By: @Lilia Hernandez
On Monday, October 13, the deadline for acting on bills passed by the State Legislature, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 7 (McNerney), following intensive opposition from CSDA, special districts, and local government coalition partners. SB 7 was one of just 123 bills vetoed by Governor Newsom in 2025.
According to data shared by Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli, Governor Newsom vetoed 13.4 percent of the 917 bills that reached his desk in 2025. Last year, he vetoed 15.7 percent. Meanwhile, the 42-year average veto rate among all California governors is 15.8 percent.
SB 7 would have regulated public employer use of automated decision systems (ADS) in workplaces and required employers, depending on the context, to provide notice before or after ADS usage along with ensuring workers had access to their data. The bill defined ADS as any “computational process” such as machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or AI with the purpose of producing scores, classification, or recommendations for assisting or replacing human decision-making in methods that significantly affect individuals.
The SB 7 ADS definition excluded spam filters, firewalls, antivirus, software, identity and access management systems, calculators, databases, and other data compilations. The bill removed appeal rights and the private right of action, and much more from the most recently implemented amendments.
In his veto message, Governor Newsom stated, “I share the author’s concern that in certain cases unregulated use of ADS by employers can be harmful to workers.” He went on to say, “However, rather than addressing the specific ways employers misuse this technology, the bill imposes unfocused notification requirements on any business using even the most innocuous tools.”
Governor Newsom also expressed sympathy for the author’s concern about situations where an employer uses an ADS to make disciplinary, termination, or deactivation decisions and noted that such instances are partially covered by forthcoming California Privacy Protection Agency regulations intended to increase employee and independent contractor access to how their personal data is used by automated decision technology.
To view a comprehensive report of all the bills signed or vetoed by the Governor in 2025, navigate to the CSDA website and view the signed legislation report or vetoed legislation report. Also, look out for the upcoming 2025 CSDA Year-End Legislative Report and stay tuned to your CSDA eNews for our annual New Laws Series, which will run each week through December covering the most significant bills signed into law that special districts must comply with in 2026.
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