For the first time in his more than seven years as a member of the California Legislature, Assemblyman James Ramos is encountering intense opposition to his efforts to pass a law having a direct bearing on an issue related to empowering Native Americans residing in the Golden State.
Since his election to the California Assembly in 2018, James Ramos has compiled a remarkable, indeed unrivaled, track record of sponsoring and gaining passage of legislation pertaining to the state’s indigenous population. This is undoubtedly an outgrowth of his status as the California Legislature’s first and yet only lawmaker who is a member of a Native American tribe.
Two key elements of Ramos’s success in this regard consists of his being a member of the Democratic Party, which dominates politics in California, and that party’s affinity for identity politics. Moreover, Ramos has capitalized on the willingness of the state’s current political leadership to erase, counter, reverse or eradicate prejudice against Native Americans that historically existed in the state, including policies that outright discriminated against American Indians that were codified into law by both the upper and lower houses of the California Legislature in the past. Consequently, there was no resistance, or at least no effective resistance, to the bills he authored and introduced, up until now.
These legislative successes included Assembly Bill 601, which involved an energy savings assistance program that facilitated obtaining energy-efficient appliances for tribal communities; AB 44, relating to the California law enforcement telecommunications system, which was of benefit to tribal police; AB 2695, which impacted law enforcement by providing for criminal statistics disaggregation by Indian country; AB 3015, which exempts federally recognized Indian tribes from nonresident tuition and fees for public postsecondary education; AB 389, relating to Native American repatriation and adjusting the California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 2001, by applying its provisions to California State Universities; AB 854, touching on tribal gaming, specifically compact ratification; AB 1041 relating to wildlife, namely white sage taking and possession; AB 1459, which extended to the creation of a State Capitol mural honoring Native Americans; AB 81, which reinforced California protections for Native American families under the Indian Child Welfare Act; AB 1284, which encourages the Natural Resources Agency to enter co-governance/co-management agreements with federally recognized tribes; AB 1821, which requires teaching the impact of the Mission and Gold Rush eras on California Native Americans in public schools; AB 2022, which removed the term “squaw” from all geographic features and place names in California; AB 2348, which revamped the Feather Alert system, requiring law enforcement to respond within 24 hours and allowing tribal governments to communicate directly with the California Highway Patrol; AB 1863, requiring the California Highway Patrol to state reasons for denying a Feather Alert request; AB 2108; requiring county social workers and others to notify parents, guardians, legal counsel, and tribes when a foster child is missing; AB 2695, requiring disaggregating criminal record data by whether incidents occurred in Indian country; AB 1592, authorizing the California Department of Parks and Recreation to partner with the California Indian Heritage Center Support Organization to develop the California Indian Heritage Center; AB 1769, which improved transfer pathways for tribal college students into California’s public higher education systems; and AB 1841, designating California Native American Day as a paid state holiday.
During the current legislative session, Ramos authored and introduced AB 1881, the California Indian Freedom Act of 2026, a proposal to strengthen protections for Native Americans engaging in religious practices and accessing sacred sites within the state.
As multiple interest groups, including landowners, developers and local governments were taking stock of the bill, concern was expressed that it would potentially inhibit the development of property and interfere with the land use authority traditionally exercised by municipal and county governments. During a series of negotiations, Ramos was persuaded to soften the bill by removing its restrictions on land that falls under local authority, while keeping it applicable to state lands.
As it is now being contemplated in the Assembly, Assembly Bill 1881 would require government agencies to secure tribal consent before building projects on state land that might affect Indigenous spiritual practices. And it allows tribal governments and individual members to sue if their rights to those practices are violated.
Builders, developers and their representative have expressed misgivings over the bill, claiming it would give California tribes veto power over infrastructure and other types of projects and that it will subject the development approval process, which is already bound by regulations in the California Environmental Quality Act, to yet more red tape. If approved, the legislation could make it difficult to complete projects relating to improving water accessibility, critics of AB 1881 say.
Having already compromised on the legislation, Ramos has indicated he is willing to make a few more concessions with regard to water accessibility, but says that he wants the bill as it now stands to remain pretty much intact.
Assembly Bill 1881, Ramos said, “seeks to ensure that California Indians can freely practice their religions and spiritual traditions on state public lands. Getting here today, we [incorporated into the bill] several amendments. We took out local cities and counties. We worked with the Building Industry Association and came to agreement and made amendments to the bill. We continue to honor those commitments to the BIA [Building Industry Association]. California is home to the largest population of Native Americans in the United States, [with] each [tribe having] its own culture, religion that has predated statehood. That’s important to highlight, because we cannot put Pan-Americanism into the tribal culture and say that one culture fits it all. Each different culture and tribal identity shares its own creation, shares its own stories, so each one is totally different. Yet, for centuries there has been a long-standing policy in this country and in this state that has allowed for the suppression of tribal spirituality, cultural expressions in an effort to assimilate tribal people in the United States and in the State of California. That was evident by the first governor putting out bounties on California Indian people that was paid for by state taxpayers’ dollars. And we’ve seen that movement of assimilation move forward with slogans like, ‘Kill the Indian and save the man,’ where boarding schools were erected. And, in fact, California was home to 13 federal Indian boarding schools that abducted Native American children from their families, punished them for speaking their language and prohibited their spiritual practices. These boarding schools resulted in generational trauma, trauma that still continues today. Unfortunately, the legacy of Indian assimilation and cultural suppression still shapes present-day policy. It shapes it in the form of distrust, distrust from agencies and those that think somehow Californian people are trying to get back everything that was once theirs. We have to look beyond that in 2026. The governor moved forward with a state apology to California Indian people. It’s time that the state legislature also moves forward and starts to correct those things of the past that has separated cultural items from this state’s first people. We continue to look to the ability to conduct customs and traditions on tribal lands within their own traditional areas, areas that were taken from them in history, through force, assimilation. What this bill does, it now stands in 2026 to allow California’s first people to assemble on public property for customs and traditions. And again, I made several amendments that narrowed it down to state public lands. Tribal members are routinely questioned or harassed for wearing regalia or carrying ceremonial items in public places. Native students and their families still face obstacles or prohibitions on wearing regalia at graduation ceremonies despite state and federal law that gives them that opportunity. We continue to look for the voice to be heard here in the State of California. AB 1881 looks to afford Native Americans the same level of protection for their faith as we do for other religions in this country. In the State of California, we continue to move forward with that voice, a voice that drowned-out in policies we were up against, a voice that continues to want to be at the table, a voice that continues to say, ‘We have the right to assemble and practice our customs and traditions in a state whose ancestral lands are traditional lands of Indian people.’ The bill ensures that state agencies allow access to sacred sites on state lands and permit gathering of traditional plants, foods and other materials essential to tribal cultural practices. The bill further protects the handling of sacred items and regalia at state grounds, including here at the state capital. My office has worked tirelessly with the opposition to address concerns, concerns since we moved forward on the bill that I alluded to that we took, worked with the Building Industry Association, took out cities and counties for the League of Cities. We continue to do more and we’re continuing to open up that dialogue to work on issues that can bring us together. Opposition to California’s first people’s rights to conduct ceremonies on lands that were stripped from them is something that should be afforded here in the State of California in the year 2026. I want to be clear, Mr. Chair and members, in 2026 I have to write a law to give the rightful people of this land the right to assemble and practice their customs and traditions in the State of California. This bill, AB 1881, moves us forward to ensuring that California’s first people and their rights are respected in this day and age. I ask that we stand united with California’s first people and move forward by supporting their ability to practice customs and traditions on their traditional lands here in the State of California.”
Opposition to the bill, which significantly includes several Democrats, notably some who are in their party’s leadership roles, is based in large measure on the way in which its language would allow the assertion of intrusion on tribal religious practices to be used to block or shut down water infrastructure projects or make them exceedingly difficult and expensive to proceed with. The bill would give tribal governments and individual tribe members legal leverage in challenging such projects based on those projects conceivably interfering with religious rites, ceremonies or practices.
The bill would place the burden of proof on the state to demonstrate, if a project were challenged in court, that the development does not prevent the exercise of Native American religion or spiritual celebration.
According to the legislative analysts’ review of Assembly Bill 1881, it will, if passed into law, require that state officials obtain “free, prior and informed consent,” from tribal authorities if government officials know a project would impact or destroy a sacred site, block access or privacy or result in “long-term environmental degradation affecting religious and spiritual practices.” That provision would allow Native Americans greater control over infrastructure projects than is prudent or in the interest of the general public, those opposed to the bill say.
The California Chamber of Commerce, in its publication “Alert,” stated that the chamber was opposed to AB 1881 because it “would give California tribes effective veto power over water infrastructure projects and a broad range of government actions by imposing an unworkable consent requirement and strict scrutiny standard.”
On June 30, 2026, the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Chairman Tom Umberg, took up the bill as part of the process to determine whether the state’s upper legislative house will permit the bill as approved in the Assembly to be passed unaltered or be subject to revision before it goes to the governor to be signed into law.
California Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Kristopher Anderson, who was also authorized to speak on behalf of the Association of California Water Agencies, the California State Association of Counties, the League of California Cities, the Agricultural Council of California, the Western Growers Association and a handful of regional and local water agencies, wrote to Senator Umberg regarding Assembly Bill 1881, stating that “Codifying this standard for tribal interests would elevate tribal religious freedom of expression, spiritual practices, sacred sites, objects and ceremonies above all other competing interests, with no clear limiting principle. This shift from consultation to mandating consent marks a fundamental change in California land use law and could effectively grant a single tribe the power to halt or indefinitely delay any project.”
Anderson stated in the letter that before such projects proceed, those promoting the projects on state land and the state itself are already obliged to consult with tribal governments.
Ultimately, Umberg allowed the bill out of his committee to go on toward further discussion within the State Senate, but said he was doing so on the condition that Ramos work toward further modification of the form, content, extent and limitations of the bill in conjunction with those currently opposing it to find an acceptable compromise. Unless that opposition is neutralized, Umberg warned, the bill will die.
“If we don’t get some of these issues worked out, I won’t be able to support the bill on the floor,” Umberg indicated.
Ramos spurned opportunities to move on to the California Senate in previous years, at least in part, it appears, because he thought remaining in the lower house would give him a shot at becoming Speaker of the Assembly. Given the term limits California imposes on its state legislators, which confine them to 12 years total in one or both the Assembly or State Senate, Ramos must retire from the State Legislature as of 2030 and therefore cannot at this point move on to the State Senate. He remains in place in the Assembly, with an outside chance of acceding to the coveted role of Speaker in 2028. His ability to salvage AB 1881 in some form in the face of the opposition to it that has materialized could be seen as test of his parliamentary skill, bearing upon whether the leadership of the Democratic Party is willing to gamble on conferring the speakership on him.
-Mark Gutglueck