July 26, 2002. By David Carroll of the California Budget Project and FPI's Trudi Renwick. Brief in PDF.. Current federal law requires states to penalize families whose members do not comply with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) requirements. However, states have the flexibility to choose partial sanctions (benefit reductions), full sanctions (elimination of the families' entire public assistance payments), or a combination of the two. California, New York, and 13 other states have chosen to use the partial sanction option; California and New York [...]