Bill Text: CA SB1237 | 2025-2026 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Civil Rights Department.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)
Status: (Engrossed) 2026-06-01 - Referred to Com. on JUD. [SB1237 Detail]
Download: California-2025-SB1237-Introduced.html
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 1237
| Introduced by Senator Blakespear |
February 19, 2026 |
An act to amend Sections 12907 and 12999 of the Government Code, relating to civil rights.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1237, as introduced, Blakespear.
Civil Rights Department.
Existing law establishes the Civil Rights Department to administer and enforce various laws relating to civil rights, including the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. Existing law establishes the Civil Rights Enforcement and Litigation Fund to be administered by the department, and authorizes the department to use the moneys in the fund upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act to offset the costs of the department.
This bill would require the department to annually publish a report of the aggregate budgetary and enforcement information for the fund, as specified.
Existing law requires certain private employers to annually submit a pay data report to the department that includes, among other information, the number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex, as specified, and,
within each job category, for each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex, the median and mean hourly rate. Upon request from the Civil Rights Department, existing law requires a court to impose a civil penalty not to exceed $100 per employee upon any employer who fails to file the required report and not to exceed $200 per employee upon any employer for a subsequent failure to file the required report. Existing law requires these penalties to be payable to the fund described above.
This bill would increase the penalty for subsequent failures to file the report described above to an amount not to exceed $1,000 per employee.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 12907 of the Government Code is amended to read:12907.
(a) The Civil Rights Enforcement and Litigation Fund is hereby established in the State Treasury, to be administered by the Civil Rights Department.(b) The fund shall consist of any attorney’s fees and costs awarded by a court to the Civil Rights Department when the department is the prevailing party in a civil action brought under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.
(c) Upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act, moneys in the fund may be used to offset the costs of the department.
(d) (1) The
department shall annually publish a report of the aggregate budgetary and enforcement information for the fund, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(A) The total amount of civil penalties assessed.
(B) The total amount of civil penalties collected.
(C) The total amount of civil penalties outstanding to be collected.
(D) The allocation or use of collected penalty revenues.
(2) The department may publish or combine the report required pursuant to paragraph (1) with any other annual report the department is authorized or required to publish by law.
SEC. 2.
Section 12999 of the Government Code, as added by Section 2 of Chapter 760 of the Statutes of 2025, is amended to read:12999.
(a) (1) On or before the second Wednesday of May 2023, and on or before the second Wednesday of May of each year thereafter, a private employer that has 100 or more employees shall submit a pay data report to the department covering the prior calendar year, which, for purposes of this section, shall be referred to as the “Reporting Year.”(2) On or before the second Wednesday of May 2023, and on or before the second Wednesday of May of each year thereafter, a private employer that has 100 or more employees hired through labor contractors within the prior calendar year shall submit a separate pay data report to the department covering the employees hired through labor contractors in the prior calendar year. The private
employer shall also disclose on the pay data report the ownership names of all labor contractors used to supply employees. A labor contractor shall supply all necessary pay data to the private employer.
(3) Any demographic information gathered by an employer or labor contractor pursuant to this section shall be collected and stored separately from employees’ personnel records.
(b) The pay data report shall include the following information:
(1) The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex in each of the following job categories:
(A) Chief executives.
(B) Management occupations, except chief executives.
(C) Business and financial operations occupations.
(D) Computer and mathematical occupations.
(E) Architecture and engineering occupations.
(F) Life, physical, and social science occupations.
(G) Community and social science occupations.
(H) Legal occupations.
(I) Educational instruction and library occupations.
(J) Art, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations.
(K) Health care practitioners and technical occupations.
(L) Health care support occupations.
(M) Protective service occupations.
(N) Food preparation and serving-related occupations.
(O) Building and ground cleaning and maintenance occupations.
(P) Personal care and service occupations.
(Q) Sales and related occupations.
(R) Office and administrative support occupations.
(S) Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations.
(T) Construction and extraction occupations.
(U) Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations.
(V) Production occupations.
(W) Transportation and material moving occupations.
(2) The number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex, whose annual earnings fall within each of the pay bands used by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Employment Statistics survey.
(3) Within each job category, for each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex, the median and mean hourly rate.
(4) For purposes of establishing the numbers required to be reported under paragraph (1), an employer shall create a “snapshot” that counts all of the individuals in each job category by race, ethnicity, and sex, employed
during a single pay period of the employer’s choice between October 1 and December 31 of the “Reporting Year.”
(5) For purposes of establishing the numbers to be reported under paragraphs (2) and (3), the employer shall calculate the total earnings, as shown on the Internal Revenue Service Form W-2, for each employee in the “snapshot,” for the entire “Reporting Year,” regardless of whether or not an employee worked for the full calendar year. The employer shall tabulate and report the number of employees whose W-2 earnings during the “Reporting Year” fell within each pay band.
(6) The employer shall include in the report the total number of hours worked by each employee counted in each pay band during the “Reporting Year.”
(7) The report shall include the employer’s North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS) code.
(c) For employers with multiple establishments, the employer shall submit a report covering each establishment.
(d) The report shall include a section for employers to provide clarifying remarks regarding any of the information provided. An employer is not required to provide clarifying remarks.
(e) The information required by this section shall be made available in a format that allows the department to search and sort the information using readily available software.
(f) If the department does not receive the required report from an employer, the department may seek an order requiring the employer to comply with these requirements and shall be entitled to recover the costs associated with seeking the order for compliance. Upon request by
the department, a court shall impose a civil penalty not to exceed one hundred dollars ($100) per employee upon any employer who fails to file the required report and not to exceed two hundred dollars ($200) one thousand dollars ($1,000) per employee upon any employer for a subsequent failure to file the required report. Any penalty under this subdivision shall be payable to the Civil Rights Enforcement and Litigation Fund established under Section 12907. If the employer is unable to submit a complete and accurate report because a labor contractor has not provided the pay data as required under paragraph (2) of subdivision (a), the court may apportion an appropriate amount of penalties to any labor contractor that has failed to provide the pay data to the employer.
(g) It shall be unlawful for any officer or employee of the department or the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to make public in any manner whatever any individually identifiable information obtained pursuant to their authority under this section prior to the institution of an investigation or enforcement proceeding by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement or the department under Section 1197.5 of the Labor Code or Section 12940 involving that information, and only to the extent necessary for purposes of the enforcement proceeding. For the purposes of this section, “individually identifiable information” means data submitted pursuant to this section that is associated with a specific person or business.
(h) Any individually identifiable information submitted to the department pursuant to this section shall be considered confidential information and not subject to disclosure pursuant to the California Public Records Act
(Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1).
(i) Notwithstanding subdivision (g), the department may develop, publish on an annual basis, and publicize aggregate reports based on the data obtained pursuant to their authority under this section, provided that the aggregate reports are reasonably calculated to prevent the association of any data with any individual business or person.
(j) The department shall maintain pay data reports for not less than 10 years.
(k) For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:
(1) “Employee” means an individual on an employer’s payroll, including a part-time individual, and for whom the employer is required to withhold federal social security taxes from that individual’s wages.
(2) “Labor contractor” means an individual or entity that supplies, either with or without a contract, a client employer with workers to perform labor within the client employer’s usual course of business.
(3) “Establishment” means an economic unit producing goods or services.
(l) Upon request by the department, no later than 60 days from the date of the request, the Employment Development Department shall provide the department with the names and addresses of all businesses with 100 or more employees in order to ensure compliance with this section.
(m) The amendments made to this section by Senate Bill 1162 of the 2021–22 Regular Session of the Legislature shall not affect the requirement of employers to file reports in 2021 and 2022 pursuant to this
section as it read on December 31, 2022, or the department’s authority to pursue those employers on and after January 1, 2023.
(n) This section shall become operative on January 1, 2027.
