Child support: license suspensions.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details on enforcement mechanisms or consequences for non-compliance, leaving these aspects uncertain.

Child Support: License Suspensions

This law changes how child support agencies share income information with licensing boards to prevent suspending licenses of low-income individuals who owe child support.

What This Bill Does

• Expands the current rule that prevents sharing income info for low-income individuals from being sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) when considering license suspension due to unpaid child support.
• Extends this protection to all licensing boards, including those issuing licenses, certificates, credentials, permits, or registrations related to businesses, occupations, professions, and operating motor vehicles.
• Requires these changes starting January 1, 2027.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who owe child support and have low incomes.
• Licensing boards that issue various types of licenses, certificates, credentials, permits, or registrations.

Terms To Know

Support obligor

A person legally required to pay child support.

Median income

The middle value in a list of incomes when they are arranged from lowest to highest.

Limits and Unknowns

• It is not clear how this law will be enforced or what the consequences might be for those who do not comply.
• The exact impact on low-income individuals and licensing boards remains uncertain until the law takes effect in January 2027.

Official Summary Text

AB 2195, as introduced, Celeste Rodriguez.
Child support: license suspensions.
Existing law delegates to the Department of Child Support Services and local child support agencies the responsibility for collecting and enforcing child support obligations, including child support delinquencies, as defined. Existing law requires a local child support agency to maintain a list of those persons included in certain child support cases. Existing law requires the Department of Child Support Services to consolidate and certify the local child support agency lists and provide the consolidated list to specified state entities that are responsible for the regulation of licenses, including, but not limited to, the Department of Motor Vehicles. Existing law requires those entities, prior to the issuance or renewal of a license, to determine whether the applicant is on the most recent certified consolidated list provided by the department, and authorizes the entity to withhold
issuance or renewal of the license of an applicant on the list, as specified. Existing law prohibits the department from including in the list sent to the Department of Motor Vehicles, for the purpose of denying, withholding, or suspending a driver’s license, the information of a support obligor whose annual household income is at or below 70% of the median income for the county in which the department or the local child enforcement agency believes the support obligor resides. Commencing January 1, 2027, existing law would only apply this prohibition to noncommercial driver’s licenses.
This bill would expand the prohibition on the department to also prohibit the department from sending the above-described income information to all boards, as defined, that issue a license, certificate, credential, permit, registration, or any other authorization to engage in a business, occupation, or profession, or operate a motor vehicle, for the purpose of denying, withholding,
or suspending a license. The bill would make a conforming change.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF