SACRAMENTO -- It will soon be easier to qualify for food stamps but more difficult to bring cellphones into prisons under legislation signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The governor also enacted a bill creating the nation's most ambitious recycling targets and requiring businesses and apartment buildings -- the biggest producers of waste in the state -- to recycle more. Proponents say the legislation will create tens of thousands of jobs.

Brown on Thursday signed three dozen bills and vetoed three as he inched closer to Sunday's midnight deadline to decide the fate of 600 bills the Legislature passed last month in the waning days of the legislative session. In all, Brown has signed 230 bills and vetoed 28, which means he's got some heavy lifting to do over the final three days. Three-hundred and fifty bills remain on his desk.

Under AB 6, food stamp recipients will no longer be forced to be fingerprinted -- something that health advocates say frightened away eligible families from the program, now called CalFresh. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 50 percent of eligible Californians receive food stamps -- one of the lowest rates in the country.

"This important legislation will help thousands of California families feed their children in these most challenging economic times," said Daniel Zingale, senior vice president of the California Endowment, a health advocacy organization. "It eliminates bureaucratic red tape and eases the delivery of vital nutrition assistance to our state's most vulnerable children."


California was one of only three states with a fingerprinting requirement. Because it cost $17 million a year to enforce, a state audit recommended scrapping it -- against the opposition of Republicans, who argued that the system will now be open to abuse.

In a tougher tack, Brown signed SB 26, which will impose up to six months jail time and a $5,000 fine on anyone -- including prison guards -- who try to smuggle cellphones to prison inmates.

Authorities say that many inmates now use the devices to organize criminal activity inside and outside prisons.
The governor also issued an executive order to crack down on cellphone ownership in prisons. The crackdown will include more searches of people who visit prisoners, as well as random searches of inmates' cells.

"Prisons exist to remove individuals from our communities who would otherwise do harm to their fellow citizens," Brown said. "When criminals in prison get possession of a cellphone, it subverts the very purpose of incarceration. They use these phones to organize gang activity, intimidate witnesses and commit crimes.

Today's action will help to break up an expanding criminal network and protect law-abiding Californians."
Over the past year, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confiscated 6,000 cellphones.

"We know that inmates with cellphones are ordering murders, organizing escapes, facilitating drug deals, controlling street gangs and terrorizing rape victims," said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, the bill's author.

The governor also signed a handful of bills to protect pregnant women, including a pair, SB 222 and AB 210, that will require insurance companies to cover maternity services, a provision that had been vetoed several times by previous governors but would have become law anyway in 2013 under the new federal health-care act. The bill signed by Brown is aimed at women who buy individual insurance policies that until now didn't carry maternity coverage.

Another bill, SB 299, would prohibit employers from refusing to pay and maintain insurance coverage for women who take maternity leave.

"Healthy mothers mean healthy babies," Brown said. "I want the next generation of Californians to get the best possible start in life."

Brown signed 25 bills that proponents say will generate tens of thousands of jobs, including AB 341, which will require every generator of commercial waste -- including public agencies, schools and other institutions -- to implement a recycling program. The goal under the law is to recycle 75 percent of solid waste by 2020 -- which proponents say will create 60,000 green jobs in the next eight years.

Commercial waste has grown since the California Integrated Waste Management Act was adopted in 1989. The law mandated that cities and counties divert 25 percent of solid waste by 1995 and 50 percent by 2000. Every major California city, including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, met that standard.

Two decades ago, California's waste stream was split equally between residential and commercial properties. But per-capita residential disposal has dropped from more than 60 pounds per household per week in 1989 to just 27 pounds today. But commercial waste has increased and now accounts for two-thirds of the state's waste stream, said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste.
Brown signed a number of food and nutritional bills to aid the poor and elderly.

Under AB 69, counties will be able to identify needy seniors through the Social Security Administration's benefits database to enroll them in the food stamp program.

Only 10 percent of eligible seniors are enrolled in CalFresh, a California Health Interview survey showed.
"Assembly Bill 69 ensures struggling seniors get the critical nutrition they need to stay healthy and vital,'' said Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, the author of the bill.

Moody Investor Services said in a bill analysis that one of the most effective uses of tax dollars is to encourage the poor and elderly to make full use of food stamp benefits. For every dollar spent on food stamps, $1.74 is generated in economic activity, Moody's said.

Another bill, AB 152, provides a tax credit to California growers for the cost of fresh fruits or vegetables donated to California food banks.