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What legislative history and votes occurred for AB 495 in California (dates and vote counts)?
Executive Summary
California Assembly Bill AB 495’s legislative history is reported inconsistently across sources: several trackers and summaries state AB 495 (Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025) was introduced in February 2025, passed the Assembly 62-7 on June 3, 2025, recorded multiple committee votes including 11-2 and 4-1 margins in the Senate, and shows a Senate passage reported as 29-10 with later concurrence votes in September and final chaptering in October 2025; other records describe an earlier 2023 AB 495 on a different topic (battery recycling) that died in 2024, producing potential confusion between sessions and bill numbers. The official roll calls and committee reports show broad support in committee and on the Assembly floor but varying recorded Senate tallies and suspense-file actions, indicating the need to consult California’s official legislative history page or the Legislature’s Chaptered bill text to reconcile discrepancies [1] [2] [3].
1. The Claim: “AB 495 passed the Assembly 62-7 on June 3, 2025” — What the records actually show
Multiple sources report a clear Assembly floor vote of 62-7 in favor on June 3, 2025, and attribute that passage to AB 495, the Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025, following committee approvals and amendments. Trackers that follow the 2025–2026 legislative session list the bill’s introduction in February 2025 and record successive Assembly committee approvals with similar favorable margins prior to the June floor vote, indicating a consistent Assembly record across databases [1] [3]. These concordant entries demonstrate that the Assembly majority supported the measure on that date, but do not by themselves resolve conflicting later entries about Senate action and ultimate chaptering, which require cross-checking the official California legislative history and chapter number.
2. The Claim: “Senate votes vary — 7-0, 11-2, 29-10” — Why tallies diverge
Senate action on AB 495 shows inconsistent tallies across the sources: some record committee-level votes such as 11-2 and 4-1 in favor during July 2025, while other entries cite a 29-10 Senate floor passage in September 2025 and a 7-0 suspense-file referral on August 18, 2025. These discrepancies likely reflect different stages of Senate consideration—committee roll calls, Appropriations suspense votes, and the full Senate floor vote are distinct actions each with their own tallies—and some trackers conflate committee votes with final passage tallies or list interim suspense-file votes as formal roll calls. The conflicting numbers therefore appear to be a mixture of committee votes versus floor votes and administrative suspense-file actions, rather than mutually exclusive records of the same event [1] [2].
3. The Claim: “AB 495 was chaptered into law October 12, 2025” — Confirmations and contradictions
Some tracking summaries state AB 495 was chaptered on October 12, 2025, implying gubernatorial signature or chaptering by the Secretary of State, while other records stop at suspense-file placement or show the bill still engaged in procedural steps in August and September 2025. The presence of a “chaptered” entry in bill-text repositories indicates that at least one source captured a final enacted status, but the inconsistency with interim reports suggests either delayed updates in some trackers or conflation between different bills sharing the AB 495 designation across sessions. To resolve this, the official California legislative history and the Secretary of State chaptering list provide the definitive record; the trackers reviewed point to chaptering but do not uniformly present the same final date, so official chaptering records should be consulted for confirmation [2] [4] [3].
4. Why confusion exists: duplicate bill numbers and session overlap
The datasets reviewed show two distinct uses of the AB 495 identifier: a 2023–2024 AB 495 concerning battery recycling introduced by Assemblymember Josh Hoover that died under constitutional deadlines in January 2024, and a 2025 AB 495 sponsored by Celeste Rodriguez about family preparedness that progressed through committees and floor votes in 2025. This reuse of bill numbers across sessions is standard in California and explains much of the apparent contradiction in legislative histories; trackers that do not clearly display the legislative session or that merge session records produce apparent conflicts that are, in reality, separate bills [5] [3]. Awareness of session year is essential when interpreting vote counts and status updates.
5. Final assessment and best next steps to verify votes and dates
The aggregated sources show a coherent story at the Assembly level (62-7 on June 3, 2025) and multiple supportive Senate committee tallies (11-2, 4-1), with recorded Senate floor activity reported at 29-10 and administrative suspense-file actions on August 18, 2025; however, discrepancies remain about final Senate votes and the chaptering date. For authoritative verification, consult the California Legislature’s official bill history and roll call pages and the Secretary of State chaptered bills list; these official records will reconcile committee versus floor tallies and provide the definitive dates and vote counts [2] [6] [4]. The mixed reporting across secondary trackers highlights the importance of using primary legislative documents to confirm legislative outcomes.