The California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls held an open house Monday in their main office downtown to celebrate Women’s History Month. It was the first open house in the commission’s history since its creation in 1965.

Inside the office, elected officials and caucus leaders could be seen flipping through reports published by the commission and conversing with each other. Framed documents telling the history of the commission line the walls.

Morgan Beatty, a program analyst, helps preserve the commission’s historical documents. Working with records in the CCSWG office and the state archives, Beatty labels and scans historical legislation that’s displayed on the office walls.

“Our goal is to look at the narrative and look at the timeline of our history,” Beatty said.

Reports published by the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls on Monday, March 9, 2026. The event was held at the main office of the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. (Vanessa Gomez)

The open house was held in collaboration with the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs, which has a suite adjacent to CCSWG. Yating Campbell, communications director, said it was beneficial for both commissions to host because their work often overlaps on issues affecting women.

Originally called the California Advisory Commission on the Status of Women. CCSWG works with state legislators, private companies and nonprofits to draft laws meant to support the state’s roughly 20 million women and girls.

“We’re the only independent agency that’s dedicated towards focusing on women and girls, help[ing] make sure they have the policies, the procedures, the legislation, things that they need to make them help them thrive in California,” Campbell said. l

The commission collaborates with state assembly members to advance legislation focused on women and girls’ equity. During this past year, the commission supported bills currently passing through the legislature like Assembly Bill 54, which shields abortion providers from liability to protect reproductive rights.

Darcy Totten, the executive director of CCSWG, said that the commission has been working on the same issues of reproductive and equal rights since its inception in the 1960s.

One exhibit, a binder containing a commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment, was written in 1977. The ERA is yet to be ratified into the United States constitution.

Despite being open to the public, most attendees were connected to state politics or advocacy organizations. Still, Totten said CCSWG strives to reach out to the public regularly.

“We are fairly open to the public. All our meetings are available to the public, our mission is to support the more than 20 million women and girls in the state,” Totten said. “There have been periods where we go up and down the state just to hear women, about what their issues are.”

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One report developed from those conversations is the California Blueprint for Women’s Pandemic Economic Recovery, published in 2022, which generated about 50 policy recommendations to help women most impacted by the pandemic and subsequent shutdown.

“Twenty-one of those policy recommendations are already signed into law,” Totten said.

Another focus for CCSWG has been Senate Bill 24, passed in 2019, which requires CSUs and UCs campuses to provide medication abortion services. Rita Gallardo Good, the commission’s chair and former senior associate vice president for the Office of Public Affairs and Advocacy at Sac State, is working to secure more funding for the schools.

“When legislation was passed in 2019, the CSUs and UCs were given funds but that wasn’t enough,” Gallardo Good said. “It has to be a part of the services they provide to support women and girls.”

The proposal, presented by the commission and CSU, requires each CSU to have the budget to provide abortion medication. Gallardo Good, who specializes in higher education issues, said that the commission is structured around having representatives who can speak on intersecting issues.

“We need to ensure that we have the faces and the voices on the caucuses that can support our communities,” Gallardo Good said.

The next event held by the commission will be The Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California conference on March 27, 2026 in the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.