Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, has introduced legislation that would permanently revoke the medical licenses of physicians whose certificates were previously pulled for sexual misconduct and later reinstated — closing a gap in state law that has allowed some offenders to resume treating patients.
Senate Bill 849, Weber Pierson’s first bill of 2026, targets a specific and documented vulnerability: California law already mandates automatic license revocation for physician sexual misconduct, but current rules permit those physicians to petition for reinstatement. In some cases, those petitions have been granted.
Under SB 849, any physician whose license was revoked for sexual misconduct and reinstated on or after January 1, 2020 would face automatic re-revocation — with no option to ever petition for reinstatement or renewal again.
“SB 849 closes that door permanently. It also prohibits these individuals from ever petitioning for reinstatement or renewal again.”
“Throughout medicine, there have been troubling cases in which physicians whose licenses were revoked for sexual misconduct were later allowed to return to practice, putting new patients at risk,” Weber Pierson said in announcing the bill.
Weber Pierson framed the legislation as a matter of restoring trust in the health care system and holding providers accountable for their actions. Every patient, she said, deserves safe, respectful, and accountable care. SB 849 is designed to make that guarantee harder to break.
