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Our Legislative Priorities for Small and Micro Businesses in the State of California

2025 State Advocacy Priorities

Financial Protection

CAMEO Network is an advocate for responsible small business lending, achieving five legislative victories since 2018 to curb predatory financing practices. This year, we are co-sponsoring two bills with our partners the Responsible Business Lending Coalition and Small Business Majority. SB 362 (Grayson) tightens up the state’s legal framework that allows some brokers and financing companies to take advantage of small businesses. SB 728 (Padilla) establishes a registration framework for non-loan small business financing products and the  brokers of those products. Please sign our letters of support if you still haven’t! (SB 362 | SB 728)

Our organization also supports SB 825 (Limon/Grayson), which clarifies that the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation retains the authority to enforce protections against deceptive or abusive practices. This bill is especially important now given the uncertainty surrounding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability to enforce protections at the federal level. 

Other financial protection legislation that CAMEO Network supports:

Small Business Funding

Following the devastation caused by the wildfires in the LA Basin region in January, legislation has been put forward to infuse capital into impacted communities to aid in their recovery. CAMEO Network supports the following two bills:

  • AB 265 (Caloza): The Small Business Recovery Fund Act establishes a $100 million state-funded program administered by the Office of Small Business Advocate to provide financial assistance to small businesses and nonprofit organizations impacted by declared states of emergency
  • AB 685 (Solache): Allocates $50 million from the state General Fund for the purposes of small business recovery in Los Angeles and Ventura counties

Community Development

In light of federal agencies’ proposed rescindment of the 2023 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) final rule, many partners in the economic development space have joined forces to bring forward a California CRA bill, AB 801 (Bonta), which CAMEO Network is proud to support. This legislation would fill the gaps by extending an obligation to provide equal access and reinvest in communities on state chartered banks, state chartered credit unions, state licensed independent mortgage companies, and certain fintech firms that offer bank-like services and products (Sign letter of support).

Other community development bills that CAMEO Network supports:

  • AB 592 (Gabriel/Wicks): Supports California community restaurants by maximizing their ability to offer outdoor dining.
  • AB 613 (Gonzalez): The Community Owned Real Estate Act helps mission-driven organizations acquire and own commercial property to lease to small businesses and nonprofits at affordable rents.
  • SB 534 (Padilla): Establishes a Green Empowerment Zone to strategically leverage incentives for economic, workforce, and community development in the Salton Sea Region.

Nonprofits

CAMEO Network is proud to support several California Nonprofit Equity Initiative bills, sponsored by CalNonprofits:

Other 2025 Legislative Priorities

  • SB 222 (Wiener): Allows individuals with $10,000+ in damages from a climate disaster to sue responsible parties for compensation.
  • SB 590 (Durazo): Allows qualifying workers to receive Paid Family Leave benefits to care for a designated person who is a member of their chosen or extended family. 
  • SB 635 (Durazo): Limits the sensitive data that can be collected about street vendors and micro-entrepreneurs (Sign letter of support).

2024 State Advocacy Wins

  • SB 1103: The Commercial Tenant Protection Act was authored by Senator Caroline Menjivar. This first-in-the-nation legislation creates equity and transparency with respect to commercial leasing and reduces the risk of community-serving small businesses and nonprofits being displaced. CAMEO Network co-sponsored this bill with Bet Tzedek, Inclusive Action for the City, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of San Francisco, Public Counsel, and Small Business Majority.
  • SB 1286: Authored by Senator Dave Min, this bill expands the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to protect small business owners from harassment and predatory behavior in debt collection. This legislation was co-sponsored by the East Bay Community Law Center, Consumer Federation of California, and Small Business Majority.

Additionally, Governor Newsom’s May budget revise for the 2024-25 state budget proposed $13 million in cuts to the Small Business Technical Assistance Expansion Program (TAP) for the next two fiscal years. CAMEO Network, our members, and partners mobilized to show the data of job creation and increased economic activity and tax revenues generated by this program. The California Legislature listened and rejected the cuts in the final budget.

Advocacy Highlights

Responsible Business Lending

DFPI Expansion

In 2020, CAMEO worked with a coalition of small business advocates, economic justice advocates and consumer groups to support the expansion of the Department of Business Oversight to the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI).  Ultimately, the DFPI will have enforcement powers over bad actors in the small business lending space.

Historic Truth-in-Lending Law for Small Businesses

We did it! With your help! Thank you for your strong support of SB-1235, which became law in California when Governor Brown signed the bill in 2018. Because of you — and the hard work of a broad coalition of industry and nonprofit organizations — we’ve set the national standard for transparency in small business financing.

California’s “truth in lending” law is the first in the country, and our state is leading the way to ensure that small business borrowers have more transparency and clearer information when considering online and alternative financing options.

Under the new law, Department of Business Oversight (DBO) will set clear and consistent disclosure standards that provide small business owners with better transparency during the loan process. CAMEO, along with our partners, led a coalition of more than 60 private sector and nonprofit organizations to support this legislation and ensure its integrity. We will be working with DBO during the regulatory process to represent the interests of our small business borrowers.

A big thanks to those we worked with: Louis Caditz-Peck of LendingClub, Kurt Chilcott of CDC Small Business Finance, Mark Herbert of Small Business Majority, Connor French and Laura Bond of Funding Circle, Gabriel Villarreal and Gwendy Brown of Opportunity Fund, Sharon Velazquez of Greenlining, and Kevin Stein of CRC. The effort came together because we worked together to build a coalition and bounce strategy off each other. It was a huge team effort and CAMEO played a large role in that.

Our work isn’t done. One down, 49 states to go. If you’re not an endorser or signatory. We’d like to invite you to continue your support of small business by becoming an official endorser of the Small Businesses Borrowers’ Bill of Rights.

California Legislative Resources

Government Resources

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