Here’s a sampling of some of the significant new laws from last session:

Register your ammo purchases: Californian gun owners will need to deal with a variety of new gun-control limitations after the governor signed a broad package of bills – and voters approved Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gun-control initiative on Nov. 8. The most potentially far reaching effects will come from the state’s approval of Proposition 63, which has various restrictions and a roll-out of implementation dates over a few years.

Beginning July 1, 2017, the state will implement a ban on high-capacity magazines and will require owners to report any lost or stolen weapons. The much-publicized requirement that ammo buyers pass background checks won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2018.

Higher minimum wages and more unpaid leave: “The statewide minimum wage goes from $10 to $10.50 an hour for businesses with 26 or more employees — a rate that will rise to $15 by 2022,” as the Mercury-News explained. That wage hike comes from Senate Bill 3. “Assembly Bill 2393 gives up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all K-12 and community college employees, including classified workers and community college faculty,” the newspaper reported.

Restrictions on police use of asset forfeiture: Senate Bill 443 was one of the last bills from last session that the governor signed, but it is widely viewed as one of the most significant changes in state law. Before the new law went into effect, police agencies had the ability to take the cash, cars and even homes from people even if they weren’t convicted of any crime. The authorities needed simply to claim the property was used in the commission of a drug crime. California had fairly tough restrictions in place, but local and state police agencies would partner with federal authorities under the “equitable sharing” program and then they would operate under looser federal law.

As the Drug Policy Alliance explains, “Starting on January 1, 2017, California law will require a conviction prior to forfeiture in any state case where the items seized are cash under $40,000 or other property such as homes and vehicles regardless of value.” If local or state agencies work with the feds, they could only share in the proceeds if an underlying conviction were obtained. The final compromise still allows law enforcement to keep proceeds of more than $40,000 in cash only – a provision which caused major law enforcement groups to drop their opposition.

Higher fees from the DMV … and more: Two new laws boost the fees for DMV registrations by $10 and for an environmental license plate by the same amount. Another DMV-related law requires drivers to restrain children 2 years or under in a rear-facing car seat unless they weigh 40 pounds or more. Drivers will need to pay attention to a new law dealing with hand-held devices. “Driving a motor vehicle while holding and operating a handheld wireless telephone or a wireless electronic communications device will be prohibited, unless the device is mounted on a vehicle’s windshield or is mounted/affixed to a vehicle’s dashboard or center console in a manner that does not hinder the driver’s view of the road,” according to the agency.

Gaining the ‘right to try’: California became the 32nd state to pass so-called “right to try” legislation, which allows terminally ill people to try experimental drugs that have yet to pass the federal Food and Drug Administration’s full battery of tests. Supporters argued that many people die while waiting for drugs to clear that long and cumbersome process. After Senate amendments, Assembly Bill 1668 includes the caveat that “a health benefit plan, except to the extent the plan provided coverage, is not liable for any outstanding debt related to the treatment or lack of insurance for the treatment.”

Beer and wine at barbershops: Assembly Bill 1322 passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Legislature. This bill allows beauty salons and barber shops to serve their clients limited quantities of beer or wine at no extra charge without obtaining a license or permit from the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control,” according to the Assembly analysis. The new law still allows local governments to impose restrictions on this practice.

Rescuing Fido from a hot car: Assembly Bill 797 reduces liability for citizens who break a car window to save an animal that is closed in a hot car – provided they first try calling the authorities and the authorities haven’t responded quickly enough.

Legalizing lane-splitting: Anyone who drives on California’s vast network of freeways has noticed motorcyclists’ habit of “lane-splitting,” as they drive between the cars that occupy the lanes. The law had required motorcyclists to ride “as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane,” even though the practice has been widely accepted. Motorcyclists have long argued that this is safer than remaining in one lane and risk being hit from behind. Assembly Bill 51 “would authorize the Department of the California Highway Patrol to develop educational guidelines relating to lane splitting in a manner that would ensure the safety of the motorcyclist, drivers, and passengers, as specified,” according to the state Legislative Counsel.

Ignore those juvenile convictions: Assembly Bill 1843 “Prohibits employers from asking an applicant for employment to disclose information concerning or related to an arrest, detention, processing, diversion, supervision, adjudication, or court disposition that occurred while the person was subject to the process and jurisdiction of juvenile court law, or seek or utilize any such information as a factor in determining any condition of employment,” according to the Assembly analysis. This was a contentious issue that passed on largely partisan lines (Democrats supported; Republicans opposed) given business-community concerns about their ability to screen job applicants.

You must be 21 to smoke or vape: Earlier in the year, the governor signed a package of smoking bills that, most significantly, raises the smoking age to 21. It also raised the age for vaping to 21. That last provision was particularly controversial because some argue e-cigarettes are a safer way for smokers to break their dangerous habit. Those laws went into effect in June.

Offering showers for the homeless: Assembly Bill 1995 would require community colleges that have shower facilities to allow enrolled homeless students to use those showers.

More bathroom choices for the transgendered: California passed a law, Assembly Bill 1772, that requires all businesses and public agencies with single-toilet bathrooms to make them available to people of all genders – a bill viewed more as a symbolic measure offered in the thick of the national debate over bathrooms for transgendered people.

The new Legislature will be back in full swing after the new year.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

A new government-run retirement program: On Thursday, Gov. Brown signed Senate Bill 1234, which gives legislative approval to the state’s continuing efforts to create a new government-run retirement program for private-sector employees. Once it is up and running, private employers (with five or more employees) will be required to offer this program, whereby 3 percent of each employees’ earnings will be deducted and invested by a state-selected investment group – possibly, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

Employees can opt out. The details are not yet certain, but the goal is to invest the money in a low-risk investment tied to the Treasury bond. Supporters say the law protects taxpayers from incurring more than minimal costs, but critics insist the program could grow and change in ensuing years – and that there’s no way of creating a massive new government program without imposing risks on the state budget.

The idea, which is being pitched in other states too, grew out of union activism. Several years ago, when publicity over unfunded public-pension liabilities began creating pressure for pension reform, union allies wanted to come up with a “positive” rebuttal to all those news stories about six-figure pensions and pension-spiking gimmicks. This idea is designed help private workers.

Putting limits on ‘policing for profit’: One of the most controversial policing strategies in recent years has been “civil asset forfeiture.” Born out of the nation’s drug war in the 1980s, forfeiture was designed to help police agencies crack down on drug kingpins by allowing departments to grab the cash, cars and properties gained through their illegal activities. But like many government programs, asset forfeiture morphed into something its creators never envisioned.

Two of the men who helped create the program in the U.S. Department of Justice, John Yoder and Brad Cates, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2014 pointing to the corruption engendered by this process: “Law enforcement agents and prosecutors began using seized cash and property to fund their operations, supplanting general tax revenue, and this led to the most extreme abuses: law enforcement efforts based upon what cash and property they could seize to fund themselves, rather than on an even-handed effort to enforce the law.”

Basically, police agencies came to depend on the revenue and they distorted their law-enforcement priorities based on the chance to grab more cash. There’s no due process here, given that police agencies file suit against the property itself, alleging it was involved in a drug crime. No conviction is necessary. California had previously passed reforms that mostly required a conviction, but police agencies got around that by partnering with the feds (and operating under looser federal standards) and then splitting the seized property.

Senate Bill 443 was killed last year after lobbying efforts by police chiefs and other law-enforcement agencies. But a fairly recent amendment – allowing cops to still take large amounts of cash without a conviction, but limiting smaller amounts of cash and property takings – eliminated most opposition from law enforcement. The new law is meaningful, and one of the more substantive compromises to take place in Sacramento this year.

Giving the terminally ill the right to try: One of the more significant “freedom” battles this year was over the so-called “right to try” – i.e., the ability of terminally ill patients to try experimental drug treatments that have yet to gain final approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Similar measures have been approved by 31 other states.

The Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based free-market think tank, has been championing these measures across the country. As Goldwater explains: “The FDA … often stands between the patients and the treatments that may alleviate their symptoms or provide a cure. To access these treatments, patients must either go through a lengthy FDA exemption process or wait for the treatments to receive FDA approval, which can take a decade or more and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The California law, Assembly Bill 1668, passed overwhelmingly. According to the official bill analysis, it authorizes drug manufacturers to make investigational treatment available “to a patient with a serious or immediately life-threatening disease, when that patient has considered all other treatment options currently approved by the FDA, has been unable to participate in a relevant clinical trial, and for whom the investigational drug has been recommended by the patient’s primary physician and a consulting physician.”

Allowing felons to vote: One of the more controversial new laws, Assembly Bill 2466 by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, allows felons who are serving their sentence in county jails to vote. The measure was opposed by law-enforcement groups, but Weber argued it would stop discrimination in voting and make it less likely that prisoners would commit new offenses.

“Civic participation can be a critical component of re-entry and has been linked to reduced recidivism,” Weber said, according to a Los Angeles Times report. “For me, this bill is not about second chances, but about maintaining the integrity of elections,” said Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, in a statement. “Close elections, especially at the local level, could now turn on a handful of ballots cast by people in jail. This new law is bad for democracy and will further erode trust in government.”

Putting self-driving cars on the road: Autonomous vehicle technology has been advancing rapidly, and California is, not surprisingly, ground zero for the development of this important new technology. Gov. Brown signed a bill Thursday “that for the first time allows testing on public roads of self-driving vehicles with no steering wheels, brake pedals or accelerators,” according to a San Jose Mercury News article. “A human driver as backup is not required, but the vehicles will be limited to speeds of less than 35 mph.”

Assembly Bill 1592 itself is rather modest. It provides two spots for such testing – in a San Ramon business park and at the former Concord Naval Weapons Station. And Friday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles released new regulations that are far friendlier toward self-driving cars than the DMV’s previous regulations. So while the new law itself isn’t particularly significant, the state’s new legislative and regulatory approach certainly is. If that approach continues, we’ll be seeing rapid expansion of autonomous vehicles here.

Greenlighting granny flats: The governor’s signing of Senate Bill 1069 shows increasing bipartisan understanding of the state’s skyrocketing home prices. The bill would relax standards for creating ADUs (accessory dwelling units), better known as granny flats.

“Eliminating barriers to ADU construction is a common-sense, cost-effective approach that will permit homeowners to share empty rooms in their homes and property, add incomes to meet family budgets, and make good use of the property in the Bay Area and across California while easing the housing crisis,” according to the bill analysis’ summary of the author’s arguments. The bill embraces a regulatory approach that could be tried with other types of housing.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.