Progress

Governor Newsom is leading the global shift to our sustainable future – more clean energy, less pollution. Through critical climate solutions and advancing environmental justice, Governor Newsom’s California Climate Commitment invests a record amount to:

• achieve carbon neutrality by 2045
• cut air pollution by 71%
• drop gas consumption by 94%
• create 4 million new jobs

Under the Newsom Administration, California is leading the global transition to zero emission vehicles, requiring all new cars sold to be zero-emission by 2035.

Under Governor Newsom, California has made major investments in local law enforcement and prosecutors to combat violent crime. The Governor is deploying a Public Safety Plan (PDF) backed by a record investment to:

• combat organized retail theft
• increase opioid enforcement
• address gun violence

Part of the Public Safety Plan includes a multi-year recruitment campaign to fill 1,000 CHP vacancies.

The Newsom Administration stayed laser-focused on fighting the opioid crisis (PDF), particularly fentanyl. Governor Newsom:

• created a new Fentanyl Enforcement Program
• expanded the Military Department’s existing drug operation efforts

Over 62,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized by the California National Guard in 2023, a 116% increase in seizures since 2022. California is also cracking down on opioid use and preventing overdoses through:

• funding Naloxone distribution
• prevention and harm reduction
• education, testing, recovery, and support services
• making more test strips available
• providing overdose medication to all middle and high schools

Through Covered California, the state became the first in the nation to offer financial help for individual health insurance on top of federal support. This includes expanded premium assistance to qualified middle class individuals. The Governor also advanced:

• The CalRx generic drug program. This makes California the first state to have its own generic drug label.
• Efforts to limit health care cost increases to ensure quality health care remains affordable.
• Efforts to make insulin and Naloxone more affordable.

California’s strong gun laws work – our state is ranked #1 in gun safety, with a gun death rate 40% lower than the national average. And Governor Newsom is doing even more to get weapons of war off California streets:

• Strengthened and expanded “red flag laws” and ghost gun regulations and prohibited the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under 21
• Invested in local government efforts to seize weapons from people who are prohibited from having them.
• Signed additional legislation to strengthen public carry regulations, require microstamping on handgun cartridges, generate millions every year on the sale of bullets to improve school safety and gun violence intervention programs, keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals, update the definition of a firearm to include ghost gun parts, and strengthen the process for removing firearms from people who are prohibited from owning them
• Proposed a Right to Safety amendment to the United States Constitution to enshrine fundamental, broadly-supported gun safety measures into law
• Signed a law to hold the gun industry accountable by allowing private citizens to sue those who illegally manufacture, distribute, or sell unlawful assault weapons, ghost guns, and ghost gun kits

Governor Newsom is improving access to quality behavioral health services for all Californians. Read the Governor’s plan here (PDF).

The Governor invested billions for the California Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health (PDF). This ensures California kids, parents, and communities have increased access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment services. The Governor is making sure mental health is treated the same as physical health through:

• mental health parity legislation,
• holding health insurers accountable,
• record investments in veterans mental health services, and
• billions in investments to expand mental health care for low-income Californians.

Governor Newsom is helping Californians with serious mental illness and substance use disorders get the support and care they need, including helping unhoused people get treatment. No more excuses. Counties now have every tool they need to support the needs of their community. No more passing the buck.

The Newsom Administration will:

• increase transparency, accountability, and oversight
• build approximately 11,000 behavioral health beds and housing units across California
• create more than 26,000 slots to serve Californians with mental health and substance use challenges

This new effort, supercharged by Proposition 1 (2024), builds on Governor Newsom’s efforts to better treat and support people experiencing crises:

• created the Mobile Crisis Response program, helping people experiencing behavioral health crises receive coordinated and more timely behavioral health care through Medi-Cal
• created CARE Court, a new framework to provide care, services, and housing to individuals with the most serious, untreated mental health and substance use disorders
• expanded funding for the treatment of substance use disorder
• signed legislation to modernize California’s conservatorship laws for the first time in more than 50 years

Governor Newsom has:

• Led a significant expansion of child care slots. He signed legislation that set the stage for family child care providers to unionize.
• Expanded the California Earned Income Tax Credit from $400 million in 2018 to over $1.3 billion, which included the creation of the Young Child Tax Credit. He also expanded access to otherwise eligible ITIN filers in 2020. The expansion has resulted in over $5 billion in CalEITC and YCTC paid to Californians since 2019. He also created the Foster Youth Tax Credit.
• Invested in career pathways programs to train workers and connect them to good-paying jobs and formed a Council on Career Education
• Invested billions in Broadband for All to increase access to reliable, high-speed internet

Governor Newsom provided up to two years of community college tuition-free. The Governor also worked to:

• build more affordable student housing at UC, CSU, and the community colleges
• pursue zero-cost textbook courses
• make the College Corps program permanent

Through College Corps, the Governor created new debt-free pathways to college while engaging students across the state in solving problems in their communities by providing 10,000+ college students with

• opportunities to support and learn from community-based organizations
• earn up to $10,000

No more excuses – California is finally getting serious about this emergency decades in the making with the compassion and urgency it demands. The Governor invested billions to address homelessness and over $40 billion to expand affordable housing.

He’s demanding unprecedented accountability from local governments to make sure these investments have the intended effects. Read the Statewide Action Plan for Preventing and Ending Homelessness.

The Governor has also pioneered nation-leading homeless housing reforms, including Homekey and Project Roomkey. These reforms have brought more than 71,000 people off the streets. California is also:

• investing $750 million in Encampment Resolution Funding to get people out of encampments and into housing
• delivering up to 1,200 small homes to provide safe, interim housing for people experiencing homelessness.They are free of charge and ready for occupancy.

Governor Newsom has expanded and protected access to reproductive care:

• Invested more than $200 million in reproductive care access, plus nearly $200 million for comprehensive family planning services
• Signed an executive order and package of legislation protecting Californians and others traveling to California for abortion care, as well as California medical providers, from adverse actions in anti-choice states
• Launched the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, a non-partisan coalition of 23 Governors
• Took actions to protect medication abortion access

Governor Newsom is putting parents first. He’s giving them choices about how their kids are educated. He’s also expanding childcare and leave benefits to ensure their families are supported.

The Governor:

• Added a whole new grade to public school for 4-year-olds.
• Expanded after-school and summer education programs.
• Helped schools in California transition to the community school model, with wrap-around mental health, social, and family services.
• Established reading difficulties screening, including dyslexia, for all K-2 students, coming soon.
• Boosted early literacy supports
• Invested billions for teacher preparation
• Set up CalKIDS career savings accounts with up to $1,500 for every vulnerable student
• Strengthened pathways to career opportunities and addressed long-standing equity gaps
• Created the Office of Cradle to Career Data, which has signed landmark legal agreements with 15 education, social service, and career pathways entities, allowing for the creation of longitudinal data sets on student progress
• Increased special education funding
• Signed legislation ending book bans in schools, prohibiting censorship of instructional materials, and strengthening California law requiring schools to provide all students access to textbooks that teach about California’s diverse communities