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Senate committee advances bill to let family petitioners stay involved in Care Court

Senate Judiciary Committee · April 28, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

A Senate Judiciary subcommittee voted to move SB 1242 to the floor after proponents said allowing original family petitioners to provide ongoing care-coordination information will plug gaps in treatment; Disability Rights California and some senators warned the bill removes a respondent consent step and could harm those with abusive families.

Senator Choi introduced SB 1242 to allow family members who filed initial Care Court petitions to continue participating in care coordination and to provide relevant information to the court and care team, while reserving judicial discretion to limit or exclude participation if it is harmful.

The bill’s sponsor, Suzanne Fiddler of the Conference of California Bar Associations, told the committee that family petitioners are often the first to recognize deterioration and provide real-time information and that current law can exclude them from ongoing proceedings unless the respondent consents. “This bill does improve care…

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