Tag Archives: 2016 Legislation
New Rules Aim To Protect Widowed Homeowners From Foreclosure
by Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times
The rules, which expand and clarify existing guidance from the agency, were long awaited by consumer groups that are pushing similar regulations in a pending California Senate bill. Read More ›
‘Pink Tax Repeal’ Bill To End Gender-Based Pricing: U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier Calls For Practice To End, Announces Legislation
by Sara Gaiser Bay, San Mateo Daily Journal
Speier, a former state senator, previously introduced California legislation that passed in 1996 that required pricing for services like dry cleaning and haircuts to be based on the amount of time it took to do the job, not gender. Read More ›
Health Gadgets And Apps Outpace Privacy Protections, Report Finds
by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the landmark 1996 patient-privacy law, only covers patient information kept by health providers, insurers and data clearinghouses, as well as their business partners. Falling outside the law’s purview: wearables like Fitbit that measure steps and sleep, at-home paternity tests, social media sites, and online repositories where individuals can store their health records. Read More ›
Pink Tax Repeal Act Aims To Make Pricing Fair To Women
by Carla Fried, Consumer Reports
Last Friday, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) aimed to put an end to pricing products according to gender. She introduced the Pink Tax Repeal Act—a bill that would prohibit companies from charging different prices for similar products or services simply based on the gender of the customer. …
“As a rule, the man’s version or a neutrally-branded product is going to be less costly than the womens or girls version,” says Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. “Consider buying products that aren’t specifically labeled for the use of women.” Read More ›
Bill Calling For Price Equity For Items Marketed To Females Fails
by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California … said his organization would try again next year. Women already earn less than men in wages for similar work, he said, “and then when they spend their hard-earned dollars, they’re charged more.” Read More ›
Gender Pricing Discrimination – Democrats Team With Republicans To Stop SB 899 (Hueso)
Consumer Federation of California-sponsored SB 899 (Hueso), a bill that would have ended gender pricing discrimination, was stopped by Democrats and Republicans in today’s meeting of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Senator Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) dropped SB 899 after it became apparent that a majority of the … Read More ›
Bill To End Gender Disparity In Retail Pricing Is Withdrawn After Pushback From Industry Lobbyists
by Jazmine Ulloa, Los Angeles Times
“It loaded the decks so that it was unenforceable,” said Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. “We are very angry that what we find is another example where corporate interests dominate the majority.” Read More ›
Bill Banning ‘Gender Tax’ Clears California Senate
by Alexei Koseff, Sacramento Bee
Pink scooters that cost double their red counterparts. “Boyfriend”-style clothing far more expensive than the men’s fashion it mimics. These are the scenarios that California legislators aim to outlaw with Senate Bill 899, a prohibition on “gender price discrimination” that often sees women charged more for similar goods. Read More ›
AB 2395: AT&T Wants To Disconnect Millions Of California Landlines
According to the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, about 16.5 million traditional copper land lines remain in service in California. AT&T’s bill would create a pathway for phone companies to abandon residential land lines in 2020, even in areas where an adequate alternative phone option does not exist. While many consumers now have cell phones or IP phones as well as land lines, about 2.3 million Californians live in a home that only has a landline. AB 2395 will eliminate both customer choice and the current requirements for Carriers of Last Resort that ensure all Californians have access to reliable essential phone services. Read More ›
Lawmakers Sweat Details Of Consumer Health Privacy
by Cheryl Miller, The Recorder (San Francisco)
“We are in total agreement with the intent of the bill and believe that it’s very, very important that this information be given strong privacy protections,” Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, told the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. But “we’ve had a lot of experience over the years with various privacy laws and how courts interpret those laws and … we want to be very precise about how a bill is written to make sure that it’s being interpreted by the industry and the courts as it was intended,” Holober said. Read More ›
Why More Widowed Homeowners Are Struggling To Prevent A Foreclosure
by Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times
The state Senate Judiciary Committee [voted] Tuesday on a bill designed to give surviving spouses, domestic partners and children the same protections borrowers have in the Homeowner Bill of Rights, including the right to sue to stop a foreclosure or for economic damages after one occurs. The bill, SB-1150 … would prevent servicers from moving forward with a foreclosure before requesting “reasonable” documentation of the borrower’s death and the identity of the survivor. Read More ›
Bill Aims To End ‘Pink Tax’ On Products
by Alia Ismay, San Diego Union-Tribune
Hueso’s Senate Bill 899 is sponsored by the Consumer Federation of California. It states that “no business establishment of any kind whatsoever may discriminate, with respect to the price charged for goods of a substantially similar or like kind, against a person because of the person’s gender.” Products are defined as “substantially similar” when they are the same brand, have the same functional components and share 90 percent of the same materials or ingredients. … The bill does not prohibit price differences based on labor, material or other “gender-neutral” factors. Read More ›
State Senate Looks At Banning Gender-Based Bias In Retail Pricing
by Bob Egelko and Melody Gutierrez, San Francisco Chronicle
Lisa Cuesta, a constituent of [SB 899 author Ben] Hueso’s in Chula Vista and chief operations officer of Casa Familiar, a social services nonprofit … [is] the mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy and says she’s unhappily gotten accustomed to paying $1 to $3 more for toy building blocks or plastic cars and trucks that are pink, purple or yellow — pastels marketed as girls’ colors, she said. “I don’t have the luxury or the time to go into the boys’ section and into the girls’ section” to look for the best deal, Cuesta said in an interview. Read More ›