California Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in California, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Can someone serve on both a school district board and the county board of education at the same time in California?
The Attorney General didn't decide the ultimate question, but granted a private citizen permission to sue in quo warranto because there is a substantial legal issue over whether simultaneously serving…
Do California public works contractors have to pay forepersons California's prevailing wage rate for their supervisory work?
No, not for the supervisory part of the job. California's prevailing wage law only covers manual, craft-level labor, so the Director of Industrial Relations does not have to publish a separate prevail…
Can recalled city council members stay in office if they refuse to accept the recall election results?
Not lawfully, according to this opinion. After Avenal voters recalled four city councilmembers by more than a three-quarters margin, the councilmembers kept meeting and spending city funds anyway. The…
Can a California county pass its own ordinance against copper wire theft, or does state law preempt it?
No, state law does not preempt it. Fresno County's ordinance banning possession, transport, or stripping of scrap commercial-grade copper wire doesn't duplicate or contradict state theft, receiving-st…
Can a federally recognized tribe sell cannabis to California-licensed businesses off tribal lands without a California cannabis license?
No. A federally recognized tribe must obtain a California Department of Cannabis Control license before conducting commercial cannabis activity with California licensees off tribal lands, even if the …
Can a California county deposit government grant money and private gifts into its treasury without violating the ban on private deposits?
Yes to both. Government grant money is not a barred 'private and unofficial source' even when a nonprofit intermediary hands it to the county, because the government remains the true source. Gifts and…
Are privately owned mutual water companies exempt from California city and county building and zoning ordinances?
No. Government Code section 53091 exempts specified publicly owned water facilities from local building and zoning ordinances, but it does not extend that immunity to privately owned public water syst…
Can the same person serve as a director of both a groundwater management district and a fire protection district whose boundaries overlap in California?
No. Where a groundwater district and a fire protection district share territory, simultaneously serving on both boards creates a significant potential clash of duties and is barred under California Go…
Are San Diego police recruits hired between July 2013 and September 2024 entitled to the defined benefit pension plan that voters' invalid 2012 Proposition B took away?
The Attorney General granted leave to sue. The San Diego Police Officers' Association raised a substantial question about whether the City's existing fix for police recruits leaves out a class of offi…
Can someone use a quo warranto lawsuit to remove a California school district superintendent who never had an administrative or teaching credential?
No, the Attorney General denied leave to sue. Education Code section 35029 lets a local school board waive credential requirements for the district superintendent (the 'chief administrative officer'),…
Can a Poway resident remove a city councilmember whose appointment depended on the deciding vote of a former councilmember who had moved away?
No. The Attorney General denied leave to sue. Quo warranto could have directly challenged former Councilmember Pepin's eligibility while he was still in office, but the de facto officer doctrine bars …
Can a California school board trustee also serve as a director of the local municipal water district that supplies water to the schools?
The Attorney General granted the Whittier Union High School District leave to sue Gary Mendez in quo warranto. Under Government Code section 1099, holding two public offices with possible significant …
When you appeal a California sales tax or income tax bill to the Office of Tax Appeals, can the OTA panel decide that a tax regulation conflicts with the governing statute and refuse to apply that regulation to your case?
Yes. OTA panels can evaluate whether applying a tax regulation to a taxpayer's circumstances conflicts with the governing statute, and if so, decline to apply the regulation to that taxpayer. The pane…
Are daily fantasy sports games like DraftKings, FanDuel, and PrizePicks legal in California?
No. The Attorney General concluded that daily fantasy sports games (both pick'em-style proposition contests and draft-style salary-cap contests) constitute sports wagering in violation of Penal Code s…
When a charter school messes up its CalSTRS reporting or contribution payments, can the state Teachers' Retirement Board fine the county office of education that submits the reports on the charter school's behalf? And can the county recover the cost from the charter school?
Yes to both. The Teachers' Retirement Board can assess penalties under Education Code sections 23003, 23006, and 23008 against an intermediary county superintendent of schools for charter school error…
When California offered the federal government 'exclusive jurisdiction' over military lands in 1897, did that automatically include San Clemente Island as Navy property?
No. The Attorney General reaffirmed a 1974 indexed letter conclusion: Statutes 1897, chapter 56, did not give the federal government exclusive state-law jurisdiction over San Clemente Island. The isla…
Is a California regional water management group made up of cities, counties, and water districts a public agency that has to follow the Brown Act open meeting rules?
Yes. The Attorney General concluded that the Madera County Regional Water Management Group, which is composed of local public agencies operating under a memorandum of understanding to develop and impl…
When a vacancy on a California municipal utility district board is filled by appointment, does the appointed director have to step down on election day, leaving a gap, or do they keep the seat until the elected successor is officially seated?
Stay seated. Public Utilities Code section 11865 requires an appointed Municipal Utility District board member to step down only when the elected successor takes office upon certification of the elect…
Can a California city require that the bonus market-rate units a developer earns under the state Density Bonus Law also be sold or rented as affordable?
No. Government Code sections 65915-65918 set a state formula for how many bonus units a developer earns per affordable unit. A city or county that requires those bonus units to themselves be affordabl…
Now that the Legislature has stripped the elected State Board of Equalization of most of its tax-administration duties and given them to a new agency, can the Citizens Compensation Commission cut the Board members' salaries to match?
Yes. Under California Constitution article III, section 8, subdivision (h), the Citizens Compensation Commission must consider the duties, powers, and responsibilities of an office when setting salary…
Our California city expanded its council from five to seven members. Can we now seat the entire seven-member council as the library board?
No. California Education Code section 18910 mandates a five-member library board of trustees, and the statute provides no exception for cities that have grown their councils. The Municipal Libraries A…
Can a California special water district hire its own staff or contract with an outside vendor for staff, when the district's enabling statute says it may contract with two named partner agencies for staff services?
No. The Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency cannot hire its own employees or contract with a private vendor for staff. Its enabling statute lets it get staff only from the County of Ventura or th…
Can the same person serve simultaneously on the boards of two California water districts that have overlapping boundaries and are adverse parties in litigation over Kings River water?
There are substantial issues warranting court review. The AG granted leave to sue in quo warranto. Two boards in active litigation with each other are likely incompatible under Government Code section…
Does California law require every member of a municipal utility district's security force to be a sworn peace officer with POST training?
No. Public Utilities Code section 12820 imposes peace-officer status and POST training only on those security force members the general manager designates as 'security officers' whose primary duty is …
In a county that uses an on-call grand jury (impaneled only when needed), can the district attorney's office issue subpoenas in advance, before the grand jurors are sworn in?
Yes. Penal Code § 939.2 contains no temporal limit; a district attorney may sign and issue grand jury subpoenas before the grand jury is impaneled, provided the grand jury will be impaneled in time to…
If a city council member, school board trustee, or county supervisor has a disability that prevents them from attending in person, does the ADA require their board to let them participate remotely from home, even though the Brown Act normally requires meetings in person?
Yes. The ADA generally requires a local agency to allow remote participation as a reasonable accommodation for a board member with a qualifying disability that precludes in-person attendance. The remo…
Does California's AB 1305 carbon-offset disclosure law cover renewable energy certificates (RECs) that businesses buy on the voluntary market?
No. RECs do not claim to reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions, so they fall outside AB 1305's definition of a 'voluntary carbon offset.' A business buying voluntary RECs to support clean-energy …
Is the probable-cause standard for a California grand jury indictment lower than preponderance of the evidence, and when prosecutors instruct a grand jury under Penal Code § 939.8, must they tell the jury it 'should' indict (instead of 'shall' indict) to avoid constitutional problems?
Two answers. (1) Yes, probable cause is a lower standard than preponderance of the evidence. The prosecution has to show enough to support a 'strong suspicion of guilt,' which is below 'more likely th…
Can a private watchdog group sue Pablo Bryant in quo warranto to remove him from the Temecula-Elsinore-Anza-Murrieta Resource Conservation District's Board of Directors?
No. The AG denied Government Watchdogs' application for leave to sue Bryant. The AG concluded there was no substantial issue of law or fact about whether Bryant was lawfully holding office, and that a…
Can the same person sit on both a county planning commission and a county board of education in California?
No. The two offices are legally incompatible under Government Code section 1099. The planning commission reviews education-facility site decisions and CEQA approvals, the board of education makes scho…
Can the California Legislature give school districts extra LCFF money for every student in the racial or ethnic subgroup with the lowest test scores?
No. Conditioning state education funding on a student's ethnicity, even to address a real achievement gap, would violate the federal Equal Protection Clause. A race-neutral alternative exists: tie sup…
Can a California city council majority attend a paid Chamber of Commerce 'State of the City' breakfast where the mayor speaks, without violating the Brown Act?
No, not under the facts here. If a council majority attends the event, it's a Brown Act 'meeting' because they're congregating to hear an item within their jurisdiction. Neither the conference excepti…
Can a California county pass ordinances limiting how pesticides are used in the coastal zone, even when its Local Coastal Program calls for those limits?
No, not as ordinances of general application: Food & Agricultural Code § 11501.1 preempts local pesticide-use rules without Department of Pesticide Regulation approval. But counties can use site-speci…
Can a private group sue a charter school CEO in quo warranto to remove him from the Sacramento County Board of Education on the theory that running a charter network and serving on the county board are incompatible offices?
Yes, the suit can proceed. The AG granted leave to sue Paul Keefer (CEO of Pacific Charter Institute, a charter management organization, and elected Trustee on Sacramento County Board of Education) in…
Does California's Brown Act apply to a county-level legislative-advocacy group that pools school-district funds to lobby on behalf of those districts?
Yes. SANDABS is an entity created by elected school boards to exercise authority those boards could lawfully delegate, so its Executive Committee is a 'legislative body' under Government Code § 54952(…
Can a small school district remove an elected board member through quo warranto when he has been involuntarily hospitalized for a mental-health crisis and barred from contact with the district by a permanent restraining order?
The AG granted the district leave to sue. Substantial issues of law and fact exist about whether Government Code § 1770(b) is satisfied (declared mental incapacity such that the officeholder cannot pe…
Would California authorizing interstate commercial cannabis sales with another legalizing state create 'significant legal risk' to California under the federal Controlled Substances Act?
Yes. The AG concluded that authorizing interstate commercial cannabis activity poses significant legal risk under the federal CSA because of unsettled federal preemption doctrine and the risk of crimi…
Can Kathleen Garcia simultaneously sit on a community college district board and a fire protection district board whose territories overlap, or does Government Code § 1099 force her to forfeit one of the seats?
The AG granted the College District leave to sue in quo warranto. There is a substantial legal issue under Government Code § 1099 about whether the two offices are 'incompatible' because the fire dist…
Can Shakir Khan, the former Lodi City Councilmember, sue to challenge his replacement Ramon Yepez and reclaim his seat through a quo warranto action?
Yes. The AG granted leave to sue. Substantial questions of fact and law exist about whether Khan's purported jailhouse resignation was valid and whether the Lodi City Council lawfully declared the sea…
Can a member of the City of San Diego Audit Committee also serve on SANDAG's TransNet ITOC, the SANDAG Audit Policy Advisory Committee, or as the MTS Internal Auditor without violating California's incompatible-offices statute?
Mostly no. The AG concluded that simultaneous service on the City Audit Committee and either SANDAG body would violate § 1099 because of overlapping audit jurisdiction. Service as MTS Internal Auditor…
Can a California winery owner self-obtain a criminal record check from the California DOJ and forward it to another state's alcohol regulator to satisfy that state's direct shipper licensing requirements?
No. Forwarding a self-obtained California criminal record check (or a 'no record' notification) to another state's alcohol regulator violates Penal Code §§ 11125, 11142, and 11143. The other state's r…
Did California's expanded pay-to-play disclosure rules in SB 1439 apply to campaign contributions a local official received before January 1, 2023?
No. The Attorney General concluded that SB 1439's expansion of Government Code § 84308 applied only to contributions made on or after January 1, 2023. Pre-2023 contributions did not trigger the new di…
Can a California DA force a court to impanel a criminal grand jury, and do Brady disclosure rules apply to grand jury materials?
On the first question, no. Penal Code § 904.6 says a court 'may' impanel a second grand jury upon a DA's request; it does not require impanelment. The statute's mix of 'may' and 'shall' usage and its …
Can the California Legislature give the State Bar power to regulate non-attorney legal document assistants?
Yes. The California Legislature has plenary power except where the state Constitution explicitly limits it. Article VI, § 9 makes the State Bar a constitutional public corporation but does not limit i…
Can a California city remove a councilmember who skipped 70 consecutive days of meetings during summer recess?
Yes, leave to sue is granted. Substantial questions of law and fact exist on whether Moreno Valley District 3 Councilmember David Marquez was absent without permission from all regular city council me…
Should the AG grant the City of California City leave to sue a councilmember in quo warranto for allegedly accepting a legally incompatible second public office on a health care district board?
Yes. The AG concluded there was a substantial legal question whether serving as both a city councilmember and an East Kern Health Care District board member violates Government Code § 1099, and that t…
Can California water-district directors take their seats by 'appointment in lieu of election' when their nominating petitions were signed only by other nominees?
Yes, leave to sue is granted. Substantial issues of law and fact exist on whether nine directors of the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District (a 'landowner-voter' district under Water Code § 39000 …
Does an abstention count against a majority vote when a California city council fills a vacancy with two yes, one no, and one abstention?
Application denied. The AG concluded there is no substantial question of law about whether Compton City Councilmember Deidre Duhart's appointment was valid. The vote was two in favor, one against, one…
Can a Californian serve at the same time on a city council and on the local water district board?
There is a substantial legal issue as to whether holding seats on the La Puente City Council and the La Puente Valley County Water District Board of Directors at the same time creates incompatible off…
When a California county supervisor dies mid-term, when must the election to fill the seat be held?
Yes. The 'next general election' for purposes of filling a board of supervisors vacancy in a general law county under Government Code § 25061 means a date that qualifies as a general election under El…
If a California school board member resigns mid-term after the district moved to by-trustee area elections, who fills the seat under which boundaries?
On both questions: no. When a school district moves from at-large to by-trustee area elections (or revises trustee area boundaries after the decennial census or to comply with the California Voting Ri…
In California, are paid victim advocates who work with sexually exploited children mandated reporters of child abuse?
Generally no. Paid victim advocates are not on CANRA's list of mandated reporters. But they become mandated reporters if they hold a license that places them in a listed category, or if their job duti…
Can a California prosecutor give a witness's or victim's criminal history (RAP sheet) to defense counsel during discovery, and do they have to redact anything first?
Yes, but with limits. A California district attorney may voluntarily give defense counsel a copy of an adult witness's or victim's RAP sheet during criminal discovery, provided juvenile court informat…
In a California criminal case, can the district attorney just hand over the defendant's RAP sheet to defense counsel, or does the defense have to apply to the Attorney General?
The DA can hand it over voluntarily. Nothing in the criminal discovery rules prevents a prosecutor from giving defense counsel the defendant's own RAP sheet. But for an adult defendant, the DA must fi…
Can a California charter city council appoint a councilmember to a vacancy more than 30 days after the vacancy if its charter sets a 30-day deadline?
Yes, leave to sue is granted. Arcadia is a charter city. The Arcadia Charter, art. IV, § 400, requires the City Council by majority vote to fill a vacancy within thirty days; if it does not, the Counc…
After California county redistricting, who does my county supervisor represent until the next election, the old district or the new one?
For election purposes, the supervisorial district boundaries do not change until the next regularly scheduled election for that seat. Until then, a sitting supervisor remains electorally accountable t…
Can a Los Angeles council member who has already served three full terms be appointed to fill a temporary vacancy created when an indicted incumbent is suspended?
Substantial questions of law exist about whether the appointment is valid, so the AG granted leave to sue in quo warranto. The dispute hinges on whether Charter section 409 (which requires appointing …
Can a county supervisor in California also serve as the general manager of a special district like an airport district whose territory overlaps the county?
No. A Nevada County supervisor cannot also serve as general manager of the Truckee Tahoe Airport District. The two are incompatible public offices under Government Code section 1099 because the agenci…
Can a California county supervisor be appointed to a vacancy if they only moved into the district four days before the appointment, and their family stays in the home they came from?
Substantial questions of law and fact exist about whether David Brown satisfied Alameda County's residency requirements when he was appointed to the District 3 supervisor seat after living in the dist…
If a city council settled a Voting Rights Act case and the settlement said members get 2-year terms, but the city later relied on its 4-year-term ordinance and skipped the next election, can voters force a court to decide whether those members have lawfully stayed in office?
Substantial questions of law and fact exist about whether Mission Viejo councilmembers Ed Sachs, Wendy Bucknum, and Greg Raths lawfully held office past December 2020. The city's 2018 stipulated judgm…
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Attorney general opinions in California are written by the California Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.