August news from Indivisible Alta-Pasadena
July in-district meetings, Legislation update, Midterm election preparations, Upcoming local events
In-district meetings with offices of Assemblymember Harabedian and Senator Pérez
During the July summer recess, legislators were back in the district and on July 21st Indivisible Alta-Pasadena members met with staff from Assemblymember Harabedian's office and Senator Pérez's office. In-district meetings are a great opportunity for groups working on legislation to lobby for their priority bills before the end of the 2026 legislative session. Indivisible Alta-Pasadena’s 2026 legislative priorities cover a broad range of topics which falls within economic justice, environmental justice and human and civil rights. These legislative priorities include bills related to consumer protections, data centers, electronic surveillance & privacy, AI regulation and legislation around detention centers.
Indivisible Alta-Pasadena has been actively working on statewide legislation this year as participants of the Indivisible CA State Strong (CASS) coalition, the CASS Economic Justice Working Group and Indivisible-No Camps CA Working Group. In these working groups we collaborate with Indivisible groups across the State to support priority bills by submitting letters of support to policy and appropriation committees and sharing calls to action with Indivisible members locally and statewide.
For our first meeting with Assemblymember Harabedian's office we discussed CASS Democracy Reform priority bill SB 813 (McNerney). This is a bill related to AI regulations that Asm. Harabedian has not yet taken a vote on but will likely be taking a position on in the next few weeks. We also selected SB 1367 (Cervantes) a bill we have been following through the Indivisible-No Camps CA working group. SB 1367 would prevent local governments from allowing warehouse-to-detention conversions, preventing this land-use statewide. The Department of Homeland Security appears to be abandoning this strategy – likely due to legal battles and community push back – and both Harabedian and Pérez continue to do a great job at representing AD 41 and SD 25 respectively by supporting and authoring immigrant defense legislation. However, it is important that they continue to hear from constituents that protecting our community from ICE is a priority issue that we all care deeply about.
For our lobby meeting with Senator Perez we selected two Indivisible CA State Strong (CASS) Economic Justice Priority Bills. AB 2483 (Elhawary) would give incarcerated firefighters the certifications needed to gain employment as firefighters once released. Over 1,000 incarcerated firefighters were deployed to battle the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires and this bill opens a clear path to a living wage for those who have paid their debt to society and risked their lives to protect our state. AB 2564 (Ward) would end the practice of surveillance pricing, prohibiting businesses from using personal data to determine or adjust the price of a good or service offered to a specific consumer. AB 2564 faces significant opposition from lobbyist groups like California Chamber of Commerce, which makes it especially important for constituents to voice support for AB 2564.
At both meetings we also discussed a bill our group opposes, AB 2047 (Bauer-Kahan). AB 2047 would force 3D printers to use tamper-resistant scanning and blocking software in an effort to prevent the creation of untraceable ghost guns. While well-intended, this legislation is seriously flawed and is opposed by both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). We oppose this legislation because it mandates the creation of dangerous digital surveillance infrastructure, suppresses lawful speech, and criminalizes open-source software and hardware modifications to 3D printers. It sets a dangerous precedent for internal device logging and self-reporting mechanisms that transmit data on flagged or suspicious activity back to authorities or manufacturers. EFF warn that once a state mandates scanning infrastructure for 3D printer blueprints, pressure from law enforcement and industry groups will expand the prohibited database to include other items, parts, intellectual property and even political activity. Because digital 3D models and source code are legally recognized as a form of expression, forcing a mandatory government filter acts as a form of prior restraint, sets a legal precedent that general-purpose creation tools can be pre-censored by the state.
Representatives from Physna, a U.S. company which produces an AI-powered 3D geometric search engine3D, testified in the committee hearings in support of AB 2047. It's worth noting this as Physna has a strategic partnership with Palantir which integrates Physna’s AI-powered 3D search engine and geometry-based data analysis tools into Palantir’s product suite. Palantir Technologies of course is notorious for providing data-integration and AI platforms used by U.S. immigration and law enforcement agencies, and draws heavy criticism from civil liberties groups over domestic surveillance.
On August 3rd the legislature reconvened and is now back in session until August 31st. Currently the Appropriation Committees in both Senate and Assembly are deciding on which bills to pass forward to the floor for votes. We should know the outcome of these committee decisions by Thursday August 13th. In addition to the bills mentioned above, we are also supporting bills through partner organizations, including bills authored by our legislators.
- AB 1642 (Harabedian) the wildfire contamination bill supported through our partnership with EFRU. CASS support letter.
- SB 1103 (Pérez) The REPAIR Act sponsored by NDLON. This bill would require large home improvement retailers doing business in California to publicly report
immigration enforcement activity occurring on their premises and to disclose their surveillance data-sharing practices with federal immigration authorities. IAP support letter. - AB 1806 (Gabriel) would require the California Attorney General to conduct an independent, transparent, and complete investigation into any incident involving the fatal shooting of a civilian by federal immigration enforcement agents. CIPC coalition support letter.
- AB 2465 (Ortega) No Tax Dollars for Family Separation Act, would prohibit companies that invest in, manage, or operate private detention facilities or that contract with an agency that engages in immigration enforcement or a private detention facility from receiving taxpayer-funded grants, loans, or tax credits from the State of California. CIPC coalition support letter.
Midterm Election Organizing
As the legislative year winds down, our group has shifted focus to the November 3rd midterm elections. Indivisible National recently launched the Hands Off Our Vote campaign.
Hands Off Our Vote is Indivisible’s national program to ensure all eligible voters get to cast their ballot, and that those ballots get counted. We’ll help you be ready to respond to any attacks, and we’ll shine a light on the bad actors threatening our basic constitutional rights - https://indivisible.org/campaigns/our-vote/
The next training is on August 19th. View the recording for the kickoff call below:
At our most recent meeting we discussed actions we can take as a group such as:
- Election security actions: Making sure our local LA county officials are prepared to protect our votes, Volunteering as legal observers at polls and vote counting
- GOTV actions: Joining local Indivisible groups to canvass, Organizing postcarding actions
- Educational Work: Sharing information on critical statewide races through blog posts, our newsletter and social media posts, Candidate research and endorsements
William Kelly is kicking us off with a new blog post All Hands on Deck for Hands Off Our Vote which includes ways you can get involved in the Midterms (there are lots of great ideas here!)
William Kelly
Join Our Midterm Organizing Team
Our group is one of 138 Indivisible groups in the Indivisible CA State Network where we are engaged with Election Security & Preparedness and GOTV working groups. We also meet bi-weekly in-person and welcome new members that want to become more engaged in midterm election work. To join us send an email to indivisible.alta.pasadena@gmail.com or message us on Instagram or Facebook.
Upcoming Events
Finally, here are some upcoming events you can attend locally. Hope to see you out there!
Join the collective to organize events and get involved locally in mutual aid
- Saturday, August 15th from 1:30 - 3:00 pm at the Pasadena Community Job Center, 500 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena.
- All are welcome. Join to help plan upcoming events and mutual aid actions.
Saturday August 15th: Commemoration of Carlos Roberto Montoya.
On August 15, our community will gather at the Monrovia Home Depot to mark one year since the killing of Carlos Roberto Montoya-a day laborer, neighbor, and beloved community member whose life was taken during an ICE operation.
Wednesday August 19th at Pasadena City Hall.
