(The Center Square) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed a budget bill into law that would allocate $90 million to Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health care provider.
The funding resolution was quickly voted on and passed in both chambers of the state Legislature earlier this week after a Senate budget hearing cleared the bill last week.
“Planned Parenthood is an extraordinary organization,” Newsom said during a press conference in which he signed the bill. “It’s a point of pride to be the governor and have the opportunity step into the void, and address these assault and attacks on women.”
The funding resolution, which is called Senate Bill 106, makes $90 million worth of grants available to Planned Parenthood in light of the federal budget cuts enacted in the federal budget, H.R. 1, which was enacted last summer. Otherwise known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, H.R. 1 restricts any federal money from going to nonprofit health care providers that specialize in reproductive health care, family planning or abortion services.
Those who opposed the passage of Senate Bill 106 said recently they don’t want to see million of dollars go to Planned Parenthood when so many of California’s rural hospitals are in danger of closing. Many have closed already or have closed their labor and maternity wards, according to California lawmakers and organizations such as the California Health Care Foundation.
“Right now, over 60 hospitals in the state of California are on the verge of shutting down, and they have to ask for a hospital stress loan,” Assemblymember David Tangipa, R-Fresno, said on the floor of the Assembly on Monday during debate on the Planned Parenthood funding bill. “In Madera County right now, women must travel outside their county just to give birth, despite a nonprofit [Planned Parenthood] operating an office there. This is not true access to care.”
Tangipa also said on Monday that he opposed the funding measure on fiscal grounds, as well.
“Under the original text of SB 106, we would be funneling millions of dollars to a nonprofit with little to no transparency at a time when it feels like every week brings another case of corruption or misuse of public funds,” Tangipa said during debate over the bill on the Assembly floor. “We should be moving to greater accountability, not away from it.”
Lawmakers also said during a Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee meeting last week that the funding package was the result of talks with Planned Parenthood officials specifically, not those who represented other nonprofit health care providers. According to a fact sheet published by Planned Parenthood in 2025, 115 health centers are located in California. The organization touted 1.3 million total annual visits, which resulted in 87,000 cancer screenings, 2.5 million tests for sexually-transmitted infections and 400,000 contraceptive visits.
“The fact of the matter is, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the chaos this would create, and they knew the communities that this would harm,” Jodi Hicks, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said of congressional representatives from California who voted for H.R. 1. “All nine Republican Congress members in California voted yes for that big, horrible bill that had the largest health care cut in history, including completely de-funding Planned Parenthood.”
The governor addressed other questions after the bill signing on Wednesday, including the potential passage of a “billionaire’s tax,” or a one-time tax on the wealth of Californians who have more than $1 billion in assets. The tax could pass if voters pass it as a ballot measure later this year, although those pushing the measure have not yet accumulated enough signatures to get the wealth tax on the ballot, according to news reports.
Some experts warn the measure could drive billionaires out of the state, according to previous reporting Wednesday by The Center Square.
“It’s one-time resources for an ongoing issue,” Newsom said of the billionaire’s tax. “The ongoing burden is to the general fund that will see a decline in revenue as a consequence of the tax.”
