A bill aimed at reducing the potential for unconscious bias in the criminal justice system passed the California State Assembly yesterday by a vote of 72-0.

AB 2778 or the “Race-Blind Charging” bill would require the Department of Justice to develop and publish “Race-Blind Charging” guidelines beginning in January 2024, whereby all prosecuting agencies, as specified, implement a process to review a case for charging based on information, from which all means of identifying the race of the suspect, victim, or witness have been removed or redacted.

Employees of the California State Legislature would get the right to unionize for the first time under a proposal introduced Monday. The people who work for California state departments, known as rank-and-file civil service employees, received the right 45 years ago to unionize and collectively bargain over their pay, benefits and working conditions. But the 1977 Ralph C. Dills Act didn’t include the roughly 1,900 employees of the Legislature, who are still forbidden from organizing.

For the second consecutive year, a major overhaul to California’s main financial aid program is being proposed by lawmakers who say the current system is overly complex and excludes too many students from getting aid.