Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary

The Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order. Good afternoon. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person via teleconference service for individuals wishing to provide public comment. Today's participant number is 877-226-8216 and the access code is 621-7161 we're holding our Committee hearing today in the the O Street building, also known as swing space. I ask all Members of the Committee to be present come to the room 2100 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing. We are one Member short.

Once again, the Republicans are 50% of those who are present. Thank you very much. Before we hear presentations on today's Bill. Well, we're not going to establish quorum, but let's announce the bills that are on the consent calendar. They are as follows. File M, number five, SB 455 by Senator Mcguire. File M, number eight, SB 439 by Senator Skinner. Filem. Number nine, SB 801, by Senator Allen. Filem. Number 10, SB 66 by Senator Min.

File number 12, SB 40, by Senator Umberg. All right, and this is our protocol, our procedure for all bills today. What we'll do is we'll have two primary witnesses in support and two primary witnesses in opposition. Each witness will get two minutes to speak after the primary support and primary opposition witnesses have spoken, then we'll hear from all the so called metoos in the hearing room.

That's those here in the hearing room that can approach the microphone, provide us your name, your affiliation, and whether you support or oppose the Bill that's at issue. We'll then turn to phone testimony. We'll hear from both support and opposition phone testimony at the same time. There will be a 15 minutes limit on any particular Bill. For those of you on the phone, please limit your testimony once again to simply your name, your affiliation and your position on the Bill. Either support or oppose.

If we find that that doesn't work, then we will just move to the next caller. If you wish to expand upon your testimony, you may submit a letter to the Committee using one of the methods described on the Judiciary Committee's website. All right, let's begin as a Subcommitee. First, we will hear from Senator Portantino. Senator Portantino, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, I appreciate the opportunity to go first. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, health emergency audio and video teleconferencing was widely used to conduct public meetings for local government agencies and their boards. In particular, the neighborhood council system in LA benefited significantly from that opportunity and saw participation shoot through the roof. This allowed these organizations to remain productive and responsive to constituents needs. It increased public participation, increased the pool of candidates who were able to serve and protected the health and safety of the public.

Now that the public health emergency has come to an end and the governor's emergency's orders have expired, teleconferencing has ended for these local governments that are now restricted. Now, again, we're talking specifically to the neighborhood councils, which are an advisory body of volunteers that meet largely in rec centers and libraries and rooms throughout Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles. The transition back to in person meetings is frankly stifling participation and having significant negative effects. There are 99 of these neighborhood councils.

One particular neighborhood council was actually kicked out of their meeting room and had no place to meet and had to find scramble to find a new place. These neighborhood councils are grassroots boards made up of volunteers, as I mentioned, and the transition has created a significant hardship. So what SB 411 does is ensure that Los Angeles's neighborhood councils will continue to serve their constituents throughout the by using teleconferencing with certain guardrails and safeguards that were put in in the government and finance Committee.

And I would respectfully ask for an aye vote. I know we have Andrew Antwei on behalf of the City of Los Angeles, to speak in support.

So, Mr. Antwi, before you go, let me establish a quorum. All right, Madam Secretary, if you would call the role for purposes of establishing a quorum.

Umberg, here. Wilk, Here. Wilk, Here. Allen, here. Ashby, Here. Caballero. Durazo. Laird, Here. Min. Niello, Here. Stern. Wiener. You have a quorum.

All right, great. Thank you. Mr. Antwi, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chaired Members Andrew. Antwih with Shaw Yonder, Antwee, schmozer and Lang. The Los Angeles City Council voted on January 17 to sponsor SB 411, Portantino. And we thank the Senator for bringing the measure forward. As the Senator indicated, there are 99 neighborhood council entities. Together they form the grassroots level of LA City government. The system was established in 1999 by an amendment to the city charter as a way to enhance the connection between LA's diverse communities and LA City hall.

SB 411 gives LA's neighborhood councils the option to use teleconferencing without complying with existing requirements of the Brown act and require notice of the location that Members are, teleconference from, where they're teleconferencing from, or making those locations accessible to the public. The Bill does include important safeguards. Before a neighborhood City Council can exercise the authority granted by this Bill, the City Council must consider whether to adopt a resolution to authorize this use.

If the City Council adopts the resolution, then the neighborhood council may elect to use teleconferencing pursuant to the bill's provisions if two thirds of the neighborhood council votes to do so. Neighborhood councils that decide to utilize virtual meetings must provide notice and justification to the City Council. Meeting agendas must identify and include an opportunity for all persons to participate via a call in option or an Internet based service option.

At least the quorum of the Members of the neighborhood council must participate from locations within the boundaries of the city where the neighborhood council was established. And if a Member of the public who wishes to participate does not have access to call in or Internet based options, the neighborhood council is required to make reasonable efforts to accommodate.

For these reasons, we think there's sufficient safeguards and it's a very robust way for the city government to connect with citizens on the ground, and we think that would enhance the gains that were created by use of technology during the pandemic, something that we urge this Committee to allow to continue for those reasons we support.

Thank you, Mr. Antwih. Other witnesses in support of SB 411 seeing none. All right, let's turn to the opposition. Primary witnesses in opposition, please approach the microphone.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, Brittany Barsati with the California News Publishers Association, respectfully in a pose, unless amended position on the Bill. I want to start by recognizing the author's office to work with, willingness to work with us, and to take amendments working to address our concerns.

However, there are several brown act bills this year that have taken an approach that want to carve out different categories of bodies, one which will be before you later today, and have them subject to different teleconferencing requirements, which is incredibly concerning, creating this tiered approach and access to democracy. That being said, we understand that the Senator has narrowly tailored his Bill and greatly appreciate that effort and will continue to work with him. Thank you.

All righty. Thanks. Next.

Good afternoon, Chairman Members Ruth Dawson with ACLU California Action, also with our coalition partners, respectfully opposed unless amended to this Bill. Also appreciate the author's willingness to work with our coalition and recognize the author's office has taken several amendments. Fundamentally, I think we think this is a local problem that needs a local solution. And we are certainly concerned about carving out government bodies from the Brown acts fundamental democratic protections.

And just flagging the LA Times editorial that came out recently on this subject, a couple of quotes I found particularly salient. Remote access to public meetings from Members of the public as an additional option is one thing. Remote access for the officials, on the other hand, is another. It simply makes them more remote.

And being able to sit in the same room with public officials, see them and question them face to face in real life, we are doing to you all now as they consider public policies, and this is an essential element of democracy. Thank you very much, and we look forward to continuing to work with the author's office.

Thank you very much. All right, now, for those of you in the hearing room who wish to testify in a too fashion, please approach the microphone. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chairman Umberg, and thank you, Senator Portantino, for working with this broad and diverse coalition who opposed as I do. I'm Jenny Laro on behalf of the. First Amendment coalition, and we remain opposed. Other organizations that would like to also continue expressing their opposition include Californians aware, the California Broadcasters Association, the leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Thank you for hearing our concerns.

Thank you. Others seeing no one else approaching the microphone. Moderator, let's turn to the phone lines for those who both support and oppose SB 411.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment and support opposition of SB 411, you may press 1 and 0 at this time. First we go to line 49. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Patty Herrera, on behalf of the Oakland Unified School District in support.

All right, give me just a moment. All.

Okay, next, we'll go to line 28. Please go ahead.

Clara Solis, support. I am a senior Director with the historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council. For identification purposes, me. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 18. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Victor Christensen, secretary and Zoom administrator for the Northwest San Pidro Neighborhood Council, which is in the Los Angeles area, and I am enthusiastically in support of SB 411.

Thank you. Next, we go to line 40. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Tawny Kay. I live in the historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council district, and I support SB 411. Thank you, thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 53. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Jacob Wasserman. I'm Committee chair for the Northwestwood Neighborhood Council Transportation Committee, and I support SB 411.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 31. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Benjamin Cohn, Santa Clara County, and I support the all because it's a disability access issue for those at higher risk for Covid. All right, thank you. All right, thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 26. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 37. Please go ahead. Good afternoon.

My name is Karen Waters, Vice President of Bernardi Hills North Neighborhood Council in support of SB 11.

thank you. Next, we'll go to line 30. Please go ahead. Line 30, your line is open. I will go on to line 48. Please go ahead. Yes.

My name is Karen Purdue, and I'd like to show support for SB 411. I'm speaking as a constituent. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 50. Please go ahead.

Yes, my name is Lydia Grant, and I'm the President of the Sunlandahunga Neighborhood Council and a former Commissioner over the neighborhood councils. A very strong support for SB 411. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 35. Please go ahead.

Margaret Irwin, elder Director on the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. I adamantly support this Bill. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 27. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Nikita Jones Houston can do neighborhood council weighing in as an individual in support of SB 411.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 23. Please go ahead.

Susan Rogan, Tarzana Neighborhood Council in full support of SB Florida lipstick. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 54. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Dan Oakenput from the California foundation for independent living centers in support of Senate Bill 411.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 42. Please go ahead.

Yes, my name is line. Tomorrow, a board Member of the Sun Valley Area Neighborhood council speaking as an individual in strong support of Senate Bill 411. Thank you.

Next we'll go to line 30. Please go ahead and line 30. Your lines open.

And that we have no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, let's bring it back to Committee questions by Committee Members. Senator Laird,

I actually have a comment, which is that I think there are a number of bills. I am doing one for state boards and commissions. I think that in many ways it's codifying what the practice has been since the pandemic, and it's been cheaper for people with disabilities. There's accessibility for people that have trouble moving. There's accessibility with regard to some of the locations, having under the old stuff, having to list every address. There's a safety reason for certain public officials.

And in this case, this Bill has added dimensions. This is an advisory only series of groups. The Los Angeles City Council would still have another bite at the apple in terms of authorizing, and if there is a City Council Member on that physical location has to be disclosed or there's some similar provision in this Bill. So I think we have already passed out the other bills.

These have these different dimensions that even, I think, make this not the issue that it should be otherwise, and I would move the Bill.

All righty. Thank you. Other comments? Questions? Yes, Senator Wilk.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, will be supporting the Bill today. When I was in the State Assembly, I had six neighborhood councils in the City of LA. And you're right, they are advisory. I think it's important really for a great way to get information out to the people. And I don't see any difference between doing it in person or doing it via the web.

I know I now go to my HOA meetings because they do it online now, and I never went when it was in person. So I think this is actually bringing democracy to the people, not the other way around. So happy to support the Bill.

Thank you. Other comments? Yes, Senator Neillo.

I am lows to provide a counterpoint to my Republican colleague and my good friend who I served with on the Budget Committee and the Assembly some years ago. But there are lots of things that we learned during the pandemic to do differently that we can benefit from. And Zoom is a great tool for remote meetings, but it's not the same as an in person meeting.

There's just nothing so thrilling for a local elected official to be in an in person meeting and have people yell and scream at you, and they have the right to do that. Now, I'm exaggerating, obviously, but it's just much more impactful. It's like the difference between a text message and a phone call. And text messages are useful for quick communication of something, but not for something more complicated. You can't tell voice inflection and the like.

So I'm not comfortable to exercise something as this, as all encompassing as this. And especially since there was an Assembly Bill passed not too long ago last Year2449 that allowed for this on a temporary basis. And perhaps we ought to try that approach for a while. So I can't support the Bill as it is for those reasons.

All right. Other questions or comments? Seeing none, I believe Senator Laird has moved the Bill. Just a couple quick comments. One, in terms of response to Senator Nielo, I'm sorry to disappoint you with respect to the yelling here in this public forum. We'll let the Assembly know. Perhaps Assembly bills that come over won't disappoint you as much, number one. Number two, I'm sure that Senator Wilkes Homeowners Association is also pleased that he can now participate remotely.

So thank you, Senator Portantino, with that, would you like to close? Yeah.

And actually, I'm going to use the Senator's analogy about texting and phone calls because I know if I want to actually reach my daughters, they actually respond if I text. And so it's actually a way to increase participation by texting, because we're changing with technology. And that's what we're doing here is this technology has allowed more people to participate, made it easier to have quorums, and facilitated the democratic discourse.

And so if we really want to increase democratic participation, we have to modernize how we do it, and we have to embrace the technological component. And as the opposition has said, we've been trying to hit the sweet spot. We've been trying to put safeguards in also recognizing that this is an advisory body that meets in very remote places when they can. And some of them have been kicked out of those remote places and have no place to meet.

And so in that case, there is no democracy or democratic participation if you only require a physical location, and they lose their physical location. So this is a narrow Bill with safeguards. And respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Great thank you, Senator. Madam Secretary, if you'd call the role.

This is file item number seven, SB 411 by Senator Portantino. The motion is due. Pass. Umberg, Aye. Wilk, Aye. Allen, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Caballero. Durazo, aye. Laird, Aye. Min. Niello, no. Stern. Wiener. Six to One.

We'll put that on call. All right, thank you, Senator. The batting order is as follows. I see Senator Becker is here. Senator Becker is next up with file m, number one. And then Senator Dodd, who was here a moment ago. And then I understand that Senator Stern is going to be presenting file item number three, SB 393 by Senator Glazer. But before we turn to Senator Becker, let me just call the role on the consent calendar. Madam Secretary, if you would. Is there a motion? Senator Laird moves the consent calendar.

If you would call the role on the consent calendar. Umberg, Aye. Wilk, Aye. Allen, aye. Ashby, aye. Caballero, aye. Durazo, aye. Laird, aye. Min. Niello, aye. Stern Wiener. 8 - 0

Put that on call. All right, filem number one. SB 537 by Senator Becker. Senator Becker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair Members. A Bill on a similar topic, but focused on multi jurisdictional appointed boards. This will increase accessibility for those Board Meetings and encourage participation by allowing Members to convene remotely when they have greater barriers to attend in person. For the last several years, as we know, multidisciplinary jurisdictional appointed boards have been meeting remotely and benefit from the opportunity to meet in virtual spaces for both constituents and board Members.

AB 361, by Rivas, codified the ability to meet remotely and showed the positive impact on multi jurisdictional boards. But with the State of health emergency expiring in February 2023, they've already begun to feel the impact of transitioning back to in person meetings. They're already having issues with membership retention and are concerned about a drop in public attendance as well. Specifically, for multidisciplinal boards covering large areas, it can be difficult for board Members and the public to travel great lengths to actively participate in meetings.

The distance disincentivizes participation from community Members, prospective legislative body Members, and citizens attempting to become civically involved. SB 537 encourages participation by allowing multi jurisdictional boards with appointed Members to convene in hybrid settings, allowing those most impacted to run remotely while maintaining an in person quorum. The Bill also collects data on attendance of remote meetings and requires that data to be posted on agencies'websites, increasing available data and evidence on the benefit of remote meetings. The gateways writing this Bill offer an important update.

Facilitate attendance and active participation in these meetings while creating guardrails to preserve the intent of the Brown act. And with me today testify is Alan Abbs from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Marty Medina, the mayor of San Bruno.

Thank you. If you would approach the microphone, the floor is yours. Go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honorable Committee Members. My name is Marty Medina. I am a Council Member from the City of San Bruno and its representative on the board of directors for Peninsula Clean Energy, a community choice aggregator. Our board of directors include representatives from San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors, all 20 of the county's cities, and the City of Lospanos.

When Governor Newsom issued the Covid-19 Executive order allowing virtual public meetings, PeninsuLA Clean energy quickly complied to ensure continuity of our Board Meetings with safe, transparent and easy public participation. For the last three years, we have successfully held 37 virtual Board Meetings and dozens of Subcommitee meetings. Although approximately 100 miles away, the City of Los Banios joined PeninsuLA Clean Energy in late 2020 when we began to develop a 200 megawatt solar project near their city limits.

The project and collaboration have been a win for the landowners, the residents, the state, and our planet. More cross county projects and local solutions are needed to combat climate change. Technological advancements have proven to allow greater communication between local governments in different regions of the state as well as the public. Additionally, there are safety improvements in allowing remote participation as proposed in SB 537. PCE is proud to be a sponsor of SB 537. Thank you, Senator Becker, for authoring this Bill.

I respectfully request your support to allow more opportunities for jurisdictions from different regions of the state to work together. It will greatly improve the lives of the public and the many people who serve on our regional boards and committees. Please vote yes to allow us to continue to provide the transparent services to our constituents.

Thank you, Council Member. All right, others in support of SB 5371.

Good afternoon, chair Umberg and Members of the Committee. My name is Alan Abbs. I'm the legislative officer with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which is a nine county regional agency from the Santa Clara County and south all the way up to Sonoma in the north and all counties in between. We have a 24 person board, and so each county supplies from one to four supervisors and or City Council Members and mayors.

In addition to our Board Meetings, we have at least seven Committee meetings. And so when you get appointed to the Bay Area AQMD you're in for a lot of meetings in downtown San Francisco. Prior to Covid, when you looked at the attendance records of our 24 board Members, the average board Member was able to attend 24 board and Committee meetings per year. When we were allowed to do remote meetings, that average attendance from our board Members increased to over 35 Board Meetings per year.

And so when you have better attendance at your Board Meetings, that's better participation, better decision making, which makes for a better regional agency and all these board Members. Also, when you're appointed to the Bay Area AQMD, you're likely also appointed to some other regional agencies which also have that same large geographic footprint. And so being able to do some of your meetings remotely allows you to also participate more fully in those other regional agencies. And so with that being said, we support SB 537 and Senator Becker's efforts to balance public participation in board attendance options, and we urge an aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, let's turn to the opposition. Those in opposition, if they would approach the microphone. What a surprise. All right, go ahead. Floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, Brittany Barsati again here with the California News Publishers Association. Respectfully opposed unless amended. First, I'd like to recognize the author's willingness to take amends addressing some of our concerns. However, this Bill would carve out a larger chunk of bodies that have been subject to the teleconferencing provisions under the Brown act and create this peered system approach. The analysis does a great job of laying out the traditional teleconferencing requirements.

Then the states of emergencies exemptions under AB 361, which is up for renewal this year, by the way, we are neutral to that because we realize states of emergency create certain specific circumstances. But our coalition also worked very hard on AB 2449 last year, which allowed certain Members of the bias to be able to participate due to just cause. We have no issues with the additional category of just cause that the author has added into the Bill.

We think that working within that framework, which has the guardrails our coalition worked very hard on last year, along with the various committees that heard those brown act bills, would be the right approach. We have no concerns, for example, carving out individuals with disabilities who aren't able to make a meeting. We're very open to having that conversation.

But having a tiered system with different requirements for different categories of bodies would create greater confusion for the government bodies as well as the public trying to attend and participate in those. And again, we look forward to continuing to work with the author's office on this to address our remaining concerns. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, others, and hello again. Ruth Dawson with the ACLU California action. Also respectfully opposed unless amended. We appreciate the author's willingness to work with our coalition and recognize there have been several amendments. As I mentioned before, the approach of carving out certain bodies from the Brownock's fundamental democratic protections remains a serious concern for us. Fundamentally, government in a democracy depends on public transparency and public accountability for its very viability.

And we agree with a recent editorial by the Mercury News and the East Bay Times editorial boards which states, quote, elected officials should conduct their business in public so that their constituents can watch them in action. Exceptions have been carved out for some confidential personnel matters and legal issues, but otherwise, the public is entitled to observe in person the deliberation and decision making process. And we agree, end quote.

We agree with the proponents of this law that we should expand access to government meetings for the public. And in fact, nothing in existing law prevents bodies from expanding access by offering the public virtual methods of participation. Our co sponsored AB 339 would have expanded such public access. We very much support this, but it is different than Members access. And finally, we applaud and agree with the proponent's goals of making government bodies more inclusive and equitable.

The ACLU advocates for equity, including within government bodies and among the Members of the public who attend public meetings. We just do not think that this solution is well tailored to that problem. Allowing Members to participate remotely and not having to face the public in person is not an effective way to diversify bodies governed by our state's open meeting laws.

Making our state and local bodies more equitable, inclusive, instead requires public officials to commit to robust outreach to potential Members, to provide stipends for unpaid positions, to implement an open and transparent selection and appointment process, and to exercise the political will to appoint Members from diverse communities to public bodies, among other things. And we want to thank again Senator Becker and his staff, the bill's co sponsors and Committee staff, for their commitment to working together to strike the right balance here for our democracy. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, let's now turn to others who are in the hearing room who support or oppose SB 537, please approach the microphone. This is for me, too. Testimony.

Hello. Jenny Laro again. On behalf of the First Amendment coalition, we are opposed to this Bill and, like my colleagues, thank the author for the amendments. But we remain opposed. I'll also share with you the other organizations that remain opposed. Californians aware the California Broadcasters Association, the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else approaching the microphone, moderator, if you would queue up those who are supportive and opposing SB 537.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment and support opposition of SB 537, you may press 1 and 0 at this time. And first, we'll go to line 18. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Vic Christensen with speaking as an individual. I'm the secretary and Zoom administrator for the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council. So strongly opposed to 537 too restrictive.

Thank you. And next we'll go to line 27. Please go ahead and. Thank you. Next, please. Next we'll go to line 31. Please go ahead and.

This is line 31. Benjamin Cohn, speaking as an individual of Santa Clara County in Senator Becker's district. I work for the same disability access reasons. Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, let's bring it back to Committee questions by Committee Members. Senator Caballero.

Mr. Chair, I just want to say that I appreciate the work that Senator Becker has done on this particular Bill. It came through governance and finance, and quite frankly, I was opposed for the reasons that have been stated by some of the opposition. I think that my experience in local government is that I would go into a meeting, having read all the reports and talked with staff and had a feeling of what I wanted to do when I was on the council, but there's something about getting together in public where you start taking public comment on a really controversial issue and better ideas pop up because of the dialogue. And that doesn't happen on a Zoom call. It just doesn't happen. But we worked with Senator Becker and we limited it to individuals that are at least 40 miles away. And I want to say that I really thank San Mateo CCA for including the Central Valley as part of the work that they're doing, because that means they now have a board member that's driving from Los Vanillas into the Bay Area. And it's a stretch, it's quite a ways, and I want that board Member to be able to participate. So we kind of carved out, this isn't a Bill that decides whether you can do remote meetings or not. It is a Bill that says the board members who are elected not to the board, but to a position and then serve on this board can participate from another location. And we narrowed it to be, you have to be more than 40 miles away, and you have to participate at a public location. And that address gets reflected in the minutes of the meeting. In other words, you don't have to make your house available. You're going to have to go down to your City Council chambers or to your office, or if you're on the Board of Supervisors, that office, and zoom from that location. That way it's a public location, and the public can be confident that you're at a public location. So it's listed in the analysis, but I don't think it's called out as much. And we tried to put some parameters around it for exactly that reason. So I'm going to support the Bill. I appreciate Senator Becker taking the amendments.

Thank you, Senator Caballero. Other questions or comments? Senator Niello.

I appreciate the flexibility, as commented by Senator Caballero, but I am still where she was before. And I'll just substitute my comments on the previous item for this item

All right. Thank you very much. Other comments? Yes, Senator Wilk.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to show that I can move as well. So last Bill, my colleague and I were in conflict, but on this one, this is too much for me. I've supported the other one because it's advisory. I have a lot of experience with those neighborhood councils because I used to represent six of them when I was in the State Assembly. And you're working hard on this. I'm sure it's going to be the best Bill, practical, but it's just a bridge too far for me as well, so I'll be. No.

All righty. Thank you. Other comments, questions? Is there a motion? Senator Laird moves the bill

Thank you. I appreciate the discussion. We did make a lot of adjustments in governance of finance. I look forward to continuing discussions, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. All right, Madam Secretary, if you would call the roll.

This is file item number one, SB 537, by Senator Becker. The motion is due pass. Umberg. Umberg, aye. Wilk. Wilk, no. Allen. Allen, aye. Ashby. Ashby, aye. Caballero, aye. Durazo. Durazo, aye. Laird. Laird, aye Min. Min, aye. Niello. Niello, no. Stern. Stern. aye. Wiener. 8 - 2, one member missing.

8-2. We'll put that on call. All right, thank you, Senator Becker. Next up is Senator Dodd. After Senator Dodd, then Senator Stern will be presenting SB 393 for Senator Glazer. And then item number four, SB 727 by Senator Limon. All right, Senator Dodd.

Yes, Mr. Chair and Members, I'm presenting SB 278 pertaining to elder financial abuse.

SB 278 is about protecting seniors from financial scams, plain and simple. This Bill is not about creating opportunities for more litigation. SB 278 is about updating current law to make it very clear what financial institutions and other responsible parties need to do to protect elders when red flags start lighting up to signal a senior is likely to be scammed. And SB 278 is about providing banks, credit unions and others a safe harbor where they can do the right thing to protect elderly people and their customers. Elder financial abuse is everywhere. Losses equal $3 billion annually. Once a senior falls prey to financial fraud, they may never recover. As mandated reporters, care custodians, investment advisors, financial institutions are well positioned to detect elder financial abuse and take action to protect elders. Unfortunately, the language of the California's current financial elder abuse statute is not as clear as it should be. SB 278 will clarify what is expected of mandated reporters if they know or should have known that such abuse was taking place. I'm accepting the amendments on page 11 and 12, and I want to thank the Committee consultant of the banking Committee consultant for the extensive work they have done with my staff and sponsors. Also, as stated by the consultant on page 11 of the analysis, I'm committed to amend the Bill on the floor to include a safe harbor or similar mechanism to clearly outline what steps a financial institution may take in response to a suspicious transaction in order to avoid liability, and add language to ensure that low level employees, such as tellers, are not personally liable for fraud. I'm hoping to get these latter amendments in the Bill after banking Committee. I was hoping to do that two weeks ago before this hearing. However, my staff, the sponsor, the bank, credit unions and Committee consultants have been meeting in exchanging drafts of the language, and we just ran out of time. I commit to not take this Bill up on the floor until these additional amendments are added to the Bill. Respectfully asked for an aye vote. With me today is Kirsten Fish, whose practice centers around the protection of elders subject to financial abuse, and Alice Lynn, a recent victim of elder financial abuse.

All right, thank you. If you'd approach the microphone. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and the Members. I'm Alison, resident of Hamburg, LA County. Last year, I fell victim to a scammer who convinced me to wire up money for an investment. So I went to the bank, asked them to wire out the money. The banker simply asked me ask manager's approval and wire out the money for me. I went to the bank again and again, seven times, and a massive amount of money were wiped out in less than three weeks. And at the end, I lost nearly three quarters of $1.0 million, nearly all my life savings. If the bank had stopped the fourth time of the wire, I would have only lost 25%. Even if they stopped the 6th one, they would have sent me 50% of the total loss. If they stopped the last one, the 7th wire, they would have sent me $200,000. Yeah. Anyway, if they even stopped the last one, they would have sent me $200,000. In many years that I had with this bank, I never did. I had this kind of violent activity. So if the bank had told me they suspect fraud, if the bank had called my daughter, who is listed as a joint account holder, if the bank even had done their job to protect elders like me from being scammed, I would not be where I am now. An 80 year old widow left to pick up rest of my life. I was devastated. I thought about ending my life. And then I find the strength to live on. And then I was hit with tax consequence because the lost money are from my stock and from my IRA account. The desperate feeling of losing everything my husband and I work so hard for all our life we stay up to. And again.

Thank you, Ms. Lynn. We appreciate your testimony. I'm sorry for your loss.

Yeah, I wanted to end my life. Anyway, when I heard about Senate Bill 278, all of a sudden, I feel less hope for the senior like me, because it gives us.

Thank you. Yes, thank you very much for your testimony. We appreciate it. All right.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Kirsten Fish, and I'm here on behalf of the bill's co sponsor, Consumer Attorneys of California. I've been a law Professor since 2009, teaching legal research and writing in torts. I'm also an attorney and one of the authors of the CEB book on California elder law. Financial elder abuse is unfortunately on the rise, and deploying effective interventions to stop it has never been more important, as this type of abuse robs victims like Ms. Lynn of their resources, their dignity, and their quality of life. And the effects are devastating, resulting in elders becoming homeless, becoming dependent on public assistance, and even committing suicide. Financial institutions play a vital role in preventing and responding to financial elder abuse. Banks and credit unions, who are mandated reporters, trained to identify instances of such abuse, are uniquely positioned to detect when an account holder is being targeted or victimized and to take action. And if they fail to do so, they can be held accountable under the Elder Abuse Act. However, while the intent of the act is clear, which is to protect elders from abuse and neglect, the current language of the financial abuse statute is not, making it difficult to know exactly what is required to prove a cause of action for assisting in such abuse and resulting in inconsistent rulings as different judges in different forums attempt to interpret the law, which is why SB 278 is so important. For example, in one of my cases, after years of routine banking, an 85 year old suddenly started requesting wire transfers for $49,500 every other day to different people in Thailand, he did this 29 times in two months with no questions asked by his bank, even though it was totally uncharacteristic for him. $1.4 million later, he found out he'd been the victim of a common tech support scam. SB 278 would clarify what is expected of mandated reporters when they knew or should have known that financial elder abuse is occurring, which is to act reasonably to protect elders in the face of such abuse consistent with the stated intent of the Elder Abuse act. And for these reasons, I respectfully urge you to support SB 278. Thank you.

All right, those in opposition, if you'd approach the microphone

Members of the Committee, thank you. I'm Jason Lane with California Bankers Association. I want to acknowledge the work of the author and his Legislative Director in trying to broach a compromise, a safe harbor. Unfortunately, we're just not there yet. But every day we have some optimism that we will get there. We are mandated reporters under 15630.1 of the institutions Code, welfare and Institutions Code, that's banks and credit unions. When that policy was contemplated, when that statute was written, a public policy decision was made by the Legislature not to deputize tellers, to investigate transactions that are initiated by seniors and instead leave that to the experts, that would be adult protective services and that would be in law enforcement. So there is a requirement that institutions report suspected financial elder abuse at the time of transaction, and that is the law today. What is being suggested or proposed in this Bill represents, absent a safe harbor, a massive overcorrection that's going to cause friction points between financial institutions and their customers. This is not just true for high risk transactions that are associated with high dollar amount wire transfers, but this would be sort of the more benign transactions need to pay a Bill, make a rent payment, close on a housing deal, a time sensitive mortgage deal. All of those transactions will now be subject to hold and delays under the current version of this Bill. And it's a fundamental policy, public policy question that the Legislature is faced with. It's a property rights issue at its heart. Does the senior have a right to their own property? 65 years is not that old. And while I'm not there yet, I think I would be pretty upset if a teller working their way through college told me that I could not withdraw money out of my own account because the teller or the bank knew better than I did. And that is at the heart of this Bill. The fundamental policy, public policy, question that needs to be answered, the safe harbor that we're discussing, that we hope to reach in an agreement, would give the answer.

Lane, thank you very much. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members Robert Wilson, California Credit Union League. I'd like to first start by thanking the author for his comments and open door on this as well as the Committee staff, personal staff and sponsors of the Bill. We look forward to ironing this out and landing the plane before we get to the floor. Credit unions take elder financial abuse very seriously, as mandated reporters, as my colleague just mentioned, oftentimes these transactions are flagged, brought forward to the senior member's attention. Sometimes there's not necessarily altercations, but definitely words that are exchanged. So there's definitely some friction that is happening at the credit union level trying to prevent these transactions from occurring. So as my colleagues stated, we want to make sure that anything we do moving forward not only protects seniors, but also will allow for some transactions to go through. We don't want to create too much friction on that front. So I look forward to working through this and thank you for your time today. Thank you.

All right, now for those who are in the hearing room, if you would care to approach the microphone and give us your name, your affiliation, and whether you support or oppose the Bill.

Joanne Bettencourt, representing SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, in opposition.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Lindsay Gullahorn with capital advocacy on behalf of the California Community Banking Network, respectfully opposed. Looking forward to working with the author.

Hi. Natalie Boust with the California Business Roundtable, respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Hi. Natalie Boust with the California Business Roundtable, respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Indira McDonald, on behalf of the California Mortgage Bankers Association, also respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Eric Harris with Disability Rights California, in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Danielle Kando Kaiser, on behalf of the co sponsors of the Bill, the California Low Income Coalition, elder law and advocacy, as well as the nationwide coalition of supporters, including Betsetic Legal Services of Los Angeles, Centro Legal De La Rasa, community legal Services of East Palo Alto legal aid of Marin Legal Aid Society, San Bernardino Legal Assistance for Seniors, National Consumer Law Center, Opendoor Legal, public counsel, Public Good Law Center, Public Law Center, Riverside Legal Aid, Watsonville Law center, as well as Santa Clara University's Alexander Community Law center.

Thank you. All right, seeing no one else approaches the microphone moderator, let's turn to the phone lines for those who support and oppose SB 278.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you like to comment in support or opposition of SB 278, you may press 1 and 0 at this time. First, we'll go to line 29. Please go ahead.

This is Shauna Reeves with legal assistance for seniors in support of SB 278.

Next, we'll go to line 47. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, chair and Members, this is Leza Coleman, Legislative Director with the California Commission on Aging. We thank Senator Dodd and are in support of SB 278.

Next, we'll go to line 64. Please go ahead.

This is Carol Sewell from the California Elder Justice Coalition in support of SB 278.

Next, we'll go to line 70. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair Members. Jaime Huff, on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of, California, respectfully opposed. Thank you.

And next, we'll go to line 31. Please go ahead.

Hello. Benjamin Cohn, also individual of Santa Clara County. I'm speaking in support. I talked on behalf of CAOC last week to some of you, and this really is.

Thank you very much, sir. Next caller, please.

Next, we'll go to line 50. Please go ahead.

Yes, my name is Lydia Grant. I am President of the Sunland Tujunga Neighbor Council, speaking on my own behalf and definitely in support of this Bill. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 43. Please go ahead.

Pat McGinnis, Executive Director of California Advocates for nursing home reform, in strong support of SB 278.

Next, we'll go to line 27. Please go ahead.

Nikita Jones Houston, Canndu Neighborhood Council, acting as an individual in strong support of 278. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 36. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, this is Suzanne Ayazetta. I'm the supervising attorney of the consumer law unit at Public Law center in Santa Ana, and we strongly support SB 278. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 41. Please go ahead.

My name is Ave Williams. I live in San Diego, California, and I'm calling to strongly urge support for SB 278 as the daughter of a victim of elder financial fraud.

And next, we'll go to line 25. Please go ahead.

Madison Kovall from co sponsor Elder law and Advocacy in San Diego. And we strongly support SB 278. Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. All right. Bring it back to Committee. Senator Min.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the author for bringing this Bill forward. I am a co author of this Bill. Certainly, opposition raises some serious concerns about narrowing the Bill and ensuring that it doesn't have unintended consequences. But that being said, the point of this Bill the issue is trying to address is a very real one. I know we all have constituents who report about these types of elder abuse and that we, unfortunately, I know there are many good banks out there, many good bank tellers, but we often see banks involved in behavior that is completely unreasonable in allowing transactions to occur like what Ms. Lynn testified to. And I just am, of the personal opinion as policymakers, we cannot allow what happened to Ms. Lynn, to ever happen again in this state. So I would urge my colleagues to support this Bill. Just the scale of elder fraud, it's persistent, it's increasingly sophisticated, and this is clearly one of the points, the gateway points at which we can try to stop it. So I would respectfully ask my colleagues to vote for this Bill.

Thank you, Senator Min. Other Senator Durazo.

I want to thank the author for the Bill. And then on the other hand, I'm thinking, how do you really stop this from happening? And it can be very complicated within families to be able to do that. So I'm supporting the Bill, but what is it about the conversation and the safe harbor? Do you think that that's actually something that an agreement that you could reach?

Well, as of this morning, I was on the phone with Mr. Lane from the California Bankruptcy Association and talking about that issue. I'm not into the absolute technical details. We've got people here that are, there's three different points. I think we've agreed on two of those points, and the third one I think we agree on, but it's just a matter of how it's worded. And so I really believe that with that, even if they aren't in full agreement with how that third one is worded, a lot of the concerns of the bankers and the credit unions, in my opinion, I'm not saying that they agree with me on this, but in my opinion, go away. There are still going to be times, look I'm 65, over 65, much over 65 now. Too much information, right. But, nevertheless, you go into the bank, theres this thing where you see these wire transfers and they're just not right. This isn't a wire transfer where you hav a real estate document right next to it that says exactly what you're doing, you're investing in X, Y, and Z. This is something, most of the time, they are foreign transactions, foreign bank accounts, and things that just don't seem right. And, unfortunately, in our world, we pass laws because of bad actors. And these guys represent a lot of really great actors that do the good work every day at protecting seniors. Unfortunately, their net in their industry doesn't go out far enough, and there needs to be some regulation for those bad actors that aren't doing the job that their good members are.

Thank you. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave for housing Committee, but I want to make a few comments before I departed. First of all, thank you, Senator Dodd. I know you and I both have great sensitivity to elder abuse, probably more, I may sow more than you by at least a month. Number one. Number two is that having worked in this area, both as a federal prosecutor, also as a family member, also as a private attorney, there should be a special place in hell for those that target elderly people who can be vulnerable. Having said that, elderly folks can be quite observant of their rights, and there's an issue about not allowing a transfer of money when somebody wants to transfer money to someone who is entitled to receive that money. And how we figure that out is a tough call. And I know you've been working very hard on it. I appreciate your commitment to making sure that there's a safe harbor that exists prior to this Bill coming to floor. I appreciate you taking out tellers in terms of their liability. I appreciate you being sensitive to all these concerns. This is a tough, tough, tough issue. While we want to do whatever we can to make sure that we limit these kinds of scams, the banks are not the entity that is scamming the elders, but they do have a responsibility. And I realize that you're attempting to make sure we strike the right balance here. Tough call. And I look forward. I'm going to support the Bill when I come back, but I look forward to continuing to work with you before this Bill gets to the floor. Thank you. All right, Senator Wilk, here you go.

Senator Laird.

I was just going to make a comment, which is we had a case in my family, and it was very interesting because it didn't get caught the first time, but it got caught at the bank the second time. And because of the pattern and because of how strange it was, and it's to the bank's credit that it got caught. And so I think that based on this discussion and reading the analysis, you still have some work to do. But this debate sometimes takes place on two levels, how outraged we all are about the fraud that is here, but then whether the remedy is actually right or constructed in a way that actually works. And so I'd like to give you a chance to continue to work on it because this is such a bad problem. And when you have somebody in your family that experiences it, it's just hard to describe the emotions that go with it. And so if you can figure it out so it really targets where there really was some negligence and it couldn't stop it. I say more power to you. So I will look forward to supporting this Bill and just hope that you can continue to work to get there

Thank you, Senator Laird. Senator Niello.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Senator Dodd, you said you're 65? Over 65. You weren't specific, but I want you to know you don't look a day over 90. We're still good friends. This is an imperfect world that we live in. And that's the source of some of the comments before mine. And as the Bill exists now, it seems to me we run the risk of more conflict between seniors and their financial institutions than we do limiting elder abuse. So at this point, I can't support the Bill, but I will follow your discussions to maybe amend it. And if you get out of here today and it goes to the floor, I might change my mind.

I'll come by your desk.

Senator Ashby.

Thank you. So I really agree with Senator Laird's comments, and I know you will meet with the opponents and talk to them and try to continue to find that middle ground. And I think what Senator Umberg or Chairman Umberg said is really important that we know it's not the banks that are scamming people, but we're hoping they can be a partner in helping it. And as I sit here thinking about the elder component, I understand that elders are a target of a lot of these scams. And I think that is not about age. I think it's about having accumulated resources in your life, and that's what makes you the target. So I don't want you to feel bad about that. Like you missed something. You didn't miss something. You got targeted because you were really responsible throughout your life, like a lot of our parents and grandparents, and they saved up responsibly, and that's what made you a target, nothing else. You did nothing wrong. But when I think about that, I think it doesn't really need to be limited to seniors either, because anyone can be scammed. And maybe that's just food for thought for later. Maybe that's another piece of legislation. Maybe that's something that would make it easier for the banks. Honestly, I don't know. But something to think about, that it's really important to protect the dignity of seniors, too. And I think that's the balance that we're trying to find here. So I'm going to support you, of course, today and hopefully like to see where the Bill goes. I know that Mayor Steinberg carried a Bill that you're expanding upon, and he's very supportive of this as well, and that this is a passion for our region. I've heard a lot about it from constituents in this region, too, that they would like some additional protection. So I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you. Senator Ashby. Senator Allen.

Yeah. I'm going to support the Bill as well. I mean, I have a family Member who's a victim of senior scam. We do Scam Stoppers seminars, webinars for our district. And those of you who haven't done it yet, I really encourage you to do so. Amazing stories you hear from consumers up and down our state who have been scammed. And I think part of the challenge right now is that if this was a more traditional form of theft, where there was a much greater chance of recovery of these stolen items, I would probably feel differently about this. But this money, it's so easy for it to disappear. It's so different than a traditional old school bank robbery. This money, just with a click of a button, it disappears and it's sent off to a foreign account in a country where we have absolutely no control. Hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of dollars. And it's so quick, it's so easily done. And I think that's why the banks have to be part of the solution here. And I know you're going to work with them to get to an equitable solution, but they have to be a part of the solution and preventing lives being destroyed in the way that we've heard.

Before. I lose a gavel, I'm going to talk. So I agree, Senator Allen. We hold scamstoppers on a regular basis. The stories are heart wrenching. I, too, have family Members that have been abused financially who are elderly. I do have concerns that were shared here today. Unlike my other Republican colleague, I'm going to support your Bill today, reserving the right not to support it if we don't get to where we need to get to. But I think this is a really important issue. As Senator Allen said, it goes quickly. But the other problem is when you're elderly, you don't have time to make up for that mistake. So it's not like this happened to you at 25, but Ms. Lynn, 80. You. 68. Yeah, I personally don't hit that age yet, but whatever. Anyway, with that, I support you. Yeah, you did bring it up. Anyway, support the Bill, and I just encourage you to work with all stakeholders and land it in that sweet spot. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Other comments? Questions? Senator Stern moves the Bill. All right, Senator Dodd, would you like to close?

Yeah, I just respectfully ask for aye vote you guys have dealt with me over the years. I've had a lot of tough bills, and I get them worked out. This is something that I, too, agree with. The discussion that's up on the dais. That's why we've been working. And I'm telling you, our sponsors see this as well, and see this as a huge thing that we've got to get across, and we'll continue working on that. And I think I did commit that. I will not bring it up the floor until I have those amendments. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right, it's been moved by Senator Stern. Madam Secretary, if you call the roll.

This is file item number two, SB 278, by Senator Dodd. The motion is due pass as amended. Umberg. Umberg, aye. Wilk. Wilk, aye. Allen. Allen, aye. Ashby. Ashby, aye. Caballero. Caballero, aye. Durazo. Durazo, aye. Laird. Laird, aye. Min. Min, aye. Niello. Niello, no. Stern, aye. Wiener. Nine to one with one member missing.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lynn. Thank you, Senator Dodd.

Next, we have SB 393. Senator Stern is presenting for Senator Glazer. Well, it's up to you, Senator Stern. Okay. All right. And I know that Senator Limon is up, too. I just saw her. So, Senator Menjivar, go ahead. Item number six, SB 611. Thank you to my colleague from the valley. Good afternoon, chair, Committee Members. We're here to talk about junk fees. Let's let the room calm for just a second, okay? Senator Menjivar, thank you so much.

Before I begin, I will be taking the Committee analysis amendments. I really want to thank the team, working with my team to get to a point that we can all agree on. Well, at least to start off with. SB 611 is looking to address junk fees and bring transparency to individuals, tenants who are looking for rental properties. SB 611 is looking to require landlords to state what tenants are going to be paying upfront before going to a property to look at a unit.

Secondly, it's asking that we cap the junk fees associated when a tenant needs to pay with a check, and thirdly, it's looking to pay with a check or also to get a notice. And third, it's looking to crack down on additional fees associated when someone has to provide a higher security deposit due to their lower credit score. You might have remembered, during the most recent State of the Union, President Biden talked about the need to address junk fees on a whole nation level.

And I'm so excited that he brought this to our he further highlighted this issue and I was honored to represent California recently in a briefing to senior staff at the White House on what California is doing to address drunk fees. With SB 611 being part of the package to address junk fees, this Bill moves us in the direction to secure and maintain rental housing in today's market. As renters today typically face an array of mandatory fees beyond their monthly base rent.

These junk fees make rental housing even more out of reach because renters must pay them on top of the exorbitant rent we're seeing today. Junk fees also jeopardize access to future housing and financial stability because they can become an alleged rental debt that leads to ongoing debt collection and negative marks on credit reports. And this problem, as we all know, is even more particular here in the State of California when we have one of the highest rates of rental housing markets.

We all know here, being in Sacramento, some of us choose to stay in hotels, some of us choose to get an apartment or purchase a home. I decided to get an apartment about eight minute walk from here. We are in a means that we're able to pay a good amount for our apartment. But I've been astonished by all the junk fees that have been added to my own Bill. I just had to pay my Bill today, and in the Bill was included a utility admin fee.

On top of what I have to pay from a utility, a mandatory trash fee for them picking up my trash. I have no other option. They don't give us access to dump our own trash, so I have to pay an additional 35. There is an additional fee for only choosing to live in the place for 12 months. You get decreased in amount if you're in there for 19 months. There's fees on top of fees on top of fees.

There's a fee if I pay with my debit card or pay with my credit card. These are fees that are unnecessary. I am like you all in a situation where, yes, I'll get frustrated, but I have the means to pay for this. Imagine individuals who don't have a means to pay for this, but this is their only option and this is the most affordable unit they can find. So with SB 611, I'm looking to require transparency and pricing in the rental housing market.

I want to eliminate fees charged to tenants for serving, for posting, or delivering certain notices. I want to prohibit fees charged to tenants for paying the rent with a check, and I want to ensure that the tenants facing additional so-called high-risk charges are provided full disclosure of why they're having to pay that higher fee and a path to getting the fees refunded.

By making transparent, limiting some of the most horrific add on junk fees, SB 611 will empower renters so they can accurately plan for their financial futures. So here as my witness chair with your green light, I have Ignacio Hernandez on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California. Mr. Hernandez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair Members. Ignacio Hernandez on behalf of the Consumer Federation. We are sponsors of the Bill. CFC is co-sponsoring or sponsoring six bills this year here in California to deal with junk fees, and there are a number of other bills out there in a variety of spaces, everything from hotel fees, rental cars we're looking at, as well as tickets. And I know there are other bills out there, so there's a lot going on.

What we really want to do is help consumers who are having a tough time financially, especially in the post Covid economy, to both identify these extra fees, but also to eliminate some of the fees so that they have money to spend on really the necessities of life. And so this Bill is really targeting, as was stated, renters. It is so critical that renters, especially Low income individuals, have as much money available so that they can afford the rent going forward.

The more additional fees that are unnecessary that are placed on top of them, it's going to make it harder for them down the road. So we think we've drafted a very balanced Bill. We think it will help consumers not only get into a rental property, but stay in a rental property for the duration of their term without any financial issues, and we ask for your support. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Others in support of SB 611, please approach the microphone, seeing no one else approaching opposition.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members. Deborah Carlton with the California Apartment Association. Let me first state we agree with the Senator on the transparency in advertising that's required by Senate Bill 611. We've asked, however, that there be a distinction between those mandatory charges that a tenant pays and those that are charged either to a third party or that a tenant elects to pay.

Examples of that would be water utilities, wifi parking and the like. There are other fees that a tenant will never pay so long as they abide by the lease, such as late fees and bounce check fees, which are authorized by state law, that information should be and is typically included in the lease. SB 611 recently added language to require that the owner include extensive information in the lease if the owner asks for a higher security deposit from a service member.

Owners are already required to do that in a form that's called adverse action. They have to disclose in a separate form the information to the applicant that outlines the reasons for that higher security deposit. So we believe that added information that's included in the lease is not necessary. And finally, Senate Bill 611 requires the owner to return within six months to the service member the additional security deposit they've collected.

Now, our organization worked in good faith with Senator Glazer when he introduced and successfully had the law changed to allow for a lower security deposit for service Members. We agreed with him. In fact, rental property owners, however, were given the ability to collect an additional fee if that service Member had a history of not paying the rent or a history of damaging the unit. Now, I'll tell you, I have family Members who are in the service.

Young kids had themselves a good time when they were in the service, and they left that unit a mess, and it went against their record. So for that reason, we believe that it is fair that the rental property owner continue to have the ability to keep that security deposit, not return it, within six months until the time that that service Member moves out and has paid the rent and demonstrated that the unit is in the same condition as when they came in. And for those reasons, we'd like to work with the Senator to address our concerns going forward. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Others in opposition, seeing no one else approaching the microphone. Those who are in the hearing room that wish to provide me to testimony, please approach the microphone. Seeing no one approaching, let's turn to the phone lines. Moderator, please queue up.

Those in support and in opposition to SB 611. Ladies, gentlemen, if like to comment. Supporter opposition of SB 611, press 1 and 0 at this time.

Yes. Thank you. I'm Lydia Grant. For identification purposes, I'm the President of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council and a constituent of Senator Menjivar. I do rent and I do thank her for addressing this issue, and I am in support of this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, thank you very much. Committee Members, questions, comments, motions? Yes, Senator Ashby.

Yeah, you know, I understand what you're trying to do. I think it's meaningful work, probably help a lot of people. The transparency piece is really helpful. Obviously, I'm sure you would be fine with whatever fees if you knew them up front and you knew this is what it took to be here. And I'm going to support you today, and I'll even make the motion. But I do have a question, and I've been on judiciary now for a little bit. And have you met, have you sat down?

Because it didn't sound like it and some of the things that the opponents had to say. I know you really well. You're very easy to work with, very open minded. So my question is really to you. Would you meet with them and maybe consider some of the things that are their concerns and still achieve the goal you're trying to achieve here?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Senator. So one of the concerns is actually not within the Bill. SB 611 requires the mandatory fees to be included only if it's mandatory to live there. So WiFi is not mandatory to be included under SB 611. Pet fee, parking fee, not mandatory to be included. We're talking about things that would require, that are mandatory for you to physically live in that unit.

So, for example, the part I gave: for me to physically live in my unit, I had to pay $35 for the trash valet. There was no other option. So that's a fee that would have to be included inside. So some of those concerns are addressed in the Bill currently because they're not going to be happening at all.

Yeah. My question was more, though, but have you sat down with them, or would you be willing to.

No, we haven't sat down, and I am willing to.

That'd be great. And again, I'll move the Bill. I see what you're trying to do. I think it's really good work.

All right. Thank you, Senator Ashby, Senator Caballero, then Senator Min.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I agree with what was said. This is really an important Bill. It's shocking to me some of the things that end up as part of a transaction where you think you're renting an apartment, then all of a sudden you've got all these fees. So let me just say that one of the reasons it's really important. I'm glad to hear you're willing to meet with the realtors. I think that's important in the Apartment Association.

But the unlawful detainer statute is very specific about what you have to include in the notice of eviction. And if you, as a landlord, screw it up, you got to start all over again. And it was one of the things that you'd look for when I was working for legal aid is to figure out whether they did it right. A lot of times it's for non-payment of rent. And so the pieces that you have to pay become very important.

So it's really important to kind of be very specific in the legislation so that we know here is what you're talking about, and here's what is exempted. Right? Like water, electricity, trash. You're right. If you have to pay it in order to live in the apartment, then it should be listed somewhere that trash is an extra charge. And it may be that it doesn't say how much it is, but the fact that you have to pay it separately, I think that the average person thinks there's a receptacle, that I just throw it in for the apartment.

Anyway, I would encourage you to sit down and have that conversation so that we can get it right, so that unlawful detainers are, the tenant knows what they have to do and the landlord knows what they have to do. I'll support it today.

Thank you so much, Senator. In the work that we did with the Committee, the amendment is around taking out the itemization part and just provide a subtotal upfront to address some of the things you just brought up right now.

All righty, thank you. And I know I mentioned Senator Min, but actually Senator Wilk had his hand up first, and I don't want to impact his self esteem. So I'll go to Senator Wilk.

I live two minutes from the Capitol and everything's included in my Bill. So you want to come and check out my apartment building? Happy to take you around. I think some of the comments made by the opposition today have merit. So I know you're going to meet with them.

So I'm happy to support the Bill today. And having nieces and nephews and children myself, I know this is an important issue that they confront, and no one likes to be surprised. So I'm hoping you're successful.

Thank you so much, Senator.

Senator Minn,

All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually rent out my place here in Sacramento because it's a three bedroom and I have two housemates. So I have upfront experience with this.

And I guess I'm looking at the opposition's request and their point that some of these charges you're talking about are variable, depending on how hot you like the place versus how cool you like the place, how much trash you might use, those fees are variable, and their suggested amendment that they just list that additional fees may apply, including the following.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me, and I guess I just would be interested in your thoughts on how do you respond to their claim, which seems reasonable that you do have variable charges, and I can't tell you how much your utilities are going to be, right?

I think what they're asking doesn't really fully promote transparency. If you're individual family, that is really calculating every single penny per month of what you're allowed to spend. I think it's so important that what we're providing as to what you're going to spend in this home is important. Because when I was younger and looking for an apartment, I didn't have a form of transportation and I would take a bus to look at apartments, my first apartment.

So if I went to that apartment after going on a bus and that apartment gave me a different rate, I now have to take another bus to another apartment because they didn't provide it up front. So I think that part I feel very strong about in ensuring that we have an actual full transparency. Because if you put a range of $1500 to $2200, that's a big gap. If it's depending on the unit size, of course. Right. You can.

But I don't know how. Just walk me through this, because I'm confused. Like, how should I know what your heating bill is going to be or what your electricity bill is going to be? Right? And even with trash, it depends on--I have a single family home, right? So it depends how much trash they use. And they have the small bins that's cheaper than the bigger bins.

So, for example, here, my utility is SMUD. I'm not asking. That's something I pay outside. That has nothing to do with my apartment.

I see. Okay.

Yes. This is something that only the landlord is responsible for.

I see. So you're not talking about utilities or anything that.

Outside, but some apartments included.

As a separate fee. Okay. All right. Well, I guess I just encourage you to keep working with the opposition just because I appreciate the point of this Bill and certainly support transparency. But it also strikes me that some of their concerns seem reasonable. And maybe I just don't understand what you're trying to do as well. And I guess I'd just add one of the things I'm concerned about in this state is that we have seen a lot of small and medium landlords leave the state and invest in rental properties in other states.

And I just worry that every time we add on new requirements, we're exacerbating that exodus. And unless we want this market to just be dominated by hedge funds, I think we have to be mindful of some of the reasonable concerns of small and medium landlords. But thank you for the Bil, l I will be supporting as well.

Thank you so much, Senator.

All right. Other comments? Yes, Senator Niello,

The final comment that Senator Min made is very relevant to my concerns. I am almost where Senator Wilk is, but I can't support the Bill as it is. But depending upon if you get it out of Committee, I could change my mind on the floor.

Thank you, Senator.

All right. Thank you. Other comments? Questions? Is there a motion? Oh, I'm sorry, Senator Ashby moved the Bill. Just a couple comments. And I've heard what you've said about working with the opposition. That would be helpful. And I know service members are close to your heart and close to my heart. I also know you're more familiar with marines. I'm more familiar with soldiers. And I know 19 year old marines, one, they don't drink, and two, they would never, ever abuse property after a night of not drinking.

Soldiers, on the other hand, might do that. Just the culture of the various services. And so I do have concerns. I have concerns about whether or not a service member should get their deposit back after six months if they've got a longer term tenancy. I'm going to support the Bill, of course. But I'd ask that you take a look at that. Maybe you just do soldiers, maybe you don't do marines, or maybe you just do marines.

Can't be trusted.

Right. Exactly right. All right. Thank you. Would you like to close?

I really appreciate this. Yes. I do commit to you that we will work with opposition, see if we can find a common ground. At the end of the day, what I'm looking is to help the people that you mentioned, your nieces, the Gen X, Z's that are struggling to pay for rent right now because of the added fees.

And Senator Min, to your point of protecting small landlords: 100%. Which is why, when I think about a fee for checks, it doesn't cost them a fee to take a check. So I thought about that to ensure that what I was trying to take out wasn't going to incur or add an additional fee to these landlords. With that in mind, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

All right. Senator Ashby has moved the Bill. Madam Secretary, if you would call the roll.

This is File Item number 6, SB 611, by Senator Menjivar. The motion is do pass as amended. Umberg? Umberg aye. Wilk? Wilk aye. Allen? Allen aye. Ashby? Ashby aye. Caballero? Caballero aye. Durazo? Durazo aye. Laird? Laird aye. Min? Min aye. Niello? Niello no. Stern? Stern aye. Wiener? Wiener aye. 10 to 1.

10 to 1, that Bill is out.

Thank you.

All right, I see Senator Stern talking with Senator Limón. Senator Limón, you're next. Those are famous last words. All right.

Alright, Senator Limón, number 4, SB 727.

Economic coercion plays a significant role in human trafficking. Individuals who experience coerced debt commonly face years of debt repayment, financial and housing instability and poverty. Victims can be coerced into taking out personal loans, student loans, lines of credit, or applying for certain social benefits, which are then turned over to the trafficker. Economic abuse is one of the most likely predictors of whether a trafficking survivor is able to permanently escape from their trafficker.

This Bill will apply in a civil case where a survivor of trafficking is suing their trafficker. It will allow a judge to make a determination, as part of the restitution to the survivor, that a specific debt was coerced. With me today, I have Christopher Sanchez from the Western Center on Law and Poverty to speak in support of the Bill.

All right, thank you. Mr. Sanchez, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Christopher Sanchez, Policy Advocate at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. To be brief, echo all the comments of the author and just say that this would provide significant relief to individuals who have been human trafficked, as there's no pathway for them to provide any type of forgiveness in this area. For those reasons, we ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Best presentation of the day. All right. Others in support, if you'd approach the microphone. Those opposed, if you'd approach the microphone. Seeing no one approached the microphone. If there's anyone in the hearing room who wishes to offer me too testimony, please approach the microphone. Seeing no one approaching. Let's turn to the phone lines. Moderator, please queue up those who are in support and in opposition to SB 727.

Ladies, gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in support opposition of SB 727, please press 1 and 0 at this time. We'll go to line 46.

I'm putting my bag down.

All right, thank you. Next caller, please.

There are no others in queue. Back to you.

All right. Okay, thank you very much. All right, let's bring it back to Committee. Questions by Committee Members. Senator Min?

This is a good Bill. As you know, I had a Bill last year on economic coercion in the context of domestic violence survivors. Great idea here. It's really, really important, and I would request to be a co-author at the appropriate time. Move the Bill.

And Senator Min has moved the Bill. Other questions or comments? Seeing none,

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Oh, you kept your word. All right. Madam Secretary, if you would call the roll.

This is file item number 4, SB 727, by Senator Limón. The motion is do pass. Umberg? Umberg aye. Wilk? Wilk aye. Allen? Allen aye. Ashby? Ashby aye. Caballero? Caballero aye. Durazo? Durazo aye. Laird? Laird aye. Min? Min aye. Niello? Niello aye. Stern? Stern aye. Wiener? Wiener aye. 11 to 0.

11 to 0, Bills out.

All right. Next, Senator Stern. For those of you following along, Senator Stern is presenting item number 3, SB 393, authored by Senator Glazer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So before I begin, I want to note that the author will be accepting the Committee amendments suggested on page seven of the analysis. Those mockups are on 16 and 17, and to thank the chair and the Committee staff for their work on this measure. Senator Glazer brought this measure before us in large part because of a conflict over an affordable housing project in his district that has since been stalled and has faced some impediments due to frivolous litigation issues.

There are a number of issues raised in the analysis, some of which are, I think, dealt with in these amendments. But I do appreciate, I want to say at the outset, some of the concerns from the opposition raising the analysis about the chilling effect that these kinds of disclosure measures can have on litigation. I actually think CEQA is a very good law and has done a lot for getting ahead of problems before they would otherwise manifest themselves.

To get that disclosure out into the public of what the impacts of a project would be is a good thing, I think, and I truly don't believe it is the bugaboo that has become on housing. But that said, there are opportunities for abuse. And so in this case, I think in these limited circumstances, as reflected by the EQ Committee's amendments and hopefully by the Judiciary Committee's amendments, some of those concerns will be mitigated.

The overlying concern raised in the analysis, though, about the First Amendment outstanding issue I do hope will be further looked at by the author should the Bill move forward to address some of those issues. Because what we don't want to do is just pass bills and then have them struck down and sort of create false expectations.

So that sort of question about the particular kinds of, if there's another way to amend around that concern, I think the author would be open to that, but happy to answer any questions I can muster here and respectfully ask for aye vote.

All right, thank you. Witnesses in support, please approach the microphone.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Linda Mandolini. I'm the President and CEO of Eden Housing. I'm here to testify in support of SB 393. Eden Housing is one of California's oldest nonprofit affordable housing developers, having developed nearly 10,000 affordable apartments throughout California. We work very closely with our elected officials to get our projects approved to make sure they comply with local zoning and fit into the character of the neighborhood.

Nonetheless, we're seeing an increasing number of lawsuits against our projects from anonymous, well-funded groups whose members are not required to disclose their identities or the motives for their legal action. In all instances, these suits have been rejected by judges for having little or nothing to do with protecting the environment. The courts have begun to consider requiring opponents to post a $500,000 bond under Civil Code 529.2 for damages imposed on our projects due to these deliberate delays.

This is an important test in establishing these bonds, is confirming the financial wherewithal of our opponents. Because people are suing us anonymously, it's very hard to do that. In the case of the Livermore project, which prompted Senator Glazer to bring this Bill forward, Eden received unanimous approval from the City Council in 2021 to build 130 units of affordable workforce housing that will provide an incredible opportunity for hundreds of lower income individuals to live closer to where they work.

The project is a 100% union project with a project labor agreement that will create someday higher wage jobs for construction workers. This group of anonymous, well funded opponents have used CEQA to delay this project for years in spite of a series of judgments against them, dismissing their arguments as almost entirely without merit. These delays forced us to return a $68 million tax credit award and are threatening other funding sources as well. But for this lawsuit, we would be celebrating affordable housing month this week by opening that project and welcoming these new families to their new homes. But instead, we continue to go to court with this group of well funded opponents. This legislation will help us identify nameless opponents behind challenges like these and stop death by delay, which is a very real strategy in preventing affordable housing that we desperately need in California.

All righty. Thank you very much. All right. Next, please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Marina Wyatt with the California Housing Consortium. CHC is an affordable housing advocacy organization focused on the production and preservation of low-income housing. Expanding affordable housing opportunities for lower income families in high resource areas like downtown Livermore is a critical strategy for affirmatively furthering fair housing. While experiences like those described by Eden Housing are not expansive, they are not unique, and more importantly, they have a chilling effect on the state's ability to affirmatively further fair housing.

Developers like Eden cannot afford years of costly legal battles and will continue to shy away from providing the affordable housing we need in communities of opportunity. SB 393 is a moderate reform to CEQA, but by providing greater transparency to the CEQA process, could have an extraordinary impact on the ability for affordable housing developers to prevail on 529.2 bond motions and allow more affordable housing developers like Eden Housing to take on the risk of expanding access to opportunity for lower income Californians.

However, we would prefer to see an exception to the Committee amendments in paragraph E to allow these disclosures to be admissible in 529.2 bond motions. These motions were acquire the affordable developer, as Linda noted, to show that the plaintiff will not have the undue financial hardship. Without this information, it is almost impossible for a developer to reel. Nonetheless, we urge your support today and hope to continue these conversations as the Bill moves forward.

All right, thank you very much. All right. Those in opposition to SB 393.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, Jeremy Smith here on behalf of the state Building and Construction Trades Council. First off, I'm not a lawyer. To be very clear with you.

I appreciate Senator Glazer reaching out to us early on on this Bill, but we do retain our concern about the First Amendment rights that Senator Stern mentioned in its outline in your analysis. We believe the Bill's disclosure requirements tainted judicial process as bias, and are unconstitutional since courts are required to resolve the claims on the merits, unbiased by who the petitioner is.

It is well established that petitioners challenging an agency's failure to comply with its public duty under CEQA may have economic as well as environmental interests in initiating litigation. We also believe the Bill violates the freedom to associate. Both the California and US Supreme Courts have held that the compelling an association to disclose its membership violates the first and 14th Amendments, the US Constitution, because of its likely to turn effect on its Members' constitutional pledge right to freedom of association.

Both Supreme Courts have held that the constitutional right of association includes a related right to keep petitioners confidential, particularly where such disclosure may expose the petitioners to economic reprisal, loss of employment and other public hostility. Finally, we believe state law already covers these situations.

Section 128.7 of the California Code of Civil Procedure requires petitioners to certify that their suit is not being presented primarily for improper purpose, that the claims and defenses and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by non frivolous argument, and finally, that the allegations and other factual contentions in the suit have evidentiary support. If a court determines these requirements have been violated, the court may impose monetary and non-monetary sanctions upon the attorneys, law firms or parties. Just for these reasons, we remain opposed.

We appreciate the Committee's hard work on this and the analysis. Look forward to continuing conversations with Senator Glazer as the Bill moves forward, if it moves forward today. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, others in opposition?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members and staff. Mitch Steiger with the California Labor Federation, also in opposition.

Thank you.

Melissa Romero, California Environmental Voters in opposition.

Thank you. All right, anyone else in the hearing room wishes to provide me too, support or opposition? Please approach the microphone. I see one person approaching. Moderator, in a moment, we will queue up those on the phone lines.

Chair and Members of the Committee, Jordan Panana Carbajal, on behalf of California YIMBY, in strong support of the Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, now let's turn to the phone lines. Moderator, if you would queue up those on the phone.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in and support our opposition of SB 393, you may press 1 and 0 at this time. And first we'll go to line 121. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity. We remain in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just a moment. Next we go to line 51. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Kristin Heidelbach on behalf of UFCW, Western State Council in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

And next we'll go to line 45. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Yuvaraj Sivalingam, from Arnold and Porter, on behalf of Government for California in support of 393. Thank you.

Thank you.

And next we'll go to line 88. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Darryl Little, on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and respectful opposition to SB 393. I've also been asked to register opposition for Sierra Club California. Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, questions by Committee Members? I see Senator Wiener, Senator Min.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I respect and work with a lot of the opposition, but I'll be supporting the Bill today and I appreciate the work that the Environmental Quality Committee did and that this Committee did to really focus the Bill on the problem at hand and also to make some. I think the amendments in this Committee were very good in terms of the procedural tightening. So I appreciate the work that the Committee did.

While I understand the concerns in opposition, I also, just having been around government for local office and now here for a period of time, not only in the CEQA context, but the number of times that an anonymous complaint, not even just a lawsuit, anonymous complaint in the land use context at the local level can absolutely upend a project. And at some point I don't think it's unreasonable for people to say who they are.

This isn't just like a right of association in terms of, we're working together and advocating together, I understand the First Amendment concerns. But when you're talking about filing a lawsuit to stop a project, which people have an absolute right to do, and there are meritorious lawsuits and there are non-meritorious lawsuits, I don't think it's unreasonable if someone is providing significant funding to disclose who they are. I think increasing the amount from 5000 to 10,000 was good. It could even be higher than that.

The project in Livermore, I suspect the individual who we all know, the individual who's acted atrociously around that project and who is funding it put a heck of a lot more than--I'm speculating--than 10,000 in. But I know this Bill will be a work in progress, I imagine, throughout the legislative process. I think it's good for it to move forward today because it is actually a significant issue.

And a lot of the organizations that are opposing the Bill are organizations that, they're quite open when they're opposed to a project. It's not a secret. Right? They just express their opposition. If they have to file a lawsuit, they file a lawsuit, and it's very transparent, and that's a good thing.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. Senator Min?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I'm sympathetic to the problem that was described here of abusive litigation, but this seems to me like a very indirect route to trying to address the problem. If the problem is frivolous litigation, abusive litigation, I would think that sanctions may be beefing those up. Maybe the bond that we talked about that was mentioned by one of the witnesses might be more appropriate. But I have concerns about some of the attacks on litigation financing.

I know we had a Bill earlier this month on that issue, and one of the reasons I supported that Bill was because that Bill did not allow for public disclosure. This Bill does contemplate allowing public disclosure of litigation financing, and that concerns me because this seems like an attack on something that does provide access to plaintiffs to the court.

So I guess my question, I know you're not the author, but why not go after the problem more directly, which is if the problem we're trying to address is abusive litigation, why not go after that rather than this disclosure route?

It's a question I can certainly relay to the author. I would say this Committee, I believe, heard a Bill that would have gone after what, quote unquote, frivolous claims last year, trying to recall the author now. The Committee rejected that Bill because the definition of frivolity and what a technical error would have been, has been hard to pin down.

But I think to your point and to some of the opposition's point from the building trades about that attestation that has to be made at the front end of the litigation about no improper purpose, there is some recourse now about frivolous claims, and I think in the Eden case, that's actually being so.

I was not on the Committee last year. I just passed the bar last year in California for the first time. So I know. Unbelievable. I have concerns about this Bill. I'm going to stay off today, but with the right to change. And my main concern is around the disclosure piece that I think this will potentially be a deterrent on litigation financing.

Other questions, Senator Durazo?

Yes. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not going to be supporting the Bill today. I'm surprised to hear that anonymous complaints would upend a project. I mean, there are serious ways of making your case through the CEQA process, and I can't imagine that something like that would completely throw off a whole project. CEQA is very important and we should stick to the purpose of CEQA. But I don't think this has anything to do with the CEQA other than it's going to, I mean.

The failure to comply would lead to be grounds for the dismissal of the action, I think is pretty extreme, and this is not the way to address the issues. We know how to address issues when CEQA is a real issue with housing, we've streamlined, we've by right. We've done all sorts of things to address CEQA issues. I don't see this as a CEQA issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Other comments? Seeing none. Is there a motion, Senator Caballero moves the Bill. Senator Stern, and I realize that you may not be able to respond, but I may ask your proponents to respond to two issues. One is as to admissibility. It is my understanding that this is not, that the funding is not admissible, that we've cleared that up. Let me just ask your proponent, one of your proponents, if that's their understanding as well.

And then the second issue was that they wanted to have some semblance of admissibility with respect to the financial wherewithal of the plaintiff.

Yeah, I think the amendments that the author has taken that the Committee proposes would say that none of this would be admissible. And I think for the purposes of a 529.2 motion, we were hoping they could be admissible.

Otherwise, it does little to sort of address the issue that Eden raised and other affordable housing developers have raised, where if they don't know, they would have to go through the longer discovery process to get that information instead of kind of an expedited process like this Bill would provide.

So if we haven't done this, I would suggest to Senator Glazer that we do do this. My experience--and you're going to correct me here in just a second--is that when you move basically to stop a project and the project is stayed, the court will then say to the plaintiff, "plaintiff, you understand that if this project is stayed, it could cost the defendant lots of money."

"So therefore, I want you either to demonstrate you have the financial resources to be able to satisfy a subsequent judgment should this go the wrong way from the plaintiff's perspective or post a bond. If you don't want to show me your resources, then I'm going to order that a bond be placed in an amount that would provide some semblance of recourse for the defendant." Is that your understanding?

That is not my understanding. And again, I'm not an attorney. I am an attorney, but not for these types of cases. And I don't know if Linda can talk about their experience at Eden, but I know that there is another affordable housing developer, a community of friends down, that does a lot of work in LA, where they attempted to move to have the bond motion, and it was denied by the courts because they did not know who the plaintiffs were.

And therefore, without knowing who the plaintiffs were, they were not able to get the information to then be able to prove that the plaintiffs had the financial ability to post that bond.

Okay, well, we're going to fix that. Yeah. At least that's my goal, is to make sure that if the information that, for example, that the plaintiff wants to provide to the court, that they're not legally prohibited from providing it to court. And if the court has no information, then the court can require the posting of an appropriate bond consummate with the potential damages. All right. And I assume you'll accept all those amendments, Senator Stern, on behalf of Senator Glazer? I'm kidding. All right.

Do you care to close?

Sure. Yeah. So my understanding from the mock up that I've been reviewing here is there still has to be a motion to make that evidence inadmissible to the court. So that's what a plaintiff would have to go through right now to keep it out of evidence in the case. Sounds like that ongoing issue around bonding is going to be addressed separately and outside the context, maybe, of this hearing. I will say in closing, I appreciate what the main author is trying to do here.

I think it's important to keep this conversation going, but I hope that we can have some dialogue with some of the opposition here, labor, environmental, community, to make sure that we don't go through an exercise that's going to have constitutional infirmities in the end and then sort of become a futile sort of legislative recycling game as opposed to something that will actually have impact in the real world.

So to the extent we can especially deal with some of the issues around facial neutrality and getting past this question of whether a substantial number of applications would be unconstitutional, which is that those are grounds that the Supreme Court has identified for facially invalidating law. In certain applications, this law may not work. It may not be appropriate in certain cases. But in these bigger cases, we're talking about higher dollar payees, cases where it's not undermining, there's not a compelling government interest.

Those kinds of cases, hopefully it would apply and more good projects would get through. So with that said, I do appreciate the dialogue and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right. Thank you. I believe it's moved by Senator Caballero. Madam Secretary, if you'd call the roll.

This is File Item number 3, SB 393, by Senator Glazer. The motion is do passed as amended. Umberg? Umberg aye. Wilk? Wilk aye. Allen? Allen aye. Ashby? Ashby aye. Caballero? Caballero aye. Durazo? Laird? Min? Niello? Niello aye. Stern? Stern aye. Wiener? Wiener aye. Eight to zero.

Eight to zero. We'll put that on call. All right. So what we would normally do is we would normally have those who are not on the Committee present their bills. I believe that would be, in this case. Senator McGuire and Senator Skinner. Neither of them are. They're on consent. No wonder. No wonder. No, we are not quite done. We are not quite done. Yeah.

Because we're on consent.

There's not no mark for consent.

Oh, it says this is the consent.

You don't wonder? No wonder. Senator Niello, you're up.

I thought I was on consent.

Well, it was close.

Senator Laird says I'm only nine votes away. That means he's voting for my bill. He's already decided.

Yes. It's you and me.

Thank you for that.

All right. Senate item number 11, SB 585.

Thank you, Chair Umberg and members, for allowing me to present SB 585. This bill would grant entities the ability to fix a construction-related violation within 120 days of being served with a notice before a lawsuit can move forward. This bill gets at the heart of the purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act, finding deficiencies in building construction and providing for the entity to actually fix the defect, and thus making the facility more accessible to all.

The real problem is that the good-intentioned private right of action has been abused. The number of boilerplate ADA cases filed by just a few serial litigants and even fewer law firms have continued to explode, targeting individuals of marginalized communities with limited access to justice and solely for the purpose of demanding monetary settlements. In fact, of the 3850 complaints in 2021, only 5% resulted in a judgment that demonstrates that the key motivator is filing is to settle.

Opportunistic lawyers often target businesses in marginalized communities with large populations of immigrants whose first language is not English. These individuals are generally less familiar with the American legal system, have less trust in it, and are highly likely to settle these meritless cases out of fear. Regardless of whether they actually violated the ADA, they simply feel that they have no other option. In 2021, ADA litigation in the US District Court for Northern District of California tripled from 2020.

Of the suits filed, nearly 85% were from one law firm on behalf of their serial litigants. It is estimated that the firm's earnings from ADA litigation was over $60 million from 2018 to 2022 alone. This is an evident problem when you see that our state has more disability access lawsuits filed than the rest of the 49 states combined in 2021 and just a handful of plaintiffs filing thousands of suits.

These meritless lawsuits and settlements are putting some of these marginalized businesses, business owners, out of business and crushing their goal of living the American dream. As a result, communities suffer, they lose staple small businesses that have served there for years, and employees are out of jobs. The unfortunate reality is that there is no enforcement of compliance once the settlement is reached, and often the plaintiff no longer has any interest either. That's where this bill would help.

SB 585 would ensure that the deficiencies are actually fixed, access is increased, and all can enjoy the business. If they don't, they'll be penalized and face damages. These lawsuits are not about promoting the ideals of the ADA, but rather about the illegitimate transfer of wealth from historically marginalized communities into the pockets of ADA plaintiff lawyers. In other words, the legal action is more about profiting off someone's honest mistake rather than increasing access.

The claim that businesses will not have an incentive to be proactively compliant is just plain wrong. Businesses not only want to serve as many customers as possible, they also will face potential quick backlash on social media if their facility is widely known to be unaccessible. The balance must be struck between protecting the rights of disabled people to have physical access, while also protecting the rights of business owners to have meaningful access to justice, equal representation, and being protected from meritless litigation.

With me today is Fatima Sanafa, and I probably butchered that terribly I apologize, from Zilfred's restaurant in Fresno, as well as Tony Hahn, owner of Taipan restaurant in Santa Clara.

Thank you. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Senator. My name is Fatima Sanifa. I came to this country from Iran in 1977 with my husband and three children, escaping an unfair regime. When we came to US, we bought the restaurant in Fresno, and we all had to work at the restaurant. It has not been easy being an immigrant, but that did not matter because I wanted to live in a place where we were free and law protected us. I believe in this legal system here.

Until a terrible things happened in 2014, we found out that we were being sued under the ADA. Throughout our 35 years serving customers in wheelchair, we had never received a complaint, so we thought it was the mistake. We were lucky to have a daughter who was a lawyer. For three years, she defended us in the ADA lawsuit in federal court. We suffered a lot of stress.

Even when everything met ADA standard, the lawsuit not go away because money was being demanded, the federal case was finally dismissed in our favor.

Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up.

I'll take over. Unfortunately, my husband passed away three months before we won. Even after the federal case was dismissed and four months after my husband's death, the plaintiff refiled the same case in state court, demanding money and attorneys fees from me.

All right, thank you very much.

Okay.

I appreciate it. Thank you. I assume that you're supportive of the bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, other witnesses in support. Go ahead.

Thank you, Senator. Good afternoon, Chairman and members. I was hoping to meet my opposition today. Just so you know, both Potter and Gandy are white male, and I prepare a speech, and I don't think I really need that. Thank you, Mama Munchi. I met her today for the first time, and when she told me her story, I cried. And this is not the first time I heard this type of story. I'm here.

I drove 2 hours here just to give two minute speech because something has to change. I'm here representing more than 50 businesses who got sued by the single law firm. Yeah. And I'm tired. And obviously, I'm angry. I'm angry at a law firm that prey on immigrants, that prey on hard workers who are just trying to make a living for their families. And they know that most of us have never dealt with the law before.

So with the slightest pressure, everyone wants to settle, and the settlement is their business. And let me tell you, they're greedy. They're really greedy. And don't listen to their altruistic talks. Right. They think they're Jimmy McGill, but they're actually Saul Goodman, just a bunch of wolves wearing sheepskins. And Senator Min and I would know that the month of May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So how about we make some progress by giving that community a shield against their predatory behaviors for good?

And let me just be clear that no one. None of us, were ever against the differently abled individuals. Are you kidding me? Most of us are in the service industry, and we pride ourselves on serving everyone's needs. So just let us serve. Let us serve you. Serve people's needs. And if our service is not on par, tell us about it. Give us a chance.

All right. Before. Thank you very much.

Please let me finish. Give us a chance. Let us know before taking everything from us.

All right. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. All right, those in opposition.

Good morning, or good afternoon. Chair and members, Eric Harris with Disability Rights California in respectfully opposition. DRC respectfully opposes SB 585 for several reasons, but in particular, the bill is harmful, unnecessary, and overly broad. Current law sets the minimum accessibility standards and takes into account whether the building preexisted the adoption of the ADA in 1990, if the barrier removal is achievable and what resources are available.

SB 585 harms people with disabilities, requiring notice and cure periods. Treat disabled people as second class citizens by forcing them to jump through additional barriers after being discriminated against. Currently, after being discriminated against, disabled people already have to file lawsuits in order to urge compliance and address wrongdoing. This bill would make them go even farther. Next, SB 585 is unnecessary.

Laws passed by this legislature already allow extended time periods to fix violations, and there is not any evidence suggesting that these current reforms are not workable or insufficient. Finally, this bill is just too broad. In an effort to help a small number of businesses, the vast majority of disabled people who bring credible claims will be harmed. Any proposed solution must be narrowly crafted to target only those issues without impairing legitimate actions pursuant to laws necessary to ensure access and civil rights.

The ADA is over 30 years old. There are plenty of opportunities and remedies for businesses who need help with compliance. The court can and does impose sanctions on bad actors. The legislature has uniformly refused notice and cured bills in the past. And finally, I'll leave you with this final story. I have spent a lifetime finding out which stores or restaurants or businesses are accessible and which ones are not.

If I could tell you how embarrassing and hurt I have been when I try to go to a business.

Sir, thank you. If you'd wrap it up.

Yes. When I try to go to a business in 2023 and get told essentially, no, you do not belong and we do not want you, we would not accept that with any other marginalized group, underrepresented group, black people, women, LGBTQIA plus, older individuals.

All right, thank you, sir.

And I urge your no vote, thank you.

All right, thank you. Others in opposition seeing no one in the hearing room approaching the microphone. If there's anyone here who wishes to testify in me too fashion, please approach the microphone. State your name, your affiliation, and your position.

Mr. Chairman, Chris Micheli, on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in support.

Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no one else approach the microphone, let's turn to the phone lines. Oh, here we go.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Matt Sutton with the California Restaurant Association in support.

Thank you. All right, let's now go to the phone lines for those who are in support and in opposition to SB 585.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to comment in support or opposition of SB 585, you may press 10 at a time. First, we'll go to line 116. Please go ahead.

Hello, this is Julia Kosno with Mountain View. I support the bill.

Thank you.

And next we'll go to line 100. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Ashley Hoffman on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we go to line 114. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Jessica DeCastro. I am from Mountain View, and I own Lucky Chinese Bistro as well as AHC, and I am in support of the bill.

Next we'll go to line 97. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Elena Vastina. I am the owner of the Olive Cakes Lasgaros, and I support this Bill.

Thank you.

And next we'll go to line 99. Please go ahead.

My name is Sasha Camacho. I'm the owner of Vitality Bowls in Mountain View, and I support this bill.

Thank you.

And next, we'll go to line 31. Please go ahead.

Benjamin Cohn, also of Mountain View. I oppose this bill as a multiple disabled individual. People who choose the same council or settle.

Thank you very much. Next caller, please.

Next, we'll go to line 130. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Dan Okenfuss from the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers here in opposition to Senate Bill 585. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 131. Please go ahead.

Afternoon. Jackie Stern, on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California, in opposition.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 112. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Michella Garcia. I'm a resident of Los Angeles and I support the bill.

Thank you.

And we'll go on to line 86. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is David Lee and I respectfully support the bill.

Thank you.

And next, we'll go to line 38. Please go ahead.

Anthony Goldsmith, on behalf of Californians for Disability Rights, we oppose the bill.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to line 129, please go ahead.

Megan Kawkab, the Patio in Palo Alto, California. And I strongly say yes on 585.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to line 22, please go ahead.

My name is Brian Fabian with Selected Real Estate Investments from Los Angeles. On behalf of over 100 businesses that we work with, we strongly support the bill.

Next, we go to line 134. Please go ahead.

My name is Caitlin Nguyen for Bovin Restaurant. I support the bill.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 78. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Isaac Fosterman. I'm speaking as a resident of Berkeley, and I strongly support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Vin Nguyen, restaurant owner, San Carlos. Yes, on number 585.

Next, we'll go to line 117. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

At this time, there's no one else in queue, thank you Mr. Chair.

All right, thank you. Let's bring it back to committee, questions by committee members. Senator Ashby.

Yeah. First of all, thanks to everyone for their testimony on both sides. Really important issue. I've certainly heard from businesses, especially as a local elected, that were struggling with this issue. There's sort of some famous cases in Sacramento, like the Squeeze Inn, a hamburger spot downtown that had a very well-documented experience with this, and you know, Senator Niello, I do think the bill is a little broad. For example, I think it might need to be tailored a scotch.

It would be easier for me if it was applied to small businesses only. And the other piece I struggle a little bit with is it does seem to put the onus back on the disability community to initiate the discussion. I worry a little bit about that piece. However, I think it's such a serious topic that I'm going to vote yes to give you more opportunity to work on the bill and see if you can bring some folks together. It's hard.

It's a tough topic, but it is one I think we need to talk about because there are a lot of small businesses that are really frustrated with this. It's a little broad, though, for me, but I know you'll work on it.

All righty. Senator Min.

Thank you. I want to associate my comments with Senator Ashby. I certainly respect the opposition here to this bill, and it's a long list of groups that I've worked with in the past. I certainly support access, and the reason for these laws is for access for various disabled communities.

But that being said, I think there is a clear difference between inadvertent violations of some of these rules, and there's so many rules in California, when you have a small business owner who, as has been stated, just is not familiar with the law here versus someone that's intentionally violating that. So I think I would support this small business limitation that my colleague mentioned. The opposition mentioned that this bill is harmful, unnecessary, and overly broad.

On the unnecessary part, I would just respectfully disagree with that as one of just a handful of Asian Americans in this body. By that I mean legislature. I've heard from hundreds of small business owners who have been hit by these lawsuits, and they describe the same pattern we've heard from our witnesses today of one firm targeting hundreds of or dozens or hundreds of businesses in the community and settling because these people basically don't have a choice.

I think the harmful and overly broad parts are what I would encourage you to address because I do think by requiring a demand letter that effectively has to be written by a lawyer, I think the concern that the opposition has is that this will end up denying many disabled communities from the ability to address those violations. And so I might ask you to consider, can we make that a lower threshold rather than a formal demand letter documenting eat violation?

Maybe just a written letter might suffice, and maybe the language is written away. That already is the case. But I just would encourage you, I'm going to vote for this today, but I'd encourage you to just keep working on that harmful and overly broad piece because that, too, is a concern for me.

Thank you, and congratulations for passing the bar.

Thank you.

Senator Wiener.

Thank you. So I'm also going to vote for this today. I also think it's too broad. And so I was initially thinking about not supporting it and asking you to come back. But I do think the bill is fixable.

And so I really want to echo the comments of my colleagues, Senator Ashby and Senator Min, and it's a tough issue because people with disabilities have just been so systematically excluded from society in so many respects, not just about being able to enter a restaurant or a store, but across the board just excluded from society with barrier after barrier after barrier.

And so much work has been done through the ADA and other laws to try to expand that access and to acknowledge that everyone has something to give to society. And there are intensely talented, brilliant people who have been excluded, and that's a loss to them, and it's a loss to society.

What I have also seen also, particularly in my time in local government, are that you have someone, all of a sudden, you have 30 businesses in a neighborhood, not small businesses, micro-businesses, who are just put in a horrible situation, and maybe they'll ultimately win the lawsuit, but that's going to be too late. They can't do it.

And we absolutely have some law, not all, there are law firms that are completely ethical, but there are some law firms that are completely unethical in how they're handling this, and it becomes a very problematic situation. And so I do think we need to just adjust or tweak the balance to make sure that we are giving these businesses a real opportunity just to correct the problem without having to go through the litigation process. Particularly, it's so frustrating.

And we've seen this at one point in Chinatown in San Francisco, we saw it in Noe Valley, where it's just all like, we would all suddenly get flooded with calls from micro-businesses, often businesses where English was not their first language, and they did not know what to do, and they did not have money to hire a lawyer, and they did not know what to do. And they wanted the city to help them, and the city was not.

We, we became a little more set up to help them with our Office of Small Business, but it was very frustrating that they didn't have the resources they needed. So I'm not committing to voting for this continually. I'm willing to give you more time today. But I do think this needs to be quickly narrowed and focused, particularly on these really small micro-businesses, which are the ones that really don't have the resources to defend themselves.

I'm not saying there are never bad actors who are blowing off their obligation to be accessible to people with disabilities. But often these are businesses that want to do the right thing, and let's give them that opportunity.

Thank you

Senator Laird then Senator Durazo.

Thank you. When you and I were in the legislature the first time, this was an incredible issue in my district, and it was in Morgan Hill and it was in Pacific Grove, and it was just going to different businesses. And I recall one in Pacific Grove where there's some provision that if you do a renovation, there's a cap on how much you do on the disability upgrade, so you're not spending the entire cost of it.

And a business had done this and then was cited and then had to spend money showing what they had done. And so it is clear that there's an issue. I also know that a bill that was just like this only got two votes in this committee in 2016, and I think it was for a reason.

And people have talked in the debate about onus, but shifting from sort of a legal requirement or a plaintiff to the people with a disability having to be the one that triggers the process and has to have the ability to trigger it, I think is a bridge too far. That's not something I think a tweak will fix. I think there'll have to be some kind of reconstruction.

And then I would say as somebody that served on the board of an independent living center, at the time that we had these discussions last time, people were adamantly against any change in the ADA. And my message was that to preserve the ADA and to preserve the protections that are there, we're going to have to figure out a way to deal with the abuse, because this abuse is, as is said, against small businesses.

It's as much a learning thing to me to hear today that it's micro businesses or it is people that might have English as a second language. And yet the construction of having people with disabilities having to do this is a wholesale change from sort of the attorneys. And so I came prepared not to vote for this.

But my question would be, are you willing to consider some alternate construct that sort of tries to protect against the abuse, but doesn't force people from disabilities to be the one that initiates it in the way this bill does?

I'm happy to look into all of the comments that have been made to try to get success against the abuse. That's what I've been frustrated by.

And I appreciate that. I appreciate that answer. I think you might have to stretch more than you were ready to stretch. To meet that definition in this. Have you met with the opponents, since that's a common question today?

I have not at this point, but I'm happy to.

I think you really do need to and I think it needs to be a true two way conversation. I don't mean just you listening, but I think the opponents have to state why they think their rights are going to be violated in a way that you can protect the rights and still get at the abuse. And that's the heart of this. And I don't think your bill gets there right now and yet the abuse has to be gotten at, but the rights have to be protected.

And it's like, I don't know, it seems like your bill is going to pass and it's like maybe I will join that. But as with Senator Wiener, I reserve the right to not vote for it. And I honestly think you have a lot of work to do to make this a doable bill. So I would really encourage you to meet with the stakeholders. And I know my experience in having done things like that.

The first meeting is always the one where everybody vents and you think you're never going to get anywhere. Make sure you have a second and third meeting because maybe there is a place to go here. And I really reserve the right to oppose this if it's still, the onus is there and it might actually get it right. But see if you can find that place because this is a problem.

A couple of things to Senator Laird's points. First of all, this is an issue that I was concerned about when you and I served together in the Assembly. And at that time I did indeed meet with groups that represented disabled people who are affected by this. So I have had those discussions, but it's in the rather distant past. And I recognize if this bill passes out of this committee today, and I hope it does, it doesn't mean the bill has passed. I get the comments.

Senator Caballero. I'm sorry. Senator Durazo.

Thank you. I think the starting point for me is how do we make sure that a law that has laws related to the disability community continue to be respected? It took a lot for people across the country to insist and insist and insist that they be treated right, that they be treated without discrimination. So to me that's the starting point and that's really important. I believe that the overwhelming majority of businesses, especially small businesses, really try to meet those requirements.

I don't have any judgment against the small businesses, and I imagine that implementing these laws can be difficult, but it's across the board. Whether the issue is the civil rights of LGBTQ or the disabled or whatever community that has been excluded or discriminated over the years, we pride ourselves in this nation to stand up for those individuals because they are the most vulnerable.

It seems to me from the testimony that was given, there's one group of people that we should be targeting, which is the unscrupulous attorneys, the ones that use the laws in such a way to gain, but not really protect the rights of the disabled. But to me, this is targeting the wrong folks when it comes to the abuse. The abuse is, again, just based on the testimony today.

The abuse is attorneys who are just looking to see who can they sue to make money off of it. And that's not what the disability community rights are all about. It's not to make money. It's to make it possible for the disabled community to have access to public accommodations or transportation or all the other ways.

So I'm not going to be voting for the bill today, but I certainly would, sort of the opposite of what some folks have said, would reconsider it if it was changed in a significant way. Thank you.

Now Senator Caballero.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to add my voice to what Senator Wiener said in regards to the situation. Appreciate everybody testifying here today. It's important that we hear from you and hear pain on both sides. What should be happening and is happening is what really brings us before us is that there are unscrupulous attorneys that are using this as a way to make money, and they settle the cases, and there's no agreement to fix the problem.

That doesn't solve the problem for the community. And so I'm going to support your bill today because I think it's really important that we fix the situations that are creating the problems and that we stop paying payouts to the unscrupulous attorneys that are taking advantage of the situation. Very little money goes to the plaintiff. It's the attorneys that are making the money. And what we really want is the money to go to fix whatever the problem is rather than to pay out to attorneys.

And so I think there is a sweet spot. As Senator Laird said, it's a different approach to the issue. I hope you can get there, but I support the bill. I think we need to take the monetary part out of it and allow people to fix.

And I, very much like Senator Wiener, have people that sweep into the community file 30, 35 lawsuits against small immigrant businesses, and some of them are micro-businesses and that have no control over the parking lots have no control over things that are bigger than their small little business, and it's not fair. It's driving them out of business. We lost a number of businesses because of this back in the day. And so I'll support your bill today.

Thank you.

Alrighty. Thank you, Senator Caballero. Senator Allen.

Yeah. I'll associate myself with the skeptical supporters, which is, I think there's a bit of an issue here, where doesn't seem like there was much negotiation with the committee. You didn't talk to the opponents. Maybe you thought that you were going to come here and not get a fair hearing from your colleagues.

I did not think that.

Okay. Well, because I think you're hearing a lot of people who are really interested in supporting your bill because they know that there's this problem out there and they know that this issue exists. And yet there's obviously a lot of work that needs to be done, more than is typical. But of course, we do pass out works in progress all the time, and I'm certainly willing to give you the courtesy of continuing to work on it as well.

But I think you need to scale back the bill along the lines of much of what's been described to get almost all of us to be willing to vote for it on the floor. But I assume things actually go straight to the floor from here. So I guess my question for you is, how do you, coming out of this hearing it looking like we have the support for the bill, what is your plan to get to a place where you're going to meet the sort of concerns that you've heard raised here today by the time it hits the floor?

Well, I will certainly meet with the individual that testified, but there are more representatives of the disabled community that may have a different view on it. As I said, when I was in the Assembly and was involved in this particular issue, that was every bit as concerning then as it is now. And by the way, back 15 years ago, it was not so much action against these small marginalized businesses. It was more against sort of medium and larger businesses within the community.

And they had the ability to push back. Then the unscrupulous lawyers discovered that they could go after these much smaller businesses in marginalized areas, and they didn't push back because they felt they had no choice. So that sort of evolved. But I did meet with some representatives of the disabled community, and actually, at the time, they were a little bit concerned about this because they thought it might reflect poorly on them. And we certainly don't want that to be the case either.

So I would reach out to other organizations that expressed interest in this particular bill and search for others that may not know that this bill even exists to find out what their position is. I think the suggestions relative to smaller businesses make sense for the reason that I just stated a moment ago. And so I'm perfectly willing to meet with people who oppose, get their concerns, talk with people who support it to see if a different direction works.

I don't want to create more opposition, so we will work on that.

I suggest you engage the committee, too, obviously, in that process.

Other questions, concerns, comments? Senator Min moves the bill. Senator Niello, we had a brief conversation yesterday about this in exchange of writing last night. As I mentioned to you yesterday, I am not supporting the bill, but I've heard a number of things here that if this bill moves forward, and by the way, I can count, that there are some issues that obviously need to be addressed.

To the extent that there's been a federal lawsuit that resulted in either a verdict or a determination for the defendant, there should be race judicata. Race judicata. What that means is that that should be the final determinative matter and should bind the state court, for example, if there's been a finding. One of the reasons I'm not going to support the bill is because I do think that the disability community has lots to add.

I actually was in office when ADA became into being in the federal courts, in federal legislation. And prior to that, the situation, in my view, I can't step in the shoes of those who are disabled, was horrendous. And such a big change, I think, requires significant consideration, significant accommodation, significant conversation, and significant compromise. So I do have a number of ideas that I'll be happy to share with you should the bill move out of committee. But I won't be supporting.

So Senator Min has moved the bill. Would you like to close, Senator Niello?

Yes. Let me just say that at the time that the ADA was passed, I think that was in the early 90s, in the first Bush Administration, and I was supportive of it at that time, and I continue to be very supportive of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So there's no question about that. And it's important to note this proposal is not in any way a proposed change to the ADA, not at all, which we couldn't do anyway because it's federal law.

Just a quick point with regard to law firms and attorneys in general, this is a very small, small minority of practicing attorneys, and I'm certainly not criticizing the legal profession more broadly. The vast majority of lawyers are ethical people and dedicated to serving their clients interests. It's just a real small piece that abuses this. Just as there is an extremely small sliver of businesses that might not care about disability access, wiser businesses certainly do.

Any business that told the gentleman that spoke and opposed that would say to him or anybody else disabled in any way, we don't want you here. That business deserves to be out of business and probably eventually would be. So I appreciate that. I will definitely communicate with you directly to get ideas that you've got. And we will work on this and hope that if it passes here, that the changes that we make will enable it to prevail on the floor.

All right, Madam Secretary. Moved by Senator Min. If you'd call the roll.

This is file item number 11, SB 585 by Senator Niello. The motion is due pass. [Roll Call] Eight to zero.

Eight zero, I believe everybody voting said bill is out.

Thank you very much.

Thanks. I'm next.

Thank you

Senator Umberg, you may proceed. This is SB 42 with a do pass recommendation. Support. Support.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to disappoint you by cutting this hearing so short, so I plan on going for our hour, hour and a half. That's okay with you, Mr. Chair? All right, thank you very much. Here's what this bill is about. This bill is about attorney accountability. You may have read about the Tom Girardi debacle. That's illustrated the challenge that we have in California.

California is literally the only state that does not have a requirement that attorneys who witness another attorney creating and conducting some sort of misconduct that harms a client doesn't require that to be reported. We're crafting a bill. This is not a finished product yet. State Bar has drafted two rules which I believe needs some work, and our bill also needs some work. But the purpose of this is to require attorneys to report those who harm clients, in particular, break that trust.

Now, it's not designed to create additional work for an attorney who happens to be absent in a deposition, those kinds of things. But certain misconduct must be reported. The bar. Certain misconduct requires that attorney be disciplined. I realize this is very controversial in the bar, a very well-known, probably the premier ethicist in California, as opposed to this mandatory reporting. It happens to be my law partner. But all in all, I think this is going to be a good idea when it's fully cooked. And I urge your aye vote. Witnesses in support include me. That's it. Urge your aye vote.

Thank you very much. There's no primary witnesses in support. Is there anybody in the audience who like to come and do a me, too in support? Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Anyone in the room that wants to come up take an opposed position? Seeing none. Let's go to the phones. Moderator.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you like to comment and support opposition of SB 42, you may press one and zero at this time. We'll go to line 31.

It's my law partner.

Is it really?

No, I don't know. But he.

Line 31, please. Go ahead. Hold on one second.

Benjamin again. I'm worried that this risk averse people who don't know but suspect violation may report unnecessary ones. I think it should be addressed, and I also oppose SB 40. Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Moderator. Fine job today. All right, we'll pull it back to committee. Any questions, comments, concerns? Move the bill. Does anybody want to tell the Senator he's got a long way to go and they're going to vote for it today, but reserve the right not to in the future? Well, okay. Senator Allen.

I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that, but the senator and I did have a chat about some of the concerns that were raised by the dispute resolution association, or whatever they're called. But basically the whole question of a mediator, and you brought up the point that if someone solicits, tries to bring the mediator in on directly illegal activity, that ought to be reportable. And I totally agree with you on that.

I also, at the same time, think that we want to create the space for the sharing of as much information as possible, and I don't want to create a chilling effect within the context of a mediation with the passage of this bill. And you've committed to me, you're working on it, you're going to be talking to them. But I hope that that issue will be addressed through the course of the.

So let me just respond briefly to Senator Allen's concern, and it's a legitimate concern. Here's the concern. The concern is in mediation. You want attorneys basically to admit some of the frailties in their own case so you can get the thing resolved. And to the extent that if an attorney says, hey, look it, here's my weak spot in the case, that somehow that not get reported to the other side, that somehow that not become admissible evidence. And I totally agree, and that's not what this bill is about. If, for example, someone reveals to the mediator, oh, by the way, my client, or I am stealing from my client's trust fund, that should be reported.

I agree, but I think that their concern is that you want to have, this is the reason why we have privilege, right? You want to create a space where people are willing to admit to things so as to be able to resolve them without fear. And of course, they're not going to admit to things if they know that you're a mandatory reporter. So I just hope that you'll move forward with sensitivity to that concern as this process goes along.

I think it's easy to come up with scenarios where reporting seems very appropriate. But mediators face very difficult situations sometimes where there's really tough conversations, and you want to create a space where the lawyers are going to feel willingness to be open, including admitting to improper behavior if appropriate. I guess the question is where do we strike that balance? How do we create it? Looks like you're trying to address a broad issue here. The mediator context is just so specific. I just don't see why we wouldn't want to create some sort of language that would protect the space for sanctity of conversation within the mediation context.

And I take your point, and we will work on that. One of the challenges is that that space if it gets too far expanded, to protect attorneys who engage in misconduct that undermines what we're trying to do here. In most every litigation, there's some form of mediation, whether it's with a mediator or some sort of settlement conversation.

And you are correct that you want an attorney, in order to resolve the case, to be forthright about both their strengths and their weaknesses, and to the extent that they're revealing a weakness, that we don't want that to be used against them, because that undermines the whole purpose of settlement or settlement conversations and mediation. And maybe we can create that space, but we don't want to create a space that is so large that somehow that that exception swallows up the requirement of an attorney to report misconduct that harms a consumer.

All right, Senator Laird has moved the bill. Seeing no further comment. You may close.

Notwithstanding my partner's opposition, I urge an aye vote.

And with that, Secretary, call the roll.

This is file item number 13, SB 42 by Senator Umberg. The motion is do pass. Umberg. Aye. Umberg, aye. Wilk. Aye. Wilk, aye. Allen. Aye. Allen, aye. Ashby. Aye. Ashby, aye. Caballero. Aye. Caballero, aye. Durazo. Aye. Durazo, aye. Laird. Aye. Laird, aye. Min. Aye. Min, aye. Niello. Aye. Niello, aye. Stern. Wiener. Aye. Wiener, aye. 10 to zero.

And we'll leave that. Congratulations. Oh, he's not coming back. Okay, then we're good. The bills out, 10 to zero.

Madam Secretary, let's start at the top and call the roll on all the bills.

On the consent calendar. Min. Aye. Min, aye. Stern. Wiener. Aye. Wiener, aye. 10 to zero.

Ten, zero, consent calendar is adopted.

File item number one, SB 537 by Senator Becker. Wiener. Wiener, aye. Nine to two.

Nine, two, bill's out.

File item number two, SB 278 by Senator Dodd. Wiener. Wiener, aye. Ten to one.

Ten, one, bill's out.

File item number three, SB 393 by Senator Glazer. Durazo. Laird. Min. Eight to zero.

Eight, zero, bill's out.

File item number seven, SB 411 by Senator Portantino. Chair voting aye. Min. Aye. Min, aye. Stern. Wiener. Wiener, aye. Oh, I'm sorry. Caballero. Aye. Caballero, aye. Nine to one.

Nine, one, bill's out. All right, we will be adjourned until, Madam Chief Counsel, sometime in June. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We're going to have a hearing, a joint hearing with the Assembly, most likely on May the 23rd, concerning the California State Bar. Thank you.