AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 17, 2025
california legislature—2025–26 regular session
ASSEMBLY BILL No. 91
Introduced by Assembly Member Harabedian
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Caloza, Mark González, Schiavo, and Schultz)
(Coauthors: Senators Pérez, Umberg, and Weber Pierson)
January 6, 2025
An act to add Section 8310.4 to the Go vernment Code, relating to state and local government.
legislative counsel’s digest
AB 91, as amended, Harabedian. State and local agencies:
demographic data.
Existing law requires state agencies, boards, and commissions that collect demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians to use separate collection cate gories and tab ulations for each major Asian and Pacific Islander group and to include that data in every demographic report published on or after July 1, 2012, as specified.
This bill w ould require state and local agencies that collect demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians to use separate collection cate gories and tab ulations for major Middle Eastern or North African groups, as specified, and, with certain exceptions, to include that data in every demographic report published on or after January 1, 2027, and to make the aggregated data available to the public.
Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public
98 officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.
This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
The bill w ould include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of state wide concern rather than a municipal af fair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimb urse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state.
Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: yes.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
line 1 SECTION 1. Section 8310.4 is added to the Government Code, line 2 to read:
line 3 8310.4. (a) A state or local agency that directly or by contract line 4 collects demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of line 5 Californians shall use separate collection categories and tabulations line 6 for major Middle Eastern or North African groups in any provided line 7 form that offers respondents the option of selecting one or more line 8 ethnic or racial designations or languages as follows:
line 9 (1) Commencing January 1, 2026, and until collection categories line 10 are subsequently updated pursuant to paragraph (2), a state or local line 11 agency shall use separate collection categories and tabulations for line 12 the following groups:
line 13 (A) A major Middle Eastern group, including, b ut not limited line 14 to, Afghan, Bahraini, Emirati, Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli, Jordanian, line 15 Kuwaiti, Lebanese, Omani, P alestinian, Qatari, Saudi Arabian, line 16 Syrian, Turkish, and Yemeni.
line 17 (B) A major North African group, including, but not limited to, line 18 Algerian, Djiboutian, Egyptian, Libyan, Mauritanian, Moroccan, line 19 Somali, Sudanese, and Tunisian.
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line 1 (C) A major transnational Middle Eastern and North African line 2 group, including, but not limited to, Amazigh or Berber, Armenian, line 3 Assyrian, Chaldean, Circassian, and Kurdish.
line 4 (2) Within 18 months following the release of a decennial census line 5 by the United States Census Bureau, a state or local agency shall line 6 update its collection categories and tabulations to reflect the major line 7 Middle Eastern and North African groups as reported by the census. line 8 (b) Except as provided in subdivision (c), a state or local agency line 9 shall do both of the following with the data collected pursuant to line 10 subdivision (a):
line 11 (1) Include the data in every demographic report on ancestry or line 12 ethnic origins of Californians by the state or local agenc y that is line 13 published on or after January 1, 2027.
line 14 (2) Make the a ggregated data a vailable to the public in line 15 accordance with state and federal la w, including, but not limited line 16 to, by publishing the data on its internet website. line 17 (c) (1) A state or local agency shall not make data available to line 18 the public that w ould permit the identification of indi viduals. line 19 disclose personal identifying information about any person whose line 20 demographic data is collected pursuant to this section to the public. line 21 The state or local agenc y may, to pre vent the identification of line 22 individuals, aggregate data categories at a state, county, city, census line 23 tract, or ZIP Code le vel to f acilitate comparisons and identify line 24 disparities.
line 25 (2) A state or local agency shall not make data available to the line 26 public that would result in statistical unreliability. line 27 (d) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
line 28 (1) “Local agency” means a city , county, or city and county , line 29 whether general law or chartered.
line 30 (2) “Personal identifying information” has the same meaning line 31 as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 530.55 of the Penal Code. line 32 (2)
line 33 (3) “State agency” has the same meaning as defined in Section line 34 11000 and includes the California State University. line 35 (e) The Le gislature requests the Uni versity of California to line 36 comply with this section.
line 37 SEC. 2. The Legislature finds and declares that Section 1 of line 38 this act, which adds Section 8310.4 to the Go vernment Code, line 39 imposes a limitation on the public’s right of access to the meetings line 40 of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies 98 AB 91 — 3 —
line 1 within the meaning of Section 3 of Article I of the California line 2 Constitution. Pursuant to that constitutional pro vision, the line 3 Legislature makes the following findings to demonstrate the interest line 4 protected by this limitation and the need for protecting that interest:
line 5 In order to protect the privacy of California residents, while also line 6 gathering and publicizing useful demographic data, it is necessary line 7 that personal identifying information remain confidential. line 8 SEC. 3. The Legislature finds and declares that Section 1 of line 9 this act adding Section 8310.4 to the Government Code addresses line 10 a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair as that line 11 term is used in Section 5 of Article XI of the California line 12 Constitution. Therefore, Section 1 of this act applies to all cities, line 13 including charter cities.
line 14 SEC. 4. If the Commission on State Mandates determines that line 15 this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimb ursement to line 16 local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made line 17 pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division line 18 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.
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