in some places that’s heavily guarded. There is *** room at the library called the vault, and it is where we keep the rarest and most interesting materials. In this massive collection of books, photos, and journals, the oldest item at the library is this clay tablet dating back to 5000 BC. That’s about the size of *** piece of ravioli. They tell us it’s the equivalent of an Amazon receipt. It notes that delivery was made and identifies what was in that delivery. We’re in the California Rare Book Room. This is where the library brings the rarest of rare materials for researchers and the public to view. So my favorite item in our California history collection is this book, and it originally started as loose leaf papers. During the first session of the legislature, there was an assemblyman named Bradford, and he went around and he I guess you could say interviewed the other members of the legislature and said, Hey, what’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your history? How did you come to California? It’s amazing to just see the pages and think, yeah, this was just *** person taking time to document California history. The mission to preserve California history has continued for the past 175 years and counting. By bringing it here, it really Expands who it’s available to in the future, uh, and, and that’s just, it’s, it’s *** really rewarding feeling knowing that you are, you are playing *** part in preserving California history. So the next time you stop at the California State Library, take *** moment to walk in the center of the rotunda and quietly tap your foot to be amazed by the wonders inside. Lisa Gonzalez, California Politics 360. Thank you for joining us for this week’s California Politics 360. See you next Sunday.
California Politics 360 Full Episode | New laws taking effect in 2026
On California Politics 360, we dive deep into a handful of new laws impacting Californians.
Updated: 8:27 AM PST Dec 28, 2025
As we ring in the new year, hundreds of new laws will take effect. On California Politics 360, we dive deep into a handful of new laws impacting Californians. Starting Jan. 1, grocery stores will not be allowed to sell plastic bags. It ends an exception that allowed for thicker plastic bags that could be reused. Another new law will try to encourage housing around transit hubs. Starting July 1, zoning standards will change around train stations, ferry terminals and bus rapid transit stops to allow for apartment buildings and other multi-family homes. California is adding new protections for car buyers. Starting Oct. 1, people can return a used car for a refund within 3 days of buying it. We also take a look at several new laws impacting businesses.| MORE | New California laws in 2026: These laws will take effect on January 1This story was produced for California Politics 360, which reports in-depth coverage of top California politics and policy issues. Get informed each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on KCRA 3.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
As we ring in the new year, hundreds of new laws will take effect. On California Politics 360, we dive deep into a handful of new laws impacting Californians.
Starting Jan. 1, grocery stores will not be allowed to sell plastic bags. It ends an exception that allowed for thicker plastic bags that could be reused.
Another new law will try to encourage housing around transit hubs. Starting July 1, zoning standards will change around train stations, ferry terminals and bus rapid transit stops to allow for apartment buildings and other multi-family homes.
California is adding new protections for car buyers. Starting Oct. 1, people can return a used car for a refund within 3 days of buying it.
We also take a look at several new laws impacting businesses.
| MORE | New California laws in 2026: These laws will take effect on January 1
This story was produced for California Politics 360, which reports in-depth coverage of top California politics and policy issues. Get informed each Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on KCRA 3.
See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel