Two months after headlines declared that California could soon let immigrants sue ICE agents, Scott Wiener's "No Kings Act" is not law — it's sitting on the Assembly's suspense file, the quiet chamber where expensive bills go to die before an Aug. 30 deadline.

SB 747, authored by San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, would create a first-in-the-nation state cause of action letting California residents sue federal immigration agents in state court for constitutional violations like excessive force and wrongful arrest — claims nearly impossible to bring under federal law today. It cleared the state Senate 30-10 in January and the Assembly Judiciary Committee 9-3 on June 9. But the bill now sits on the Assembly Appropriations suspense file, and its next real test is not a floor vote on principle but a cost-driven decision behind closed doors, all before the Legislature's Aug. 30 deadline. For San Francisco — where the bill's marquee plaintiff was arrested and where its sponsoring senator sits — the outcome decides whether a much-touted accountability tool ever exists.

In June, Mission Local and outlets across the state reported that a California bill would soon let immigrants sue ICE agents for violating the Constitution. What most of that coverage understated is how far the bill still has to travel — and how easily it could vanish without a recorded vote.

SB 747, the "No Kings Act," is currently parked on the Assembly Appropriations Committee's suspense file, where it was placed June 24, according to CalMatters' Digital Democracy legislative tracker. The suspense file is where bills with meaningful fiscal impact are held and then dispatched en masse in a single hearing — passed or quietly killed with no individual roll call. With the Legislature facing an Aug. 30 deadline to move bills, that hearing is the choke point, not the earlier committee votes that generated the headlines. The Assembly Judiciary Committee's 9-3 party-line vote on June 9 advanced the measure toward Appropriations; it was not final passage, Mission Local reported.

The stakes are unusually local. The bill's author, Sen. Scott Wiener, represents San Francisco. Its human face is Marvin Godoy Calderon, arrested by federal immigration officers outside his home in the Sunnyside neighborhood at the end of May, according to Mission Local. His attorney, Jordan Weiner of La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco, told Mission Local the measure could be an important legal tool for clients whose constitutional rights are violated in detention. "We welcome this and it's very timely especially as ICE takes more bold actions," Weiner said.

What the bill actually does

SB 747 amends California's Tom Bane Civil Rights Act to make every "natural person" who, under color of law, deprives a Californian of rights secured by the U.S. Constitution liable to the injured party, according to CalMatters' summary of the amended bill. It carries a two-year statute of limitations, authorizes courts to award attorney's fees, costs and expert fees to prevailing plaintiffs, and applies retroactively to March 1, 2025. It is written as an urgency statute, meaning it would take effect immediately on signing. The bill also lets a defendant assert absolute or qualified immunity to the same extent as under comparable federal law, CalMatters notes.

Wiener frames the bill as a response to federal impunity. "If the federal government won't hold these agents accountable for violating the Constitution, we will," he said after the Senate's passage, pointing to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, KQED reported. Vice President JD Vance said the officers in that case were protected by "qualified immunity," according to Mission Local.

The opposition, and the fight hanging over it

Law enforcement groups oppose the measure. Organizations representing California police officers, sheriffs and Highway Patrol officers argued it would undercut the Bane Act, which requires Californians suing law enforcement to show a civil rights violation was carried out through "threats, intimidation, or coercion," KQED reported. At the June Assembly hearing, the California Police Chiefs Association warned the current draft lacks a clear definition of qualified immunity, according to Mission Local.

Looming larger is the constitutional collision. In its analysis of SB 747, staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote that "the bill is very likely to be challenged by the federal government if signed into law." That is not hypothetical: an earlier Wiener measure barring immigration agents from wearing masks on duty is already facing a legal challenge from the Trump administration, according to KQED. And the federal government has signaled how it will fight accountability efforts — the Department of Homeland Security has publicly claimed its officers have "federal immunity in the conduct of [their] duties," Mission Local reported. Wiener counters that federal agents "are not immune from the constitution."

For now, none of that gets litigated unless the bill clears Appropriations. The Aug. 30 deadline makes the coming suspense-file decision the moment that determines whether SB 747 becomes a courtroom weapon — or a press release. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to Mission Local's request for comment; the Assembly Appropriations Committee had not posted an outcome as of this writing.