AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MAY 23, 2025
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 20, 2025
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 17, 2025
california legislature—2025–26 regular session
ASSEMBLY BILL No. 91
Introduced by Assembly Member Harabedian
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Ahrens, Caloza, Mark González, Petrie-Norris, Schiavo, and Schultz) Schultz, and Wicks) (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 would would, commencing J anuary 1, 2027, 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 tabulations for major Middle Eastern or North African groups, as specified, and, with certain e xceptions, to include that data in e very
96 demographic report published on or after January 1, 2027, 2028, 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 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) This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the line 4 Middle Eastern and North African Inclusion Act or the MEN A line 5 Act. (MENA Inclusion Act).
line 6 (b) A state or local agency that directly or by contract collects line 7 demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians line 8 shall use separate collection categories and tabulations for major line 9 Middle Eastern or North African groups in any provided form that line 10 offers respondents the option of selecting one or more ethnic or line 11 racial designations or languages as follows:
line 12 (1) Commencing January 1, 2026, 2027, and until collection line 13 categories are subsequently updated pursuant to paragraph (2), a line 14 state or local agency shall use separate collection cate gories and line 15 tabulations for the following groups:
line 16 (A) A major Middle Eastern group, including, b ut not limited line 17 to, Afghan, Bahraini, Emirati, Iranian, Iraqi, Israeli, Jordanian, 96 — 2 — AB 91
line 1 Kuwaiti, Lebanese, Omani, P alestinian, Qatari, Saudi Arabian, line 2 Syrian, Turkish, and Yemeni.
line 3 (B) A major North African group, including, but not limited to, line 4 Algerian, Djiboutian, Egyptian, Libyan, Mauritanian, Moroccan, line 5 Somali, Sudanese, and Tunisian.
line 6 (C) A major transnational Middle Eastern and North African line 7 group, including, but not limited to, Amazigh or Berber, Armenian, line 8 Assyrian, Chaldean, Circassian, and Kurdish.
line 9 (2) Within 18 months following the release of a decennial census line 10 by the United States Census Bureau, a state or local agency shall line 11 update its collection categories and tabulations to reflect the major line 12 Middle Eastern and North African groups as reported by the census. line 13 (c) Except as provided in subdivision (d), a state or local agency line 14 shall do both of the following with the data collected pursuant to line 15 subdivision (b):
line 16 (1) Include the data in every demographic report on ancestry or line 17 ethnic origins of Californians by the state or local agenc y that is line 18 published on or after January 1, 2027. 2028.
line 19 (2) Make the aggre gated data a vailable to the public in line 20 accordance with state and federal la w, including, but not limited line 21 to, by publishing the data on its internet website. line 22 (d) (1) A state or local agenc y shall not disclose personal line 23 identifying information about any person whose demographic data line 24 is collected pursuant to this section to the public. The state or local line 25 agency may, to prevent the identification of individuals, aggregate line 26 data categories at a state, county , city, census tract, or ZIP Code line 27 level to facilitate comparisons and identify disparities. line 28 (2) A state or local agency shall not make data available to the line 29 public that would result in statistical unreliability. line 30 (e) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:
line 31 section:
line 32 (1) “Local agency” means a city , county, or city and county , line 33 whether general law or chartered.
line 34 (2) “Personal identifying information” has the same meaning line 35 as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 530.55 of the Penal Code. line 36 (3) “State agency” has the same meaning as defined in Section line 37 11000 and includes the California State University. line 38 (f) The Le gislature requests the Uni versity of California to line 39 comply with this section.
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line 1 SEC. 2. The Legislature finds and declares that Section 1 of line 2 this act, which adds Section 8310.4 to the Go vernment Code, line 3 imposes a limitation on the public’s right of access to the meetings line 4 of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies line 5 within the meaning of Section 3 of Article I of the California line 6 Constitution. Pursuant to that constitutional pro vision, the line 7 Legislature makes the following findings to demonstrate the interest line 8 protected by this limitation and the need for protecting that interest:
line 9 In order to protect the privacy of California residents, while also line 10 gathering and publicizing useful demographic data, it is necessary line 11 that personal identifying information remain confidential. line 12 SEC. 3. The Legislature finds and declares that Section 1 of line 13 this act adding Section 8310.4 to the Government Code addresses line 14 a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair as that line 15 term is used in Section 5 of Article XI of the California line 16 Constitution. Therefore, Section 1 of this act applies to all cities, line 17 including charter cities.
line 18 SEC. 4. If the Commission on State Mandates determines that line 19 this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimb ursement to line 20 local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made line 21 pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division line 22 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.
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96 — 4 — AB 91