AIJIC's advocacy and lobbying focuses on legislation and other matters that significantly affect our profession. Our most recent accomplishments include:

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• Getting relief from AB5, which threatened our ability to work as legitimate independent contractors. After successful advocacy by our lobbyist, Mandy Lee from Omni Government Relations, Governor Newsom signed AB 2257 into law on September 4, 2020 (click here for more information).

 

We have also:

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• Sued the Orange County Superior Court for refusing to produce records that explain their policy of turning away privately hired interpreters in court. After over a year and a half of litigation, the court was ordered to produce these records, which confirm that turning away privately hired interpreters had no basis. The court was also ordered to reimburse us costs and attorney fees (2019-2021).

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• Worked on stopping identity theft of California court certified interpreters in remote depositions (2022-2023).

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• Successfully lobbied against a bill that sought to reduce the annual 100-day cap that allows the California courts to hire independent court interpreters (2021). 

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• Represented independent court interpreters on Language Access Plan guidelines and opposing the policy to provide interpreters for every civil proceeding regardless of income (2015-2016). 

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• Communicated with the offices of Assemblymembers Blanca Pacheco (D - 64th district) and Mike Fong (D - 49th district) to discuss the impact of Assembly bills 1032 and 432 on independent court interpreters (there is none) (2023). 

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• Met with DIR officials about the proposed fee schedule for Workers Comp. proceedings (2016).

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• Sponsored a nationwide petition to get the Administrative Office of the US Courts to make the list of federally certified interpreters available online to the public (1028).

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If you would like to bring to our attention any legislation or regulation that would adversely impact our profession, please email us at info@aijic.org