(Go to Action Alerts)(Go to Bill Status)(Go to Prior Newsletters)(Go to FCL Homepage) [Picture of Capitol]

FCL NEWSLETTER -- April, 2001

section two

Power, Politics, and Pollution -- Conservation, and new energy sources
Good electric energy policy -- Views of science writer Karen Street
Make an Impact on Energy Issues -- Seven good measures
Open Letter to Governor Davis and California State Legislators
Energy Crisis: finding fault vs. Working Together -- opinion by John Mackinney
Electric Charges -- Impact on the State's Budget
Bills of Interest -- Penal and mental health issues
Joe Volk speaks at annual dinner May 1 -- If all Politics is Personal What Are You Personally Doing About Politics?
The Draft and the Driver's License: Round Two -- AB 1572 (Briggs)
Legislative Issues Briefing -- April 25 Lobby Day in Sacramento
Energy Resources -- selected information sources
Whatever Happened To?
Articles in Prior Newsletters

Bills of Interest

The following bills are eligible to be heard during April and May by committees in the house of the California Legislature where they originated. Address your letters to the authors as well as to your own assembly member and state senator at "State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814." For up-to-date information, please consult the FCL web site: fclhome.html. View the 'Bill Status' page, as well as the ‘Action Alert' page.

Health Care for Prisoners

SB 396 (Sheila Kuehl, D., Los Angeles) deals with problems in medical treatment of prisoners. After a hearing last fall looking into why women prisoners get less than adequate care, an unusually large number of women died in prison and another hearing was scheduled in February to explore the circumstances of those deaths. The dead prisoners' relatives were notified in a callous manner, giving credence to claims that the prisoners' health had been ignored and that they had been mistreated.

The state pays over $4000 a year per prisoner for medical services. However, treatment is too often grudging and careless, undermining all it is intended to do. The gate-keepers for medical care are the Medical Technical Assistants who, as custody staff members, are not directly supervised by prison physicians. Their job is to keep prisoners under lock and key. They can have trouble looking on a prisoner as a patient.

SB 396 would change that relationship, giving doctors responsibility for all medical staff. The bill also eliminates the $5 co-payment per treatment now charged to prisoners and requires an outside agency to oversee prison medical facilities. FCL SUPPORTS.

Prisoner Education

SB 404 (Richard Polanco, D., Los Angeles) seeks to reverse the erosion of education in prison by creating a board for correctional education. Most prisoners begin their terms reading at no more than the 7th grade level.

Improved and increased education programs will raise their prospects for success when they return to the community. The governor vetoed similar legislation last year. It is important to let him know early that many Californians understand and support the goals of this measure. FCL SUPPORTS.

Death Penalty

SB 490 (Bob Margett, R., Arcadia) expands the death penalty to include cases where the homicide victim had been under the protection of a restraining order or other protective order directed against the defendant. FCL OPPOSES.

AB 1512 (Dion Aroner, D., Berkeley) prohibits use of the death penalty against a person who is mentally retarded. FCL SUPPORTS.

Mental Health

SB 891 (Martha Escutia, D., Los Angeles) establishes a grant program for self-help follow-up services for people who have been hospitalized for mental illness; the services will keep ex-patients involved in the community mental health system after discharge and provides residential options. FCL SUPPORTS.

SB 931 (John Burton, D., San Francisco)provides for grants to expand comprehensive treatment services to persons with mental illness who are at risk of involuntary commitment under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act and includes training programs to improve the actual delivery of those services to people who need them. FCL SUPPORTS.

SB 1059 (Don Perata, D., Oakland) establishes a Council on Mentally Ill Offenders and a program of grants to address needs of mentally ill juvenile offenders, administered by the Board of Corrections. This was one of the recommendations contained in the Little Hoover Commission's recent review of CaliforniaÕs mental health policies and practices. FCL SUPPORTS.

Steve Birdlebough

Joe Volk speaks at FCL annual dinner - May 1

Joe Volk, Executive Secretary for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), will speak on ‘If All Politics is Personal, What Are You Personally Doing About Politics?' at the Friends Committee on Legislation of California (FCL) annual dinner on Tuesday, May 1 at the Terrace Room of the Clarion Hotel, 700 16th Street, Sacramento. A reception begins at 6:00 pm, followed by dinner at 7:00 pm.

Joe Volk is a founding member of the Arms Transfers Working Group, composed of arms control, religious, scientific, women's and veterans groups. He serves as co- chair of the Government Working Group of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines. He is a past chairperson of the Foreign Policy and Military Spending Task Force of the Washington Interreligious Staff Community (WISC), an interfaith lobbying group comprised of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Peace Church representatives. Joe continues to work with Churches for Middle East Peace, an inter-church coalition, which works for a peaceful negotiated settlement of the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Volk is a Vietnam-era veteran. He refused deferments to teach, declined an offer of Conscientious Objector status, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967, refused to go with his mechanized cavalry unit to Vietnam in 1968, and, although a court martial found him guilty of being AWOL, he served only a brief sentence in the stockade at Fort Carson, Colorado. He was honorably discharged in 1969.

Tickets, priced from $35 (low-income) to $1000 (table), are available at (916) 443- 3734

The Draft and the Driver's License: Round Two

The Selective Service System has returned to the California State Legislature for the sec- ond year in a row with a proposal to link Selective Service registration with California driver's license applications. AB 1572 (Mike Briggs, R., Fresno) would automatically register California males between 18 and 26 years; those who do not wish to be registered must contact Selective Service to have their names withdrawn.

This bill is part of a national campaign to coerce young men into draft registration. To date, three states have passed, and 24 states are considering, similar legislation. If AB 1572 passes in California, it will be a major victory for the Selective Service System. Please ask your state assembly member to OPPOSE AB 1572. Ask TEN people to join you. See your FCL Legislative Roster for contact information. WHY OPPOSE AB 1572?

  • Since failure to register is already a federal felony, this bill sets up a felony trap for young men who ask to be withdrawn from the Selective Service registry.
  • This bill is aimed at low-income people and immigrants: Selective Service spokesperson Lewis Brodsky told AP in 1999 that "we suspect, based on the demographics we've seen, that it's high school dropouts and immigrants" who are not registering.
  • This bill requires the state to collude with a federal agency that has been under bipartisan attack in Congress. California Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Campbell as well as Congress Members Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) joined Democrats to sponsor a bill in the 106th Congress to abolish Selective Service and legislation to de-fund the System was passed by the same Congress, though later the vote was rescinded.
  • The Selective Service System already has easy access to young men through its taxpayer- funded media, Internet and high-school campus registration campaigns.

    AB 1572 will get its first hearing on April 23; if possible, please contact your assembly member before then.

    Energy Resources

    The following is a selected list of information sources on Cali-fornia's energy crisis. The following is a selected list of information sources on Cali-fornia's energy crisis.
  • American Lung Association
  • California Energy Commission
  • California Public Utilities Commission
  • Coalition for Clean Air
  • Communities for a Better Environment
  • Latino Issues Forum
  • Natural Resources Defense Council
  • US Department of Interior

    Legislative Issues Briefing 

    Wednesday, April 25, 2001
Sacramento
7:30 am
FCL Breakfast
with legislative advocates Steve Birdlebough and Ken Larsen.
Location: 926 J Street, 2nd Floor Conference Room, Sacramento
To register: call FCL office no later than April 11 at (916) 443-3734.
Registration fee: No charge
9:00 am
California Interfaith Coalition
All-day Briefing and Legislative Visits
Location: Auditorium, 1500 11th Street, Sacramento
To register: call California Council of Churches no
later than April 11 at (916) 442-5447.
Or download registration form from 
Advance registration fee: $35
(includes lunch and information packet)

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    The Friends Committee on Legislation of California (FCL) includes Friends and like-minded persons, a majority of whom are appointed by Monthly Meetings of the Religious Society of Friends in California.

    Expressions of views in this newsletter are guided by Statements of Policy prepared and approved by the FCL Committees. Seeking to follow the leadings of the Spirit, the FCL speaks for itself and for like-minded Friends. No organization can speak officially for the Religious Society of Friends.

    While we strive above all for correctness and probity, we are quick to recognize that to err is human. We therefore solicit and welcome comments and corrections from our readers.