California has a new law meant to treat tribes the way the state treats other governments when it hires them. Starting Jan. 1, state agencies will be able to give consulting contracts directly to California tribes without advertising them or collecting three bids. For tribes with land stewardship crews, archaeologists and cultural monitors, that could mean steady state work on their own homelands.
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area won’t get it. Neither will the dozens of other California tribes that are not on the federal list. The law’s main exemptions name only “federally recognized” California Native American tribes.
What the law does
Assemblymember James C. Ramos, a San Bernardino Democrat and the only California Native American in the Legislature, introduced AB 2187 on Feb. 19. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it on Sept. 25, and it became Chapter 455 of the Statutes of 2026. It changes three sections of the Public Contract Code, the law that governs how state agencies buy services.
- No advertising or bidding for some consulting work. Section 10335.5 now exempts consulting contracts “that can only be performed by a federally recognized California Native American tribe.”
- No three-bid rule. Section 10340 already let agencies skip the usual three competitive bids when they contract with another state agency or a local government. The new law adds “a federally recognized California Native American tribe” to that list. Such a tribe may also bring in a business it wholly owns as a subcontractor, if it gives a limited waiver of sovereign immunity and shows that its prices match the market.
- Follow-on work allowed. Section 10365.5 usually bars a consultant from bidding on the work its own advice leads to. The new law says that bar does not apply to “California Native American tribes awarded a consulting services contract for tribal cultural resources purposes,” using the definition of tribal cultural resources in the state’s environmental law.
“AB 2187 will make it easier for state agencies to work directly with tribal governments and their businesses,” Ramos said in his Sept. 25 announcement. “Tribes are disproportionately disadvantaged when competing for state contracts. While the federal government already allows direct contracting with tribes because it recognizes the importance of supporting tribal self-governance, California has no similar policy. AB 2187 addresses this inequity by ensuring that state contracting with tribal nations and their businesses is recognized as government‑to‑government negotiation.”
The bill had no opposition on any recorded vote. It passed the Assembly 73-0 on May 22 and the Senate 39-0 on Aug. 20, on the special consent calendar, after unanimous votes in five committees, according to the legislative record. Its text never changed after it was introduced.
Where the line falls
Ramos is right about the problem. Tribes are governments, and making them compete on price with private firms for work on their own ancestral lands has never made sense. The law is a real step forward for the tribes it covers.
But in the Bay Area, it covers none of the people whose homeland this is. No Ohlone tribe is federally recognized. The Muwekma, whose ancestors Washington dealt with as the Verona Band of Alameda County until 1927, were denied acknowledgment by the Interior Department in 2002. The State of California still treats the Tribe as a government in other ways. It is on the Native American Heritage Commission’s contact list, which gives it the right to consult on projects under the California Environmental Quality Act and on city and county general plans.
The Tribe already does the kind of work AB 2187 is about. When Milpitas sent it a general plan notice in May 2025, the Tribe answered that it offers “Tribal Consultations as defined under Section 106, CEQA, Assembly Bill (AB) 52, Senate Bill (SB) 18 Consultation,” along with cultural monitoring and, if needed, burial recovery services, according to records the city published. Under the new law, a state agency that wants that work in Ohlone territory could sign a no-bid contract with a federally recognized tribe from somewhere else in California. It cannot do the same with the Muwekma.
This is not the first time. California’s cultural-burning law, SB 310 of 2024, lets the state sign burn agreements only with federally recognized tribes. A 2024 law encouraging co-management, AB 1284, also by Ramos, names only federally recognized tribes. And Prop. 45, on the Nov. 3 ballot, would reserve its new “Consulting Tribe” status on essential projects for federally recognized tribes. Each of these lines is drawn in California, not in Washington. California could draw them differently.
An open question in the fine print
The third change is worded differently. The follow-on exception in Section 10365.5 speaks of “California Native American tribes,” with no “federally recognized.” That section does not say what the term means. In the state’s environmental law, a “California Native American tribe” is a tribe on the Heritage Commission’s contact list, recognized or not. If agencies read Section 10365.5 the same way, a tribe like the Muwekma that wins a tribal cultural resources consulting contract the ordinary way, through bidding, could then go on to do the follow-up work. We have asked the Department of General Services, which writes the state’s contracting rules, how it reads that section.
What the state says
The state’s top resource agency says it does work with tribes outside the federal list. Geneva E. B. Thompson, the California Natural Resources Agency’s deputy secretary for tribal affairs, told the Muwekma Times on Tuesday that “we work closely with non-federally recognized tribes.” The agency and its departments have helped fund the return of about 10,708 acres to non-federally recognized tribes, she wrote, and one department is helping return a little over 350 more. Those are real gains, and we will report on them. They came through grants and partnerships, not through the no-bid contracting path AB 2187 now opens for federally recognized tribes. We have asked the agency whether it plans to use the new authority and whether it can hire tribes like the Muwekma on comparable terms.
Updated Oct. 21, 3:20 p.m. ET: The Department of General Services, which writes the State Contracting Manual that agencies follow, says it has not yet decided how agencies will carry out the law. “DGS is currently looking into this law but has yet to make any final decisions at this time,” Monica Hassan, deputy director of the department’s Office of Public Affairs, wrote Wednesday in reply to our questions about agency guidance, how agencies will verify a contractor’s tribal status, and how the department reads Section 10365.5.
What’s next
The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2027. Agencies will need guidance from the Department of General Services on how to use it. The fix for tribes that are left out would be simple: add tribes on the Heritage Commission’s contact list to the same exemptions. Muwekma Times readers who want to weigh in can reach Ramos through his Assembly website.
The Muwekma Times first noted the bill in our Oct. 16 roundup of the Governor’s bill actions on California Indian issues.
Who we asked
Before publishing, the Muwekma Times asked the Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs; the Department of General Services; Deputy Secretary Thompson at the Natural Resources Agency, with Deputy Secretary for Communications Daniel Villaseñor; and Muwekma Ohlone Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh for comment on Wednesday morning, and after publication asked the Tamien Nation, a San José Ohlone tribe without federal recognition. An email to a staff member who works with Assemblymember Ramos’s office was rejected by the Assembly’s mail system; later Wednesday morning we wrote to his chief of staff, Adriana Ruelas. The Department of General Services responded Wednesday afternoon (see above). The others had not responded as of 3:20 p.m. ET Wednesday. We will update this story with their answers.
Sources: AB 2187 chaptered text and legislative history (Chapter 455, Statutes of 2026); Assemblymember Ramos’s Sept. 25, 2026 news release; CalMatters Digital Democracy vote record; City of Milpitas General Plan amendment tribal consultation records (2025); email from CNRA Deputy Secretary Geneva E. B. Thompson (Oct. 20, 2026); Public Resources Code sections 21073 and 21074; SB 310 (2024) and AB 1284 (2024) legislative digests.
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