BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 245
Author: Correa (D) et al.
Amended: 1/22/14
Vote: 21
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE : 6-0, 1/14/14
AYES: Evans, Corbett, Jackson, Leno, Monning, Vidak
NO VOTE RECORDED: Anderson
SUBJECT : Contracts
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill revises information contained in existing
findings and declarations of the Legislature relating to the
languages most widely spoken in households with limited English
proficiency and the percentage of Californians who speak a
language other than English in their homes, based upon more
recent data.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Requires any person engaged in a trade or business who
negotiates primarily in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog,
Vietnamese, or Korean, orally or in writing, in the course of
entering into specified contracts, to deliver to the other
party to the contract or agreement and prior to the execution
thereof, a translation of the contract or agreement in the
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language in which the contract or agreement was negotiated,
which includes a translation of every term and condition in
that contract or agreement.
2. Finds and declares that, according to the United States
Census of 2000, of the more than 12 million Californians who
speak a language other than English in the home,
approximately 4.3 million speak an Asian dialect or another
language other than Spanish. Existing law further finds and
declares that the top five languages other than English most
widely spoken by Californians in their homes are Spanish,
Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean. Together, these
languages are spoken by approximately 83% of all Californians
who speak a language other than English in their homes.
This bill:
1. Strikes the above finding and states that according to data
from the American Community Survey, which has replaced the
decennial census for detailed socioeconomic information about
United States residents, approximately 15.2 million
Californians speak a language other than English at home,
based on data from combined years 2009 through 2011.
2. Further declares that this compares to approximately 19.6
million people, who speak only English at home. Among the
Californians who speak a language other than English at home,
approximately 8.4 million speak English very well, and
another 3.0 million speak English well. The remaining 3.8
million Californians surveyed do not speak English well or do
not speak English at all. Among this group, the five
languages other than English that are most widely spoken at
home are Spanish, Chinese, Filipino/Tagalog, Vietnamese, and
Korean.
Background
Under existing law, any person who negotiates certain types of
contracts in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean is
required to provide the other party with a translated version of
the contract the language in which it was negotiated. That
requirement was first enacted by the Legislature in 1976 to
increase consumer information and protections for the state's
sizeable and growing Spanish-speaking population. Those
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protections were later expanded to also apply to contracts
primarily negotiated in Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean.
In expanding the translation requirements to cover those
languages, the Legislature codified a finding that the five
specified languages reflect those most widely spoken by
Californians in their homes based upon data from the United
States Census of 2000.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local:
No
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author, "Civil Code
Section 1632 lists five foreign languages into which a variety
of different financial contracts and other financial documents
must be translated. Civil Code Section 1632 and the myriad
other code sections that refer back to it are intended to help
Californians with limited English proficiency better understand
key financial contracts into which they enter and other
important consumer protection documents they receive. The code
section was first enacted in 1976. The languages referenced in
the section have been periodically updated since that time, to
reflect California's changing demographics. However, the code
section has not been updated to reflect census data more recent
than the year 2000."
AL:d 1/22/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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