In the News

To be clear, Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, says he doesn’t want to ban autonomous vehicles, or AVs. He says he’s even willing to ride in one, sometime.

“I’ve done more perilous things in my life,” he joked.




California lawmakers and labor unions rallied on Monday to call for laws to not allow autonomous trucks without human drivers, amid rising safety concerns after accidents involving self-driving taxis from General Motors and Alphabet.




California Democrats lambasted the state’s workplace safety agency on Wednesday after hearing testimony from farmworkers who said they have been exposed to extreme heat and pesticides on the job and have faced wage theft and other labor law violations.




State Sen. Dave Cortese remarked that one day after we’re all gone, kids may ask who Mineta was and why he’s got an airport named after him and a statue, too. Then, he hopes, the stories will start.




The California Senate Education Committee unanimously advanced legislation this week that would prohibit the prone restraint of students, after hearing from a Davis parent whose son died as a result of the practice in 2018.




Authored by Senator Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), Senate Bill 10 requires local education agencies in California to include protocols for responding to student opioid overdoses in their mandatory school safety plans.




SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- After seeing issues with autonomous vehicles across the state, South Bay State Senator Dave Cortese wants to put up some regulation guardrails for the community.

He has introduced Senate Bill 915, which would put decisions for these cars in the hands of local lawmakers and not the state.




From Stockton to Anaheim and San Jose, government officials across California use personal email accounts and texts to do the public’s business—and those messages often never see the light of day because public agencies can’t access them.

Now, a San Jose legislator is working to change that.