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Bringing home the bacon tops new California laws in 2022

FILE - A plate of bacon sits on the kitchen table on the Ron Mardesen farm, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, near Elliott, Iowa. A 2018 voter-approved California ballot measure, to take effect, Jan. 1, 2022, set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Critics have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost. Mardesen already meets the California standards for the hogs he sells to specialty meat company Niman Ranch, which supported passage of Proposition 12 and requires all of its roughly 650 hog farmers to give breeding pigs far more room than mandated by the law. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall,File)
FILE - A plate of bacon sits on the kitchen table on the Ron Mardesen farm, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, near Elliott, Iowa. A 2018 voter-approved California ballot measure, to take effect, Jan. 1, 2022, set the nation's toughest living space standards for breeding pigs. Critics have called for putting off enforcement until 2024 for fear prices will rise and jobs will be lost. Mardesen already meets the California standards for the hogs he sells to specialty meat company Niman Ranch, which supported passage of Proposition 12 and requires all of its roughly 650 hog farmers to give breeding pigs far more room than mandated by the law. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall,File)

By DON THOMPSON / Associated Press 6 min read

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – It’s not often that bacon leads a roundup of new laws taking effect with the New Year in California.

But even in progressive California, that’s the headline-grabber.

It’s among a host of other legislation designed to safeguard employees, shield those seeking abortions, protect protesters from police, spare children from gender influence in store displays, and further ease criminal penalties to reduce mass incarceration.

Several of the laws mark national “firsts” – first minimum wage to reach $15 an hour, first to protect warehouse workers from quotas, first to mandate hourly wages for garment workers, first to require the gender-neutral displays.

They are among hundreds of new laws also addressing everything from stealthily removing condoms to handing out disposable packages of condiments.