2009 Bill Status

This is a summary of some of the significant bills that FCL is following in the current legislative session. Bill status is shown as of April 19, 2009. The text, committee analyses, status and history of each bill may be found on-line or by contacting the author’s staff.

To express your views on legislation, please write to the governor, your state senator, and your assembly member, with a copy to the bill’s author at “State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814.” You may find out who your legislators are by consulting the State Government pages of your local telephone directory.

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Bills are displayed in numeric order by the catagories below:

Budget and Revenue
Capital Punishment
Children and Youth
Criminal Justice and Imprisonment
Equality and Nondiscrimination
Governance
Health Care
Housing
Peace, Nonviolence

Budget and Revenue

AB 2897 (Loni Hancock, D., Berkeley) raises the top personal income tax rate of 9.3 percent to 10 percent on incomes over $136,115 and 11 percent on incomes over $272,230. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Revenue and Tax Committee.

Capital Punishment

AB 1359 (Jared Huffman, D., San Rafael) provides that condemned prisoners may be housed at any level four security prison. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 28 (Jeff Denham, R., Merced) decommissions San Quentin State Prison without reducing the prison population and authorizes the governor to designate which prison would house condemned prisoners. FCL OPPOSES. Senate Public Safety Committee.

Children and Youth

AB 12 (Karen Bass, D., Los Angeles) extends services for emancipated foster youth to age 21. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 61 (Pedro Nava, D., Santa Barbara) eliminates deferred entry of judgment for minors convicted of certain sex offenses. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 743 (Anthony Portantino, D., Pasadena) requires social workers to make reasonable efforts to place siblings and half-siblings together when being placed in foster care. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Judiciary Committee.

AB 999 (Nancy Skinner, D., Berkeley) expands program credits for youth incarcerated in Division of Juvenile Justice facilities. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Public Safety Committee.

SB 399 (Leland Yee, D., San Francisco) establishes criteria under which minors sentenced to life without parole may be re-sentenced to a lesser term. FCL SUPPORTS. Senate Appropriations Committee.

Criminal Justice and Imprisonment

AB 16 (Sandre Swanson, D., Oakland) makes solicitation of a person under 18 years of age a serious and violent felony eligible for a “third strike” prosecution. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 27 (Kevin Jeffries, R., Murrieta) increases the amount of damage required for a person to be guilty of aggravated arson from $5,650,000 to $6,500,000. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 114 (Wilmer Amina Carter, D., Los Angeles) authorizes counties to create restorative justice programs to address the needs of minors, victims and communities. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Floor.

AB 151 (Ira Ruskin, D., Palo Alto) extends the sunset date on the City of East Palo Alto’s re-entry program to January 1, 2012. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 390 (Tom Ammiano, D., San Francisco) legalizes the possession, sale and cultivation of marijuana for persons age 21 and older and regulates distribution, providing fees to fund drug abuse prevention programs. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Public Safety Committee.

AB 777 (Karen Bass, D., Los Angeles) requires the creation of a pilot program to provide prisoners with a valid California identification card prior to being paroled. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 785 (Karen Bass, D., Los Angeles) requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to implement a parole violation decision-making instrument to provide guidelines for parole agents and states the Legislature’s intent that community sanctions be utilized for low-level parole violations. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 845 (Karen Bass, D., Los Angeles) extends the sunset date on Department of Correction’s Re-entry Advisory Committee to January 1, 2014. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

SB 46 (Elaine Alquist, D., Santa Clara) eliminates the statute of limitations for certain sex offenses. FCL OPPOSES. Senate Public Safety Committee.

SB 118 (Ted Lieu, D., El Segundo) adds the provision that incarcerated parents receive services to reunify with their children to existing family reunification requirements. FCL SUPPORTS. Senate Human Services Committee.

SB 738 (Loni Hancock, D., Berkeley) elevates the Superintendent of Correctional Education to Deputy Director with expanded duties to facilitate prisoner education. FCL SUPPORTS. Senate Education Committee.

Equality / Non-discrimination

AB 974 (Audra Strickland, R., Thousand Oaks) creates “limited public forums” at school sponsored activities on public school grounds to allow pupils to proselytize and express their religious views. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Judiciary Committee.

HR 5 (Tom Ammiano, D., San Francisco) and SR 7 (Mark Leno, D., San Francisco) express the Assembly and Senate’s finding that Proposition 8 revised the California Constitution and was not constitutionally enacted. FCL SUPPORTS. Adopted.

Governance

AB 1308 (Curt Hagman, R., Chino Hills), SB 370 (George Runner, R., Lancaster) and SB 631 (Mimi Walters, R., Laguna Hills) would make persons on felony probation ineligible to vote. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee and Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee respectively.

Health Care

AB 1218 (Dave Jones, D., Sacramento) requires the Department of Managed Health Care to regulate health insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Health Committee.

SB 1 (Darrell Steinberg, D., Sacramento) expands children’s eligibility for Medi-Cal and Healthy Families by modifying income requirements. FCL SUPPORTS. Senate Health Committee.

SB 810 (Mark Leno, D., San Francisco) establishes the California Healthcare System to provide affordable and comprehensive health care benefits for all California residents. FCL

Housing

AB 494 (Anna Caballero, D., Salinas) authorizes landowners subject to the Williamson Act to subdivide up to 10 acres to be sold or leased to a nonprofit organization or housing authority for farmworker housing. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Agriculture Committee.

Peace, Nonviolence

AB 223 (Fiona Ma, D., San Francisco) requires the San Francisco Board of Education to make JROTC courses available to pupils in grades 9 to 12. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 351 (Mary Salas, D., Chula Vista) authorizes local school districts to exempt high school students who participate in JROTC and other designated activities from physical education courses. FCL OPPOSES. Assembly Floor.

AB 814 (Paul Krekorian, D., Burbank) establishes procedures for persons convicted of a felony to relinquish firearms. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Appropriations Committee.

AB 962 (Kevin de Leon, D., Los Angeles) requires the Department of Justice to maintain records pertaining to ammunition transactions and requires that ammunition transactions be conducted face-to-face. FCL SUPPORTS. Assembly Public Safety Committee.

SB 115 (Alan Lowenthal, D., Long Beach) creates an exemption to the loyalty oath requirement for public employees and applicants based on religious, moral and ethical beliefs provided the employee is willing to uphold the laws of the land. FCL SUPPORTS. Senate Floor.