Senate Floor

Secretary will call the roll.

Allen, Alvarado-Gil, Archuleta, Ashby, Atkins, Becker, Blakespear, Bradford, Caballero, Cortese, Dahle, Dodd, Durazo, Eggman, Glazer, Gonzalez, Grove, Hurtado, Jones, Laird, Limon, McGuire, Menjivar, Min, Newman, Nguyen, Niello, Ochoa Bogh, Padilla, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Seyarto, Skinner, Smallwood-Cuevas, Stern, Umberg, Wahab, Wiener, Wilk.

A quorum is present. With the members and our guests beyond the rail, please rise. We'll be led in prayer this morning by our chaplain, Sister Michelle Gorman, after which, please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Today's prayer is by Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlov. Grant me the ability to be alone. May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass, among all growing things. And there may I be alone and enter into prayer to talk with the one to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart.

And may all the foliage of the field, all grasses, trees, and plants awake at my coming to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things which are made as one by their transcendent source. May I then pour out the words of my heart before your presence like water, O God, and lift up my hands to you in worship on my behalf and that of my children. Amen.

Members, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Messages from the Governor will be deemed red. Message from the Assembly will be deemed red. Reports of committee will be deemed red and amendments adopted. Now is the time for motions, resolutions, and notices. Motions and resolutions and notices. See no mics up. Members, we have a busy agenda here today. A lot of different items. We'll start with considerations of daily file. Second reading file. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 490, 910, 581, 716, 368, 363, 776.

Second reading will be deemed red. Now we're going to go to Assembly third reading and we're going to start with Assembly bills. First up will be file item 88. Senator Limon. AB 1125. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1125 by Assemblymember Hart, an act relating to vehicles.

Senator Limon. You're recognized.

Thank you, members. AB 1125 is a cleanup bill to ensure individuals, individuals on payment plans for traffic tickets do not get their license suspended for missed payments. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil. Aye. Archuleta. Aye. Ashby. Aye. Atkins. Aye. Becker. Aye. Blakespear. Aye. Bradford. Aye. Caballero. Aye. Cortese. Aye. Dahle. Aye. Dodd. Aye. Durazo. Eggman. Durazo, aye. Eggman, aye. Glazer. Gonzalez. Aye. Grove. Hurtado. Jones. Aye. Laird. Aye. Limon. Aye. McGuire. Aye. Menjivar. Aye. Min. Aye. Newman. Aye. Nguyen. Aye. Niello. Aye. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla. Aye. Portantino. Roth. Aye. Rubio. Aye. Seyarto. Aye. Skinner. Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas. Aye. Stern. Aye. Umberg. Wahab. Aye. Wiener. Aye. Wilk. Aye.

We are missing members, so we are going to put items on call. So Senator Limon moves the call. We will go to our next item. file item 96, Senator Durazo. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 416 by Assembly Member Moore Sushi in acquiring to alcoholic beverages.

Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 416 allows for the proper labeling and sale of Japanese soshu. In 1998, California granted an exemption allowing restaurants with a beer and wine license to sell imported Korean soju. Japanese soju is a similar distilled beverage made from various agricultural products. While there are significant distinctions between them, the two products meet the exact same criteria for legal sale. AB 16 merely provides the same exemption to imported Japanese soju as currently exists for imported Korean soju. This Bill has had bipartisan support and no votes. Thank you, and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate? C nine secretary, please call the role.

Allen, Aye. Alvarado-Gil, Aye. Archuletta, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Atkins, Aye. Becker, Aye. Blakespear, Aye. Bradford, Aye. Caballaro, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Dahle, Aye. Dodd, Aye. Durazo, Aye. Eggman, Aye. Glazer, Aye. Gonzalez, Aye. Grove, Aye. Hurtado, Jones, Aye. Laird, Aye. Limon, Aye. McGuire, Aye. Menjivar, Aye. Min, Newman, Aye. Nguyen, Aye. Niello, Aye. Ochoa Bogh, Padilla, Aye. Portantino, Roth, Aye. Rubio, Aye. Seyarto, Aye. Skinner, Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, Aye. Stern, Aye. Umberg, Wahab, Aye. Wiener, Aye. Wilk Aye. Ochoa Bogh Aye.

Senator moves the call. Next up will be file item 97. Senator Niello. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 570 by Assemblymember Gallagher. An act relating to fire protection.

Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you for the old-country pronunciation of my last name. I rise to present AB 570, Assemblyman Gallagher. This bill ensures that underfunded county service areas formed for the sole purpose of fire protection are able to receive grants from the Special District Fire Response Fund. I'm sure there's an acronym in there somewhere. Unfortunately, neither Proposition 19 of 2020 nor SB 450. I can tell this is a spellbinding presentation. That's why I have everybody's attention. Thank you for the gavel.

Nor SB 450 of 2022 contemplated that both fire districts and county service areas provide fire protection to many regions. Current law in allocating monies from the fund only references special districts that provide fire protection services. Since county service areas are legally distinct from special districts, this oversight resulted in CSAs across the state being ineligible for any of the resources within the Special District Fire Response Fund.

This bill would put CSAs on equal footing as fire districts that perform identical functions by enabling them to access funding meant for fire protection. The Bill has no opposition and has received unanimous support throughout the process. I respectfully request an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Aye. Alvarado-Gil. Aye. Archuleta. Aye. Ashby. Aye. Atkins. Aye. Becker. Aye. Blakespear. Aye. Bradford. Aye. Caballero. Aye. Cortese. Aye. Dahle. Aye. Dodd. Aye. Durazo. Aye. Eggman. Aye. Glazer. Aye. Gonzalez. Aye. Grove. Aye. Hurtado. Jones. Aye. Laird. Aye. Limon, Aye. McGuire. Aye. Menjivar. Aye. Min. Aye. Newman. Aye. Nguyen. Aye. Niello. Aye. Ochoa Bogh. Aye. Padilla. Portantino. Roth. Aye. Rubio. Aye. Seyarto. Aye. Skinner. Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas. Stern. Aye. Umberg. Wahab. Aye. Wiener. Aye. Wilk. Aye.

Senator moves the call. Next up, we have file item 105, Senator Limon. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 873 by Assemblymember Berman, an act relating to public instruction.

Senator Limon.

Thank you. Today I rise to present AB 873. A Bill that would ensure that all K through twelve students in California have the media literacy skills necessary to safely responsibly and critically consume and evaluate online information. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Members, any discussion or debate, secretary, please call the.

Allen, Aye. Alvarado-Gil, Aye. Archuletta, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Atkins, Aye. Becker, Aye. Blakespear, Aye. Bradford, Aye. Caballaro, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Dahle, No. Dodd, Aye. Durazo, Aye. Eggman, Aye. Glazer, Aye. Gonzalez, Aye. Grove, No. Hurtado, Aye. Jones, Laird, Aye. Limon, Aye. McGuire, Aye. Menjivar, Aye. Min, Aye. Newman, Aye. Nguyen, Niello, Aye. Ochoa Bogh, Aye. Padilla, Aye. Portantino, Roth, Aye. Rubio, Aye. Seyarto, Skinner, Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, Aye. Stern, Umberg, Wahab, Aye. Wiener, Aye. Wilk.

Senator moves the call. One moment. Members, under the privileges of the floor, on behalf of Pro TEM Atkins, the California State Senate would like to welcome the Pharmacists Association and their CEO, former Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, up there. Please join me and give them a welcome. All right, Members, next up on Assembly third reading is file item 123. Senator Newman secretary, please read Assembly Bill.

623 by Assembly Member Chen and Accri Lane to cannabis.

Go ahead, Senator Newman.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise state to present AB 623 on behalf of Assembly Member Chen. A current unfortunate reality of the state of technology in cannabis testing in California is that available lab equipment cannot currently accurately measure the required variances when the dosage being tested is below five milligrams. This has had significant unintended consequences which penalize testing labs which, acting in good faith and using the best available equipment, can often yield failing testing results.

AB 623 asks the Department of Cannabis Control to devise testing standards which allow the Low doses of THC and products under five milligrams to be properly taken into account. The Bill asked the DCC to use their expertise and work with the industry to create such standards, and does not dictate how they should do so. This Bill has received bipartisan support and no no votes. On behalf of Assemblymember Chen, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Any discussion or debate, secretary, please call the roll.

Allen, Aye. Alvarado-Gil, Aye. Archuletta, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Atkins, Aye. Becker, Aye. Blakespear, Aye. Bradford, Aye. Caballaro, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Dahle, Aye. Dodd, Aye. Durazo, Aye. Eggman, Aye. Glazer, Aye. Gonzalez, Aye. Grove, Aye. Hurtado, Aye. Jones, Aye. Laird, Aye. Limon, Aye. McGuire, Aye. Menjivar, Min, Aye. Newman, Aye. Nguyen, Aye. Niello, Aye. Ochoa Bogh, Aye. Padilla, Aye. Portantino, Roth, Aye. Rubio, Aye. Seyarto, Aye. Skinner, Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, Aye. Stern, Aye. Umberg, Wahab, Aye. Wiener, Aye. Wilk Aye.

Senator moves the call. Now we'll move on to file item 139. Senator Archuleta. Secretary, please read.

Support Assembly Bill 641 by Assembly Member Vince Fong in accolading to vehicles.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to present I rise to present Senate Bill 640, Assembly Bill 641 on behalf of Assemblymember Fong. Calverters. Theft cost California families, businesses and nonprofits more than $23 million in 2021. It's estimated that 1600 converters are stolen in California each month, and victims repair costs exceed $4,000. When suspects and criminals are caught with a cachet of converters, it is nearly impossible to file charges for theft because the victims cannot be identified.

Assembly Bill 641 requires individuals with nine or more converters cut from motor vehicles to register as automatic dismantlers. With appropriate exemption for the individuals and the businesses, 641 will discourage the theft. And for these reasons and more, I ask for your aye vote.

Any discussion or debate, secretary, please call the roll.

Allen, Aye. Alvarado-Gil, Aye. Archuletta, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Atkins, Becker, Aye. Blakespear, Aye. Bradford, Aye. Caballaro, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Dahle, Aye. Dodd, Aye. Durazo, Aye. Eggman, Aye. Glazer, Gonzalez, Aye. Grove, Aye. Hurtado, Aye. Jones, Aye. Laird, Aye. Limon, Aye. McGuire, Aye. Menjivar, Aye. Min, Aye. Newman, Aye. Nguyen, Aye. Niello, Aye. Ochoa Bogh, Aye. Padilla, Aye. Portantino, Roth, Aye. Rubio, Aye. Seyarto, Aye. Skinner, Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, Aye. Stern, Aye. Umberg, Wahab, Aye. Wiener, Aye. Wilk Aye.

I Senator moves the call. Next up, following 146, Senator Perdilla. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 676 by Assembly Member Bennett and AC relating to water.

Senator Padilla you recognize?

Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of Assembly Member Bennett, I rise to present AB 676, which will create a definition for domestic use of water in statute. For the first time, the courts have spent the last century interpreting domestic use preferences. AB 676 is based off existing case law to make things clearer for everybody.

Putting all these court decisions into one place is essential for water managers to be able to pivot quickly in times of crisis and not rely on the lengthy court cases to clarify the meaning. The author's office has worked extensively, and I thank him for that with stakeholders and have removed almost all opposition to the Bill. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate. Secretary, please call the roll and file item 146.

Allen, Aye. Alvarado-Gil, No. Archuletta, Aye. Ashby, Aye. Atkins, Becker, Aye. Blakespear, Bradford, Aye. Caballaro, Cortese, Dahle, No. Dodd, Aye. Durazo, Aye. Eggman, No. Glazer, Gonzalez, Aye. Grove, No. Hurtado, No. Jones, No. Laird, Aye. Limon, McGuire, Aye. Menjivar, Aye. Min, Aye. Newman, Nguyen, No. Niello, No. Ochoa Bogh, Aye. Padilla, Aye. Portantino, Roth, Aye. Rubio, Aye. Seyarto, No. Skinner, Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, Aye. Stern, Aye. Umberg, Aye. Wahab, Aye. Wiener, Aye. Wilk No. Newman, Aye. Ochoa-Bogh, No.

Secretary please call the absent Members one more time.

Atkins, Blakespeare, Caballero, Cortezi, Glazer. Glazer. Aye. Portentino. Aye.

Ayes are 25, noes are eleven. That measure passes. Next up, if we go to file item 148. Senator Caballero. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 374, by Assembly Member Haney an act relating to cannabis.

Senator Caballero.

Thank you, Mr. President. And Members, I rise to present AB 374 on behalf of Assemblymember Haney. Members of the legal cannabis industry is struggling with issues like oversaturation, high taxes, and the thriving black market, which are hurting the cannabis businesses who follow the rules and pay fines. AB 374 allows these struggling businesses to diversify by simply allowing the sale of non cannabis foods and soft drinks at licensed cannabis retailers. The Bill has enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Members, any discussion or debate? Seeing none, Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Aye. Alvarado-Gil. Aye. Archuleta. Ashby. Aye. Atkins. Becker. Aye. Blakespear. Bradford. Aye. Caballero. Aye. Cortese. Aye. Dahle. Aye. Dodd. Aye. Durazo. Aye. Eggman. Aye. Glazer. Aye. Gonzalez. Aye. Grove. Hurtado. Jones. No Laird. Aye. Limon. Aye. McGuire. Aye. Menjivar. Min. Aye. Newman. Aye. Nguyen. No Niello. Aye. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla. Portantino. Roth. Aye. Rubio. Aye. Seyarto. No. Skinner. Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas. Aye. Stern. Aye. Umberg. Aye. Wahab. Aye. weiner? I wilk I.

Please call the absent Members.

Archuleta. Aye. Atkins. Blakespear. Aye. Grove. Hurtado. Menjivar. Aye. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla. Aye. Portantino. Aye.

Ayes are 33, nos are three. That measure passes. Members, we're going to go to a file item 161 Senator Wilk. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 546 by Assembly Member Villapudua an act relating to alcoholic beverages.

Senator Wilk.

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 546 would expand the prohibition of paying, crediting or compensating a retailer for advertising, display or distribution services in connection with the advertising and sale of distilled spirits to apply to all alcoholic beverages. This would ensure the statute reflects the ABC's current interpretation and industry understanding of the alcohol beverages covered by the prohibition and to provide further definitional clarification of what is prohibited of value.

EB 546 also clarifies that alcohol licensees may sell customized interior signs to retailers at a price not less than current value. I know that this is support support, so I am going to skip the rest that I was given to read. And with that, I respectfully ask for your vote for AB 546.

Any debate? Members. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespear? Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Aye. Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Aye. Hurtado? Aye. Jones? Aye. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar. Aye. Min. Newman. Aye. Nguyen? Aye. Niello? Aye. Ochoa Bogh? Aye. Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? Aye. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? Aye.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins. Blakespeare. Aye. Nguyen.

Ayes are 39. Nos are zero. That measure passes. Next up we will have file item 182 Senator Alvarado-Gil. She's prepared. Secretary, please read. Thank.

Thank you, Mr. President. Members, I rise today to present Assembly Bill 319 on behalf of Assemblymember Connolly. 319 requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to adopt strengthened conflict of interest policies for mobile home park residents, excuse me, for inspectors.

It also requires the HCD to establish better policies to document these complaints against inspectors and the steps taken to address those complaints. Lastly, it extends the sunset on the mobile home park inspection program by one year. There is no opposition and has received bipartisan support. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Any discussion or debate? This is eligible for unanimous roll call. Any objection to unanimous roll call? Ayes are 39, nos are zero. The measure passes. Next up we'll be at file item 194 Senator Wiener, and Members, mind you, please take your conversations off the floor. It's getting a little chatty here. Senator Wiener. He's prepared.

Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 589, by Assembly Member Boerner an act relating to homelessness.

Senator Wiener.

Thank you very much. Mr. President, I rise to present AB 589 on behalf of Assembly Member Burner, which would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, establish a three year pilot project of the Unicorn Homes transitional housing for homeless LGBTQ youth program in the counties of San Diego and Sacramento.

LGBTQ centers within each county would administer the program, providing crisis intervention with a trauma informed approach to house eligible youth in LGBTQ affirming host homes. The Bill has bipartisan support and has no opposition. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any debate, Members? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespeare? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Aye. Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Aye. Hurtado? Aye. Jones? Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? Niello? Aye. Ochoa Bogh? Aye. Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? Aye. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? Aye.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins. Jones. Nguyenn.

Ayes are 37, noss are zero. That measure passes. Next up, item 197. Senator Laird. He is ready.

Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 626 By Assembly Member Pellerin an act relating to elections.

Senator Laird.

Thank you very much. Mr. President, I rise to present AB 626 on behalf of Assemblymember Pellerin. It is about mail in ballots. In the midterm election, 87% plus of Californians voted their mail ballots. 100% of votes were cast by mailed ballots in three counties. In 32 counties, 90% or more cast them. The voters wonder when they mail them in or drop them in a dropbox, or drop them off when other people are voting.

Why it takes so long to verify the signatures and count them? This Bill gives the opportunity of people to take their mailed ballot to a precinct, have them signed in, and then have it counted election night, just like all the other ballots are counted. This change will significantly expedite the vote counting process and decrease the workload of election officials. There is no opposition on file, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Any debate on this measure, Secretary, please call the roll on file item 197.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespeare? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? No. Niello? No. Ochoa Bogh? Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? No. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? Aye.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins. Dahle. Aye. Grove. Aye. Ochoa Bogh? Aye.

Ayes are 35. Nos are four. That measure passes. Members, we're going to skip to file item 230. That'll be Senator Durazo. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1540 by Assembly Member Mike Fong an act relating to Postsecondary Education.

Senator Roth?

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 1540 streamlines the process for undocumented students to apply for financial aid. Currently, they apply for state financial aid using the California Dream Act application and submit that to the California Student Aid Commission, and in addition, an AB 540 affidavit. This Bill creates a seamless process by allowing the California Student Aid Commission to collect both the Dream Act application and the AB 540 affidavit. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Any debates? This measure is eligible for unanimous roll call. Any objection? Seeing none. Ayes are 39, the nos are zero. The measure passes. Next up, file item 234. Also, Senator Durazo. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1677 by Assembly Member McKinnor an act relating to public employment.

Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 1677 would be the first step to ensure that our California professional scientists are receiving a competitive wage. AB 1677 would require the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center to evaluate the existing state scientist salary structure and provide recommendations, if appropriate, for alternative salary models for the California state scientist currently covered by a collective bargaining agreement.

This basically will allow the California Association of Professional Scientists and the state to enter into contract negotiations with a much more informed understanding of what is an appropriate starting point for employee salaries. I respectfully ask for your vote.

Any debate Members? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespeare? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? No. Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? No. Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? No. Niello? No. Ochoa Bogh? No. Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? No. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? No.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins. Blakespear. Aye.

Ayes are 31, nos are eight. That measure passes. We're now going to file item 235. Senator Menjivar. She's ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill Five by Assembly Member Zbur an act relating to Educational Equity.

Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise this morning on behalf of Assembly Member Zbur to present AB Five, the Safe and Supportive Schools act. This critical Bill is sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, the state superintendent of public instruction. Inequality, California AB Five is a result of nearly a decade of advocacy to equip teachers and school staff with the training and tools they need to create safe and supportive learning environments for all California students, including those who are LGBTQ plus.

In my previous life, I was a certified Professional development trainer, and I went to K-12 schools in my district, and I would train schools how to be more safe and affirming because teachers were yearning for this education just because of the increase in harassment, discrimination that kids were showing to their other peers. This Bill adds another toolbox in the teachers, another tool in the teacher's toolbox to help prepare them against this kind of hate we're seeing amongst our kids.

Our teachers and school staff, including classified staff, are on the front lines of ensuring that all children have a shot at the American Dream. That often means providing a safety net against the effects of discrimination and lack of acceptance that LGBTQ plus youth face. When our queer students have the support in school, their likelihood of overcoming those disparities and succeeding in life increases significantly.

That's why our teachers, who are so committed to our kids, are asking for this training and strongly support this Bill. Ultimately, we know and they know that supportive teachers and school staff can change a children's life. I urge and aye vote.

Thank you. Any discussion or debate? Secretary please call the role.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespeare? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? No. Niello? Ochoa Bogh? Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? No. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk?

Please call the absent Members.

Alvarado-Gil. Aye. Atkins. Aye. Dahle. Grove. Niello. Ochoa Bogh. Wilk.

Ayes are 32, nos are three. That measure passes. Members, give us a moment.

Members, is returning to privileges of the floor. On behalf of Senator Jones. We'd like to welcome the Building Industry Association of Southern California, who is celebrating their 100th anniversary. Here with us today, we have the CEO, Jeff Montejano, the incoming chair, Nicole Murray, the co founder of their junior builder program, Mia Montejano. Please join me in giving them a warm California State Senate welcome to Assembly third reading. We're going to go to 237. That is Senator Portantino. He is ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 28 by Assembly Member Gabriel an act relating to firearms and making an appropriation therefore.

Senator Portantino.

Thank you, Mr. President. And Members, I rise on behalf of Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel. And I'm pleased to present AB 28. Let me say that again. I'm pleased to present AB 28 because this Bill will Fund life saving school safety measures and gun violence prevention programs through a modest excise tax on firearm manufacturers and dealers. Let me repeat that. This Bill will Fund life saving school safety measures and gun violence prevention programs. Throughout all of the debates, we talk about prevention, we talk about safety.

This Bill will Fund those efforts, and that should be bipartisan. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for kids in the United States. Let me say that again. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for kids in the United States. Ending that should be bipartisan. According to the CDC, more children and teens were killed by guns in 2021 than any year in the last 20 years.

According to the CDC, the parents of a black son aged 13 to 19 are more likely to lose their child to gun homicide than every other cause of death combined. Since this Bill was introduced, we have experienced dozens of mass shootings, including horrific incidents in Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay. In addition to the brutal human toll, gun violence also causes economic harm and imposes a severe burden on public services and taxpayers.

Recent reports have found that gun deaths and injuries cost California $22.6 billion annually, of which 1.2 billion is paid directly by taxpayers. There is a conservative fiscal argument that this Bill makes sense if we embrace the actual financial impact. At the same time, gun manufacturers have recorded record breaking profits, bragging that the growth that they've experienced in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable. During the same time, between 2018 and 2021, the firearm death rate for American children soared by 40%.

So we have an industry making historic profits. At the same time we're seeing historic death to our children. In short, firearm manufacturers and dealers are reaping unprecedented windfall profits as firearm deaths and gun injuries and mass shootings are impacting communities across our state. AB 28 seeks to address this challenge by providing a long term, sustainable funding source to school safety funds and proven and proven violence prevention programs. The revenue generated is estimated to be around $160,000,000 annually.

It is a long term investment in the safety and well being of our kids. Let's put that in perspective. $160,000,000 Fund to protect our children is worth it. The first 75 million will go towards the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program, a vital program that has already helped reduce the rate of gun violence in California. We know this works. How many times have people on this floor talked about we should be doing more to prevent gun violence? We know this works. Let's Fund it.

AB 28 will expand school mental health and safety measures. How many times have somebody stood up on this floor and talked about the toll the pandemic has had on our young people? How many times has somebody talked about saying, we should unite behind efforts to make our children's health and well being be better? This will fund that. That should be bipartisan. To be clear, this Bill is not a penalty or an effort to prevent or discourage a lawful gun purchase.

It is an ordinary excise tax, no different than the 10% excise tax on fishing equipment and gear that supports the restoration of fishing sites. No different. And it's comparable to the federal taxes that have been supporting the NRA, ironically so. To be clear, this funding will help reduce gun violence and save lives.

That is why this Bill is strongly supported by a coalition of gun safety organizations, including Moms, to ban action giffords everytown for gun safety, brady March for Our Lives, and public health and medical and law enforcement professionals who have been serving on the front lines of the gun violence epidemic. This includes the California Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, and police chiefs and departments across the state. Let me say that again. Our doctors prescribe this.

Our emergency room professionals want this. We should not only want this, we should vote for this. There are numerous local elected officials who have seen the benefit of the calvit in their communities city attorneys, boards of supervisors, 30 mayors. We know that Californians are counting on us to do everything we can. We know the rhetoric on this floor for a decade has supported the concepts behind this.

Don't let politics stand in the way of saving the lives of our children and providing mental health care in our school districts. Fear should not be on the brow of a parent when they send their kids to school. Fear should not be in the ayes of a child at a movie theater who's in a lockdown. Fear should not be something that we learn to live with in our society.

We have a proven, proven way to reduce gun violence, a proven way to help our kids, and a sustainable funding force that is constitutional is not new or novel, has been used by other industries. We should embrace this as a bipartisan Senate. We should send this to the Governor.

We should stand on the right side of history and we should stand in the public safety with our children and our families and our teenagers around this state and send a message that we can come together on something that is right, is sustainable, and follows through on the rhetoric that we all use on this floor. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. We have Senator Dahle, Senator Archuleta, and Senator Rubio. Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mr. President, Members, I rise on behalf of the students that came to our governed finance committee who are sports shooters, who are going to be taxed out of their sport that's just want to mention that actually my nephew is a competitive shooter. Those kids get great scholarships and it's an opportunity for those who with disabilities who can't play other sports can do that. So I want to just rise and make sure that we count them.

I also wanted to point out that deaths in California, my seatmate and I just googled: 236 deaths to gun violence in California and we don't talk about this one, which is huge. 5194 deaths to fentanyl. You want to do something about deaths in California? Why don't we focus on fentanyl more than we focus on taxing young folks and people who enjoy their second amendment rights? And that's where we really should focus our time. We've had many discussions about that and I look forward to having those discussions further. For those reasons, I'll be opposing this Bill.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise as a proud co author of AB 28. AB 28 would provide critical funding to the California Department of Justice and local law enforcement to help address gun violence and better protect our communities. That's why AB 28 is supported by police chiefs across the state departments across California dealing with children education and certainly the peace and harmony in the communities. Southern California as a whole. Riverside county, the Bay Area, central Valley. It is vital that we support this Bill.

Importantly, AB 28 would provide funding to improve firearm homicide and assault investigations in communities disproportionately impacted by gun violence in our streets in Los Angeles County. It also would provide significant ongoing funding to local law enforcement to ensure the prompt and safe removal of firearms from individuals who become prohibited from owning or possessing firearms due to criminal conviction, criminal protective orders, or gun violence restraining orders. This will help protect both officers, men and women in the communities and especially our children.

The Los Angeles Police Department, the chief, Michael Moore has noted AB 28 would reasonably generate revenues to sustain programs that are targeted and effective. This will reduce shooting, save lives, and make our communities a better and safer place to live. For these reasons, I respectfully urge an aye vote for AB 28.

Thank you. Senator Rubio.

Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, today I also stand as a proud co author of AB 28, the Gun Violence prevention and School Safety Act. As a former classroom teacher, it breaks my heart every time I hear of such tragedies in our classrooms, in our schools, and the depth of the trauma that not only our students have to face, but also our teachers and our school community at large.

And as a victims advocate and an advocate who sits with parents often who have lost children as they're gunned down by their abusers or their separating partners, it also pains me that we continue to see this more and more often. So we must continue to push for reforms, and I must continue to push for solutions and funding to support violent prevention programs.

This Bill is critically important to me and to so many victims out there, especially those parents of murdered children whose children are gunned down often. AB 28 will help Fund school security improvements. It will help Fund counseling for victims of mass shootings and help Fund court programs that remove guns from people with restraining orders against them, such as domestic violence abusers. Police chiefs and other public safety organizations support this measure, and that's rare to have people on both sides supporting something like this.

It's an indication of how important it is to our communities, to our state, and our nation. I continue to have conversations with those families that are still grieving from the loss of loved ones that were violently, brutally gunned down. And I hear too many stories of children who continue to have trauma because they witness those tragedies.

We must do something to support our communities and violent prevention programs. And this Bill does just that. This Bill will save lives. And I think our community, especially our children, are worth it. So I urge an aye vote. Thank you.

Next up, Senator Niello. We'll go with the new school pronunciation.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I want to compliment my colleague and friend from Burbank for a passionate speech. And the other comments in support of this Bill almost convinces me. But then I thought about a couple of points. First of all, it's presented as a modest tax. Well, 11% really is not modest, particularly with regard to the sorts of consumers that my colleague from Burbank cited. And also was stated that the industry makes such profits that they should pay.

But we know sellers don't pay taxes. Buyers pay taxes. And I'd refer to my previous comment. So we have a program that this will fund that is seemingly an unquestionable worthy expenditure of funds. And for sake of argument, I'll grant that point. The last five years, we have had huge surpluses in our budget. And I would just ask the question, where was this proposal, this worthy spending of funds for a program proposed in a budget item when we had hundreds of billions of dollars of surplus? I can't support this Bill as it's written.

All right, I've got Senator Limon, Blakespeare, Hurtado. Senator Limon.

Thank you, Members. I rise today in support of AB 28, an act related to prevention, healing and recovery. On December 14 of 2012. I was a school board President for Santa Barbara Unified School District when the Sandy Hook Massacre happened. On May 23 of 2014, I worked at UC Santa Barbara when the Isla Vista massacre happened. This Bill is not limited to only counting the people that are impacted by gun violence as those that have died.

It looks at the impacts that communities as a whole have experienced after gun violence in our communities. As a leader who witnessed two massacres and who understands that the impact is much broader than communities, it's for students, but it's also for adults and parents. The number of parents that came to our school district board meeting after the Sandy Hook Massacre was real. They wanted to know what schools were doing to keep our community, their kids, their loved ones, safe.

At Isla Vista, when my phone started ringing at 10:00 at night when the shooting had happened and it rang until 05:00, a.m. I know what it is like to be someone that works with a group of people that you're tracking down to see if they are still alive, were they impacted? Those moments are moments that I and so many other people in our communities have experienced. And it is those moments that require investments to heal, to protect, to prevent, and to recover.

That is what this is about. I know that the fight is being proposed or discussed as just a tax, but what about the tax that we have on our communities that are bearing the brunt of recovery and pain? So I am here to support this, but also to make sure that we understand that it is not just about the impact that a bullet has had on one person, but an impact that a bullet has had on so many in our communities. I respectfully ask for aye vote on AB 28.

Thank you. Colleagues, I rise in strong support of AB 28 because essentially, gun violence is the cause of incredible unnecessary suffering. To me, it makes sense that firearms dealers, manufacturers, and vendors are the source of funding gun violence prevention and recovery funding. As another Member of the Governance and Finance Committee, I also would like to highlight that this in no way taxes student athletes out of their sport. This is a very important Bill that we support today, AB 28, and I urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Senator Hurtado.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today in support of AB 28. I know that most of you probably know by now that I am a firm supporter of our Second Amendment, but this is a little different. AB 28 is something that California needs. It's something that my Senate district needs. And I want to share with you why in 2020, there were two young girls in the city of Delano that were shot and murdered. Their ages, eleven and twelve.

To this day, Iliana and Michaela deserve justice, and their killers are still on the loose. Eleven and twelve years old. There is no justification. Yes, it's a fee or a tax, whatever you may want to call it, on the manufacturers, but I don't see why any gun owner should be opposed to this because it is a real issue. And this is not an attack on guns or an attack on the Second Amendment.

This is a Bill that is going to address an issue that is out there. And really, when it comes to our children, we need to be doing everything that we can to protect them. And so, in memory of the two young girls that were murdered in Delano, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Eggman.

Thank you, Mr. President. I also rise in support of this Bill. January 17, 1989 was the first mass school shooting in the United States. That was at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, where six children, six kindergarten, six elementary school children were killed. 32 people were wounded. I can tell you that memory in the Stockton fabric is seared into the fabric of our community.

A woman who does my hair, immigrant from Cambodia, where she talks about her mom carrying her across two countries when she was a baby to get to the land of freedom, to the US. And remembering being a kindergartner and everybody being under their desk and having her teacher lay on her back with her feet up against the door to keep the shooter out. Think about how many years ago that was and how it is still seared into people's memories and never forgotten.

There's a group of teachers that mobilize. They're retired now, the principal of various teachers, but they formed a group called Cleveland Remembers. I'm sure some of you have met with them because they are a group of ladies who just don't quit about trying to talk about gun violence, the dangers associated and the investments we need to make into our communities and to our kids to be able to provide the supports they need and the healing that they need after these incredibly violent episodes. 11% tax.

Yes, that's high. I know. I have a lot of friends who are gun owners. I have family Members who are gun owners. I have a family Member who has got a locker with a lot of guns. He can afford to pay some tax. Tax that goes towards helping the damage that occurs from gun violence. Let's not forget. Cleveland remembers.

Senator Ashby and then Senator Padilla.

Yesterday on this floor, we talked about our kids routinely doing active shooter drills in school. And we talked about architects designing elementary school campuses that give students as young as four and five years old places to hide if they should ever have to implement those active shooter drills that they learned.

Today, the Senator from Pasadena brings us a mechanism to address gun violence. Like so many Americans, I too hug my little daughter each morning as I drop her off at school. And as I drive away, I push out of my mind the unthinkable. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to face the tasks I'm responsible for every day. And I pray that she will safely return to my arms in the afternoon.

So many of us on this floor have served at the local level and I'm sure each have directly dealt with gun violence victims. For me, it was a sweet young librarian. She was murdered after work one day on her way to her car by a disgruntled library patron. Her name was Amber. On behalf of Amber, my daughter and all the children in California, I urge an aye vote on AB 28.

Thank you. Senator Padilla and then Senator Seyarto. Senator Padilla.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. As a proud co author, I rise in strong support. I would just say in my very young days, I had the unfortunate experience of understanding what it is like to be on the receiving end of gunfire. But I had the obligation and the training and the equipment to intervene on behalf of others and to protect myself. It's an experience, of course, I would never forget.

I can't fathom what it is like for the most young and tender and precious among us who deserve nothing less than a safe and positive environment in which to learn. Having to go to school every day and consider this potential issue in that environment when we were all young and in school in elementary, in other words, the last thing on our minds was worrying that some crazed individual would interrupt that environment with violence.

I can't fathom it as a father and very nearly potentially a grandfather, I can't fathom that we wouldn't take every single opportunity to assess appropriate policy and create revenue streams that go towards creating better and safer environments for the most precious and vulnerable among us. Mr. President and colleagues, I urge and aye vote.

Thank you. Senator Seyarto.

Thank you, Mr. President. So sadly, folks, I do rise in opposition to this Bill. And why? Because it's ineffective. It's not going to do anything to curb gun violence. It's not going to get illegal guns off the street. The programs, and many of them are great programs that are out there CalVIP that was funded in 2022 at $156,000,000. And yet we just heard today that gun violence is going up, not down, amongst our young people. And that's what it's aimed at.

So yeah, we probably need more programs like that. But what it says is that's not where the violence is coming from. Now, aside from my colleagues who served in active military duty or my good colleagues that served in the police service, I've probably seen more gun violence than anybody in this room. I've treated more people I wish I could name them, but I can't because there's hundreds of them. In my 35 year career, there's hundreds of them.

Those people are not people that were victims of law abiding citizens. Those are guns that came here. And we're possessed by people that don't follow the rules. They're not going to pay an 11% excise tax and.

So, I want to reiterate that this thing does nothing to curb gun violence. And the people who illegally and are more inclined to be involved in using guns for violent acts remain unfazed by this bill. The programs created that need the revenue are already being in existence and they're already being funded. One of those programs, the Gun Buyback Program, 25 million dollars, Budget Sub 5.

We kicked that 25 million dollars into a program to address the issue of people that aren't supposed to have guns and trying to go after those folks, but guess what? They refunded the other program, the Gun Buyback Program. You know why that was unfunded? Because it's ineffective. There's study after study that shows the Gun Buyback Program does nothing, does nothing to curb.

And in fact, if somebody uses a gun and kills somebody, they can actually take it to the Gun Buyback Program, turn it in, and that gun gets destroyed, and there goes the evidence. So why are we trying to tax people, just one set of people, people that are exercising a constitutional right? We're singling them out to pay for exercising their right. There's an 11 percent federal tax. There's another 11 percent state.

If they add this one 11 percent for that, and then another eight percent, 30 percent attacks on people who are exercising a constitutional right that actually have nothing to do with the gun violence that's out there. Until we start attacking the real problem, and until we start going after where those illegal guns are coming from and holding the people that have those illegal guns accountable, you are not going to do anything. All of these passionate stories, we agree with you. I agree with you. I hate it.

I hate this gun violence that's out there. But this is not going to fix it. What's going to fix it is us facing the reality of where this violence is coming from, who's perpetrating it, holding them accountable, and ensuring that we don't have this free flow of illegal weapons coming into the United States and being distributed on the black market to people who shouldn't have guns. Folks, I asked you to oppose this bill because it does nothing.

And if it does nothing, if it's not needed to fund programs that are already being funded, and some of the programs that they want to fund are absolutely ineffective, then all we're really doing is punishing people for exercising their constitutional right, and that's wrong. So, folks, I ask you to oppose this bill and let's start attacking the real problem because I can tell you that conservatives are with you. We don't like gun violence.

But where we oppose is that the way to go about addressing it has to be more than just telling people heartbreaking stories and saying, 'I empathize with those poor people; look what happened to them,' and actually doing something about the real cause. And we're not doing that and we haven't done it in the three years that I've been up here. So this bill has been here three times now. You know, here we are, another shot. I ask you to oppose, and thank you for your attention on this.

Senator Alvarado-Gil.

Permission to ask a question of the author?

Yes, go ahead.

You cited a statistic of gun violence being the number one cause of death in children in California. Can you cite your source on that?

Do we have the source? The source on gun violent death?

CDC.

CDC.

Okay, so thank you for that. So I'm coming from an academic background and, yes, public school graduate in California. For me, I tend to analyze the legislation that's put before us. Oftentimes, I do get emotional about things and I bring my personal experience, and particularly on this issue, which is so divisive across California, I want to focus on facts.

Senator Alvarado, as a reminder that the rest of the bay comes through the presiding office are not directly there.

Oh, excuse me, yes.

So, for me, I also wanted to see where this information came from. And looking at the Public Policy Institute of California under their gun violence archives, I was able to cite recent data from 2020 showing that firearm injury death rates of nine per 100,000 is what's accurate. Drug overdose death rates are 26.6 per 100,000.

In addition to that, I also went to the CDC, a trusted source, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and looked at the National Center for Health Statistics on California and was even more surprised to see--permission to read?

Permission Granted.

A depiction saying that California has the lowest mass shooting victimization rates among the most populous states. Not the first, but one of the lowest.

So when I take a look at this very sensitive issue, don't get me wrong because one death of a child is too many, but I feel that we have a duty to legislate through facts and not fear. I also believe that we have a duty to assign and appropriate money to prevention programs so that we are not having floor debates about saving lives of children in a state that is so wealthy as California, with residents as caring and loving as Californians are.

For me to see a bill that has to put millions of dollars towards prevention for our lives of our kids is simply wrong. So because of the facts on this bill, I'll be staying off. Thank you.

Senator Glazer.

Thank you, Mr. President. Members. As I listened to the debate here on the floor, it reminded me of an important California history story that's worth mentioning today, especially as we try to figure out something that we all are in agreement on, which is this plague of gun violence in our state.

In 1989, as the story was explained by the Senator from Stockton, we had that terrible schoolyard shooting, and a state leader at that time did something that I think he thought he would never do in his career ever. And that was to sign a bill banning assault weapons in California. And that Republican leader was George Deukmejian. He had to step out of his comfort zone. And do you think that he saw this as solving the problem of gun violence in our state? I don't think so.

I don't think so. But he saw the same thing we all saw: the tragedies, this mass shooting, and of course, in our lifetime, so many mass shootings. And he decided then, and it's what I decide today, which is that you can't say one thing is going to solve the whole problem but it certainly can help in a small way, in a medium way.

But it's the same realization that we all have that saying our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and the community after violence, after violence, after violence isn't really enough. And so for me, this measure isn't going to solve every problem, isn't going to fund all the programs that need to get funded, but it's a step, it's an important small step that for me, makes this vote an easy one, an urgent aye vote on AB 28.

Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Mr. President. A couple of weeks ago, I joined Senator from Bieber, Senator from Napa at the Outdoor Caucus Event. I am an individual who enjoys shooting. I go to shooting ranges. And that day I was able to shoot, I believe, an 1867 trapdoor musket. It was a lot of fun, did archery, trap shooting, nine millimeters. My history and background in the military has allowed me to shoot several weapons and see the end results of the various ammunitions and so forth. I enjoy it.

I recently spoke with the minority leader, and my reasoning as a co-author of this bill and why I'm supporting in this is because I understand the law abiding gun owners. There's going to be impact on them. But in the military we have the saying, 'when the ten percent messes up, it's the entire platoons or the entire body that has to take the responsibility of the ten percent.' We have rules because one person can mess it up for the rest of the group.

That rule is not just applied to that one person, it's applied to the whole body, to the Senator from Murrieta, you're right. This isn't the end-all to this situation. This is not going to stop everything. I agree with you that we need to do other things in other avenues. I'm a strong believer in that as well. But I do think as law abiding gun owners stepping up and allowing to say, you know what? You're right. I'm a law abiding individual.

Like the Senator from Stockton said, 'my cousin has all this--you know, the law abiding--I'm going to step up and take some response--not take some responsibility--absorb that 11 percent tax because what's happening is horrendous.' It's going to be very hard to tax the illegal weapons because where are we going to find them? I feel comfortable with this 11 percent tax to pay that tax because it is going to go into programs.

And I disagree with the Senator from Murrieta that the Buyback Gun Program works in my district. LAPD absorbs, takes on so many weapons each time this program happens in my district. The programs are needed. And when we're talking about in a year or a couple years of budget deficit and we're looking for avenues to fund these kind of programs that I feel as someone who enjoys this sport, that I would take that on to help fund programs to prevent one more life dying.

So with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Senator Dodd.

Yes, Mr. President. Members. I'm not getting up on the floor today to talk people into changing their vote, whatever it is. I have a feeling that the votes are here today or this wouldn't have been brought up. That said, I want to give the reason why I'm not supporting this bill because I'm representing 70,000 licensed duck hunters in the State of California whose voices have not been heard in this. Simply put, they're a small percentage of the overall number. I applaud the bill's author here.

I consider him a good friend. He came into my office and we had an honest discussion together. So there's no heartburn or anything over that. I think there was a way of excluding these 70,000 duck hunters in the State of California, who, by the way, a lot are kids. And already these people are paying thirteen percent or so of excise tax on shotgun shells for conservation in the State of California. Conservation programs.

And frankly, I look at this as something when you add another 11 percent on, all it's going to do is decrease the number of young hunters, and sooner or later this will be like the tobacco tax. And sooner or later this money is going to go down, down, down because let's face it; those people that have pistols and those people that shoot deer or whatever they decide to shoot are not using a lot of ammo.

This is just something that I have really strong feelings on duck hunters in the State of California. I have a differing point of view. I support funding these mental health programs in the State of California. I really do, and I think this one could have happened, it could have had my support if they had just exempted these duck hunters. But I will agree with my friend from Fair Oaks. We did have serious budget surpluses. Where was the discussion of these bills over the last two, three, four, five years?

And so at the end of the day, I support these programs wholeheartedly. They need to be funded, but I think we need to be careful of how we fund them and who we target.

Senator Cortese.

Thank you, Mr. President. I too, will be staying off this bill today. And it's not because I don't support those programs that are outlined--certainly met with the author and talked about those at length. I have a strong, strong history, especially in Santa Clara County, of standing up programs very similar to those that would be funded by this bill if signed into law. The programs are not a problem. The idea that this is not a pass through to the consumer is a problem.

It is a pass through to the consumer and frankly, it's disingenuous to say it's anything other than that. So then, you have to come to the conclusion not that those consumers who are a fraction of our 40 million population, not that they can't afford it, but that there's not equity in the distribution of this. It is easy for us on this issue or any number of issues to say 'I don't have to pay this tax. I'm not going to pick up this pass through. I'm more than happy though, to tax the people that do have to do it.'

And that's the question that many are going to have to answer. Not, I don't think, those of you who are in very urbanized districts, but I think folks who do go up on this bill, who are not in urbanized districts are going to face the question over and over and over again, 'why aren't all of us paying for these programs?'

'Why is it that you voted for this bill to charge me to pay for programs that benefit 40 million people in California but you're unwilling to do that yourself? Who's paying the tax? Who in this room will pay that pass through in this chambers?' And I think that's the larger point made by the Senator from Fair Oaks, by our colleague from Fair Oaks. Not so much that one time money or surpluses should have been used for this. But if this is one of the largest problems facing California in the country--and I agree with the author and the Ford jockey today that it is--then why in the hell isn't everyone paying for it?

Why is it that a fraction of the community is expect to bear the burden of one of the biggest crises in the State of California, a fraction of the community? Why aren't we extending this to everyone?

I'll be the first one to vote for a general tax in the State of California that beefs up DOJ so they can take guns away from felons in this state. I'll support that bill. I'd author that bill if I thought it had a chance, okay? But this is not that. This is not that. And I wanted like my colleague from Napa to explain my vote because I don't think anyone's going to get away after all of the gun violence bills and firearms bills that I've supported over the last three years here and in my history as a local official, no one's going to get away with saying that I don't care about gun violence or I'm not willing to stop it.

But I hope people at some point will say there was a man of equity who said when we have a crisis in the State of California, everybody should have to pitch in and pay for it, not just a few. Thank you.

Senator Min.

Thank you, Mr. President. I wasn't planning to speak, but look, I am very mindful of the tax burdens that my constituents face, that many Californians face in our society and our economy. Many people express to me that they feel overtaxed. But let's be clear what this particular tax is. This is a tax that is targeted at a product that by its very nature leads to death. It leads to tragedy. It leads to gun violence in every single instance.

And we have had myriad incidents in all of our districts of gun violence. Not just the mass shootings that dominate the headlines, but the suicides, the homicides, the injuries. And every time you have an incident in gun violence, you not only have the actual victim, but all the people that are related to that victim. The family, the friends, the coworkers of those victims are also impacted. In economic parlance, we would say that guns have huge negative externalities.

They have huge costs that are not borne by those who purchase guns and ammunition. And that is what this tax is meant to address, is the huge negative costs that are not absorbed by gun owners or the people that purchase these guns and ammunition, but on the costs that get borne by the rest of us. And I think it is fair to levy this particular tax. So again, I've been very, very careful in my time in the Senate about tax increases.

I believe this will be the first tax increase I voted for during my time in the Senate. But this is important. We have to balance the scales here. We have to do what we can. And I want to echo the comments of my colleague from Miranda, 'this will not solve our gun violence problem. But if it goes even a little bit, if it saves one life, if it helps prevent some of the tragedy that we're seeing, it's worth doing.' So I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Caballero.

Thank you, Mr. President. I also wasn't going to stand up and speak, but I want to be really clear in terms of explaining to me because I voted for this in committee, but since that time I've had a number of visits specifically related to my district. And I think part of the challenge that you hear here is that we all have different districts and there has to be respect paid to the fact that we do have different districts.

And we need to figure out: how do we pay for things that we think are really important? Because there's just no question in my mind that public safety and the safety of children and the safety of our communities to be free to be able to go where they want to go is of utmost importance. It's basically the basic charge of government.

And the question becomes, 'why didn't we fund these out of our general fund in a way that provides an opportunity for us to really make investments in the priorities that we have?' But in my district, I have the largest wetlands, the largest wetlands in the State of California and the largest wetlands west of the Mississippi. And it is a wetlands that is created in partnership with the private and the public sector. So a lot of the property is state property.

Some of the property is federal property. But the majority of the property, it's private property provided by the duck hunters. They are families that are committed to this being part of the wetlands that provides habitat for bird migrations that go north and south. And so it's a really important piece of property that involves thousands of acres. And it's the duck hunters that provide the land. They're the ones that buy the licenses to be able to hunt on their own land.

And those licenses provide the resources to do the wildlife management. So Fish and Game, we provide resources to Fish and Game through those licenses. And so to then put another fee on that kind of activity that goes to other things in the state is an unfair burden. And so for me, I am absolutely committed to these wetlands.

But we've got to figure out a way to be able to do what we need to do in terms of funding these programs that are so important to us without overburdening. And I saw the students and the plea from these families is that this is part of a family activity, is to go out and to be part of nature. And I get it. People will say, 'hey, duck hunting, why are you killing ducks, right?' Well, it is part of a family activity. It's part of a culture.

And I will tell you, I come from a hunting family; so many times got up in the morning and saw quail feet in the sink and went like, 'did I need to see this at ten years old getting my glass of water?' But it is an important part of ritual. It's an important part of growing up and it's an important part of rural California. And so I will not be supporting the bill today.

I think we need to take it back to the budget and take a look at it and figure out how can we fund these important activities and do it in a way where everybody participates in funding it?

Seeing no more mics. Senator Portantino, would you like to close?

Thank you, Mr. President and Members, and I appreciate the robust debate that took place on this floor and a couple pieces need some clarification. First and foremost, we did use part of the budget surplus to fund these programs. And guess what we found out when we funded these anti-violence, anti-gun violence programs? They actually work. Let me say that again. We use part of our surplus to fund these programs, and what did we learn? They actually work.

And the chief of the LAPD, Chief Moore, cited the CalVIP Program as being one of the most effective anti-gun violence programs out there. So for my colleague from Murrieta who questioned whether they work, the answer is 'yes, they work.' So I hope that gets your vote because that was your concern. Do these programs work? Again, the answer is yes. To the colleagues who said, 'why didn't we put this in the budget?' Again, it was put in the budget.

What we're doing now is we're beyond the surplus and we're creating a dedicated revenue stream. For my colleague who questioned the data, well, for the last three years, the number one cause of death amongst children cited by the Centers for Disease Control is gun violence surpassing automobile accidents. Again, the data shows this is a problem. And for my colleague who pointed to California's lower rate of gun violence based on other states, well, guess what that's due to? Our strong gun safety laws.

Again, the data and the science show they work. So if we want to do more to cut down on youth deaths, we should do what works. This works. To my colleagues who say, 'should one segment of the population pay for a problem?' Well, I would say 'we charge those who buy gas who use our roads a fee to make sure our roads are paved and work.' This is the same principle for those who say, 'well, why should I pay for it? I'm a law abiding citizen.'

Well, we all pay into the common good. Why should a person who's a senior citizen pay to build the library on a high school? Because they get the benefit from having a high school with a good library which increases their property value even though they don't have kids in that school.

If we take care of the collective good, if we cut down on gun violence, if we cut down on youth death and we increase youth mental health services, our collective society will be healthier and safer and more productive. We all have an incumbent interest in seeing that happen. So what's exciting here is we know that this will make a difference. We know that this will benefit us. We also know it's consistent with much of the rhetoric that has been happening on this for a decade.

To my colleague who says, 'well, there are other problems. Whataboutism. We see a lot of whataboutism on the national level.' This isn't about whataboutism. This is about seizing this moment in time and making California safer and making kids safer and making our collective society healthier. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? No. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Becker? Aye. Blakespear? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Cortese? Dahle? No. Dodd? Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? No. Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? No. Niello? No. Ochoa Bogh? No. Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? No. Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Wahab?

Please?

Wahab, Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? No.

Please call the absent members.

Atkins? Aye. Caballero? Cortese? Dodd? Roth? Umberg? Aye.

Aye's are 27. Noes are nine. The measure passes. Members, we're going to go to committee announcements. Senator Caballero?

The Senate Committee on Governance and Finance will meet at noon at room 112.

Members, we're going to break for lunch for 30 minutes. All Members do need to remain in the Capitol. Please do not return to your offices. We will start our afternoon calendar at 12:30.

It'll be quick.

Senator Caballero.

Yes. This is a reminder that Gov and Finance will be meeting here in the Capitol at room 112.

Okay. First floor, room 112. Again with that, we'll break for lunch. Please be back here at 12:30. You get three extra minutes.

The resolutions and notices. Senator Allen. You are recognized.

I request unanimous consent to withdraw Senate Bill 789 from Engrossing and enrolling and return the measure to the Assembly for further action.

Thank you, Mr. President. Please move file item 87, AB 283 to the inactive file at the request of the author.

Without objection. Senator Niello.

Without objection. Senators, we will go to Assembly. Third reading. First up, file item 240. Senator Bradford. You are recognized. Oh, secretary, please read. Excuse me.

Assembly Bill 41 by Assembly Member Holden an act relating to telecommunications.

Senator Bradford.

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 41. It's the 2006 video franchise. Franchises were negotiated and issued to local level and were required for each and every city county. A franchise that wanted to serve the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act, better known as its difficult 2006, created a streamlined state video franchise process at the Public Utilities Commission to increase competition for video service and encourage the deployment of broadband infrastructure to unserved and underserved areas.

AB 41 renames and revises the existing law pertaining to cable operators and state video franchising to strengthen the authority of the PUC while creating a fair and more transparent franchise process. And I respectfully ask for aye vote.

Any discussion or debate. See none. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear. Bradford aye. Caballero. Cortese. Dahle. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer. Gonzalez. Grove. Hurtado. Jones aye. Laird aye. Limon. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman. Nguyen. Niello. Ochoa Bogh aye. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio. Seyarto aye. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg. Wahab. Wiener. Wilk aye. Grove aye.

Please call the absent Members.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil. Ashby. Atkins. Blakespear. Caballero. Cortese. Dahle aye. Glazer. Gonzalez. Hurtado. Limon aye. Newman. Nguyen aye. Niello aye. Roth. Rubio. Umberg. Wahab. Wiener. Glazer aye.

Senator moves the call. Next up, file item 243. This will be Senator Padilla. Senator Padilla. He's ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 91 by Assembly Member Alvarez an act relating to community colleges.

Senator Padilla.

Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of Assembly Member Alvarez I'm pleased to present Assembly Bill 91. A Bill that will increase Southern California's binational skilled workforce and grow the relationship with the nation that is soon to be our largest trading partner. Over 150,000 people cross the southern border into California on a daily basis. Many of them live on one side while working or studying on the other.

AB 91 will allow California Community College Board of Governors to enter into cross border agreements that will exempt Low income students at the border region from out of state tuition rates. When attending a local community college. Tuition expenses are the main barrier for individuals seeking higher education. By reducing these barriers, we can expand our skilled workforce and to meet the demands of growth. This Bill is sponsored by a coalition of stakeholders in both the business and labor sector, as well as the community college. Chancellor's office has no opposition. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any debate? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear. Bradford aye. Caballero. Cortese. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer. Gonzalez aye. Grove. Hurtado aye. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar. Min aye. Newman. Nguyen no. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg. Wahab. Wiener. Wilk aye.

Senator moves the call. Next up, fire item 247. Senator Limon. She's ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 278 by Assembly Member Reyes an act relating to pupil services.

Go ahead, Senator Limon.

Thank you. Members today I present AB 278 on behalf of Assembly Member Reyes. This Bill will establish the Dream resource centers in public high schools across California to increase access to opportunities and provide support to immigrant and undocumented students. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear. Bradford aye. Caballero. Cortese. Dahle. Dodd aye. Durazo. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove. Hurtado aye. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman. Nguyen. Niello. Ochoa Bogh aye. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg. Wahab. Wiener. Wilk aye. Dahle aye.

Senator moves the call. We'll be putting all these on call. Good news after lunch is a little more quiet. Everyone's digesting. The bad news is not everyone's here. So we'll be putting all these measures on call. Next up, Senator Limon 266. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill 620 by Assembly Member Connolly an act relating to health care coverage.

Senator Limon.

Thank you. AB 620 would require health plans to cover medical nutrition therapy. AB 620 will allow Californians suffering from these disorders to have greater access to nutritional support in addition to medication by expanding the health insurance coverage to medically necessary foods. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any debate secretary, please call the roll.

Allen. Alvarado-Gil aye. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear. Bradford aye. Caballero. Cortese. Dahle. Dodd aye. Durazo. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove. Hurtado aye. Jones. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman. Nguyen aye. Niello. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio aye. Seyarto. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg. Wahab. Wiener. Wilk aye.

Senator moves the call. Now we are on to file item 278. Senator Limon. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill 931 by Assembly Member Irwin an act relating to healthcare coverage.

Senator Limon.

Thank you. AB 931 is a Bill that looks at on behalf of Assembly Member Irwin AB 931 would avoid negative outcomes for patients by preventing insurers from requiring prior authorization for first twelve physical therapy visits related to a new episode of care. This Bill removes the necessary restrictions created by the denial of care and instead allows for an increase in patient access to physical therapy. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any debate on this measure. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby aye. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle aye. Dodd aye. Durazo. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove aye. Hurtado aye. Jones aye. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen aye. Niello aye. Ochoa Bogh aye. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth aye. Rubio aye. Seyarto. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab. Wiener aye. Wilk aye.

Senator moves the call. Next up, file item 281, still the Limon show. Senator Limon. Secretary please read 281.

Assembly Bill 1015 by Assembly Member Calderon an act relating to children's health.

Senator Limon.

Thank you. AB 1015 would create a statewide diaper and wipe distribution program administered by the Department of Social Services to serve Low income families with infants and toddlers. AB 1015 would expand current diaper distribution efforts to all counties addressing the unmet need facing California's Low income families. This is a legislative women's caucus priority Bill. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil aye. Archuleta aye. Ashby aye. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle aye. Dodd aye. Durazo. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove aye. Hurtado aye. Jones aye. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen aye. Niello aye. Ochoa Bogh aye. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth aye. Rubio aye. Seyarto aye. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener. Wilk.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins, Durazo, McGuire.

Senator moves the call. Now we're going to file item 286. This will be Senator Gonzalez. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill is 1078 by Assembly Member Jackson an act relating to pupil instruction and declare the urgency thereof to take effect immediately.

Thank you, Mr. President and Members, I rise today to proudly present AB 1078 on behalf of Assemblymember Jackson, which is also an LGBTQ caucus priority. This Bill strengthens existing law to ensure California students have access to comprehensive, culturally competent and accurate instruction about the history, experiences, and viewpoints of people from diverse communities in California in recent years. As we know across the country, and even in this state, we are seeing an undeniable and unprecedented movement to ban textbooks and instructional materials from the classroom.

A recent report from the Penn America found that in the last year, over 1700 unique book titles were banned in 138 school districts across 32 states, affecting nearly 4 million students across our country. AB 1078 puts students first by providing parents recourse against action or inaction by a local governing board that will willfully deny their students access to standards aligned instructional materials and books that are compliant with the Fair Act, which was established in 2012.

AB 1078 is sponsored by the California superintendent of public instruction, Mr. Tony Thurman, the California attorney General Rob Bonta, ACLU California, the California Faculty Association and the California Federation of Teachers. As a parent of a young child in third grade myself in a public school system, I know how important it is to ensure that our students get the education that they deserve. AB 1078 will ensure that parents are able to advocate for their children's futures, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Newman.

You recognize. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in support of this measure, and I want to apologize in advance, especially my colleagues from Santa Clarita and Arinda and Napa. I'll be speaking at length on this, but I believe it's important. AB 1078 will ensure that students across California will not be denied textbooks and instructional materials that are fair, accurate, inclusive, and have respectful representations of the state's very diverse ethnic and cultural population.

As research from Pew has found, k through twelve education has, sadly, in recent years emerged as a political flashpoint in American society as ground zero in our current apparently endless culture wars. Lawmakers in various states, especially at the school district level, are increasingly proposing policies and laws which would limit what educators can say in the classroom about topics like race or gender identity, even as parents, and especially young people have shown great interest in having access to information on these topics.

In 2022, 17 states passed laws limiting on how instructors can discuss issues of race, gender, and other divisive concepts in the classroom as they should. Educators across California want to be able to address these important topics thoughtfully and inclusively.

Unfortunately, in the current fractious environment, educators increasingly feel constrained and apprehensive and inhibited about teaching or even talking about race or gender issues that might veer toward being received as controversial as evidence, one third of the teachers recently survayed said new state or district policies or pressures from parents or the community have led them to avoid certain content and to change their text or their materials. It's important to remember that our society is not stagnant that we are everyone is constantly changing.

Discussions of race and gender should not be considered divisive concepts, even in our schools. To that end, we have, through our legislative efforts here, done a great deal in recent years to support parents, students and educators, namely AB 101, which authored by Assembly Jose Medina in 2021, added Ethnic Studies as a high school graduation requirement.

California AB 167, a budget Bill required Cde to develop model curriculum around the development of Vietnamese American refugees, Cambodian genocide, Mongol history and Cultural Studies by 2024 and Native American Studies by 2025. SB 369, currently pending from our colleague Senator Nguyen, which seeks to make adjustment to more accurately portray Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans in a more accurate light. We are a state that values race, ethnicity, and gender expression. This Bill seeks to ensure that we better protect those values.

AB 1078 builds upon the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, also known as the Fair Act, which mandates instruction on the role and contributions of Latino Americans, LGBTQ plus Americans, and Members of other religions and socioeconomic groups. This Bill reasonably prohibits the removal of textbooks, instructional material, and library books that align with the Fair Act.

It requires county superintendents of schools to provide their school districts an opportunity to remedy deficiencies in textbooks and instructional materials upon receiving a copy of a resolution from a local governing board determining that there are insufficient textbooks or instructional materials.

This Bill also allows complaints to be filed directly with the state if one or more pupils do not have sufficient textbooks or instructional materials as a result of an act by the governing board of a school district or the governing board's failure to act to remedy the deficiency of textbooks or instructional materials. This act also reasonably seeks to discourage school boards from making costly decisions at the expense of students access to knowledge by imposing a fiscal penalty and the cost of instructional materials and textbooks.

If it is found by a county superintendent of education that a school district within that jurisdiction has not remedied a deficiency in instructional materials and textbooks, this Bill is sponsored by the state Superintendent of public Instruction and supported by our state Attorney General, the California Teachers Association, the ACLU, and the California Federation of Teachers. I urge your support for AB 1078.

Thank you, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you, Mr President. And I rise to rise in support of AB 1078, which would prevent the removal of critical textbooks that align with state adopted standards for instruction. I would like permission to read this message from James Baldwin, one of our famed authors and activists. "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive and who have ever been alive and have been tormented in their own way. I think this is an important message for us. That positive, particularly racial youth identity is supported by diverse and inclusive literature in our schools.

Anna Gifti Apukuajimin said, she's a doctoral student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Education, and she said, books are the windows to the ordinary. We read them to see ourselves, to comprehend our lived reality, and to sometimes envision something better. There is a real cost. When the stories of all of our children, black children, immigrant children, LGBTQ children, when those stories are missing, it limits our ability to build our power, to build our experiences but most importantly, to build our connections to one another.

By allowing a single bad faith request, a school is removing our children and our teens ability and vibrant rendition for hope and to have promise. Opponents of diverse storytelling are robbing the next generation of an opportunity to be curious about the world around them and to make decisions about the world that they want to live in.

And AB 1078 takes necessary steps to ensure we empower all of our authors, particularly authors of color, from marginalized communities and readers from those communities and from mainstream dominant communities to come together and understand each other's stories. When we share our experiences, we humanize one another, and that's where the real power begins and the new hope and future for our state takes place. And with that, I respectfully ask for your Ivote.

Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Thank you, Mr. President. And Members. With the utmost respect to my colleague from Riverside County. I appreciate his efforts and appreciate the presentation here by Senator Gonzalez. I think the most important thing to consider with this particular Bill it's not the fact that we want inclusive literature to represent those students within that body, but several concerns here. One of the things that this Bill does, it actually limits the ability for school boards.

It increases the ability of the number of board Members to, I believe it does, if I'm not correct me if I'm wrong, but it actually makes it difficult, more difficult to reconsider books, not necessarily because of the content, because they're inclusive, but because they're not age appropriate. Much of the conversations that occurred in committee, much of the conversations that are occurring across the state from many groups parents, is questioning whether or not books are age appropriate.

Age appropriate, such as the case as one of the books that was read in committee that was found in a junior high book which literally explained how to download an app that instructed someone to connect with people with sexual partners or interested partners in the area. And it had to do it was under an LGBTQ book, and it had that description how to download an app to connect with people that are interested in sex locally.

Those are the kind of books that and, by the way, within this Bill, because it's under LGBTQ protected class, we could not remove that book because it's an LGBTQ book. So the consideration is not whether or not it's inclusive, diverse. It's the fact that it's not age appropriate. And nowhere in this policy in this Bill does it actually address age appropriate. It could be inclusive, it could be diverse, but it should also include their age appropriate in committee.

I had an opportunity to have a discussion with my colleague from Riverside County, and I asked him whether or not the book that was being read on the floor in the committee that was found in a junior high classroom was appropriate. There was no answer. So my concern is it's not the fact that it's inclusive.

It's the fact that nowhere, nowhere in this Bill do we talk about books being age appropriate and whether or not the content should we have books that talk about in junior high that speak to the fact of having apps with regards to how to connect with sexual partners around the area. That is the issue at the core. One of the things that we had and I remember in my first year, we were discussing Assemblymember Medina's ethnic Studies Bill.

I remember one of the things and he kept bringing that Bill back, bringing it back. Bringing it back had to do with the fact and he always said, give it to local control, local boards to decide which books would be representative of their demographics so that we could have representative books that reflected the student population. His intent was always local control. This limits local control, gives it to the state. Taking away the ability for parents to have a voice. That's the fear.

What do we talk about in education? We talk about the fact that we have a declining student enrollment in public schools in the state of California. My fear this Bill that doesn't address age appropriate, but talks about equity and under the umbrella of equity and inclusivity, but not age appropriate matters or topics is going to be another reason why we lose more students to our public school system or to the state of California moving out. We can be inclusive.

We can be diverse, but we also have to be very, very careful into making sure that under that guise we don't overstep values that most Californians have on what is appropriate and not appropriate. I hate the fact that we're villainizing one end of the spectrum to the other spectrum. Depending on where you lie in the issues, we should facilitate understanding and conversation. The conversation is for many, many concerned parents of students in the state of California, is whether or not things are age appropriate. Permission to read?

Permission grant.

This came to me actually appropriately this morning, and it was really interesting to note because I think I would just want to put it in context of where we are as a society, as a culture, especially here in California, with the honest respect. Think about this very, very deeply corrupt the young. Get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial. Destroy their ruggedness.

Get control of all means of publicity and thereby get the people's minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance. Destroy the people's faith in their natural leaders by holding up the latter to ridicule, contempt and oblique. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible. Encourage government extravagance. Destroy its credit.

Produce fear with rising prices, inflation and General discontent. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorder and foster a soft and lenient attitude on the part of government towards such disorders. Be spacious argument cause the breakdown of old moral virtues honesty, sobriety continents, faith in the pledge worth ruggedness cause of the anyway, go on. And this is by Vladimir Lenin in 1921. And to the point, to the point, to the point.

Ochoa Bogh. Just 1 second. We had a point of order.

Point of order. What is the purpose of this long reading that seems to be describing the party that you belong to?

No, it has nothing to do with the party. It has to do with the fact of how we're distracting. We're addressing whether or not...

That's not the purpose of this. Bill, can you speak to the content.

Just pause 1 second. Let's make sure we have control here. All right, we're going to call quick timeout. We're going to huddle here.

All right, Senator Eggman, can you restate your point of order?

My point of order was, speaking to the content of the Bill, it seemed like we had gone far away from the point of the Bill. So speaking to the merits of the Bill.

Point taken. Were you done reading?

So the point of order is that the issue reason for this Bill was the fact that we are literally objecting to the fact that there are school boards that are objecting to books and materials in schools. The point that I'm trying to make is that we're not having the conversation at the core of the issue, which is age appropriateness of materials. This Bill herbs to curb that, stating that they are diverse under LGBTQ.

They are diverse under Black authors or Hispanic, brown authors or whatever it may be. My point is that if we're going to educate our children, if we're going to address issues and books and so forth, that in all of that, it has to be age appropriate. Age appropriate. And that is the many concerns our parents are having. This Bill came because parents are now engaged in school boards. They're coming to the school boards speaking about these books.

But many of these issues are not because they're diverse, but because they're not age appropriate. And that's what I'm trying to get here, is that we're including stuff that it's not appropriate in schools. And so with the utmost respect, I cannot support a Bill that limits the ability for parents to engage in the schools and run for office in school boards. That's the point that I'm trying to make. And I speak on behalf of many, many parents who feel exactly the same concern. And I'm afraid that this Bill, under the guise of protected groups, doesn't include a phrase or a point that says age appropriate. That's it. Thank you. I respectfully ask for a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Min.

He was ahead of me, actually. Thank you, Mr. President. I wasn't planning to rise in support of this Bill today, but I think it's important. And I'll just note that probably like many of you, I represent districts that, unfortunately, have seen the troubling trend of school boards being elected that have adhered to conspiracy theories, that have taken radical actions in banning books.

And I just want to point out that the quote that was read by my colleague from Ukipa was actually debunked as long ago as 1970 in The New York Times as being a fraud. Lenin, for his faults. Look, I am no communist. I do not support Vladimir Lenin. But he never said that. And it's actually been something that's been an urban myth for quite a long time.

And I just point out that this is exactly the problem today, is that too many times the decisions on whether to ban books are driven by ideology, are driven by QAnon chat rooms, and not by fact not by the reasoned discussion of educational professionals. Now, I have two school districts, two cities that have chosen to ban books in recent months.

And I'll just remind everybody that the history of book banning in this country goes back a long time and is quite pernicious, and that the idea that something is obscene or pornographic has been used to ban classics like Shakespeare and Diary of Anne Frank. During the McCarthy era, Senator McCarthy argued that Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, considered classics today, were obscene, quote unquote, because they encouraged protests against the status quo.

The classic story of Robin Hood was seen as, quote unquote, pornographic around the same time and was banned in a number of school districts in Indiana because it encouraged class rebellion. Now, I have no problem with parents choosing to have their kids read certain things, and I certainly guide my children in what they should read. But what we have seen lately, and this happened actually in Orange Unified School District is one parent complained about a whole number of books, and they were banned.

They were banned from our libraries, banned from public access. This is what we're seeing right now, and it is targeting a specific community, it's targeting the LGBTQ community, and it's under this guise of obscenity or protecting our children. But that is not how we've seen it play out. And I wish this Bill was not necessary. But unfortunately, we have seen the politicization of our schools today. And to me, that's unconscionable books should not be banned. Education should be freely out there.

And if you as a parent want to make sure your kids are reading things you think are appropriate for them, that is on you as a parent, I don't let my kids go, and particularly not when they were very young, go out and just check out whatever books they wanted.

I know there's books about anatomy books that might be offensive to many, but it's my job as a parent to make sure that they are reading the things I think they're appropriate for them to read, not to try to ban books for everybody else in our society so they no longer have access to them. That is also true of education in our classrooms right now.

I just will tell you that there is an ongoing debate over whether we should teach alternative histories, whether people who are Asian American or African American or LGBTQ have role models that they can look to in our history books. And I have strongly supported the idea of ethnic studies being taught in our schools for similar reasons as why I'm supporting this Bill today. Growing up, I didn't have any Asian American role models.

I had one teacher between the ages of K through twelve, one teacher who was Asian American. I didn't have any role models that was never taught in our school books. I want our kids to be able, my kids to be able to have role models they can look up to, to understand that they also have a history that is reflected in America, that is taught in our schools. I think these are important values that are American values that we need to promote. And so I would urge you all to consider supporting this Bill today.

Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in support of AB 1078. Personally, I trust teachers and librarians who are trained professionals to curate a school library and to make those decisions. That's what we train them to do. That's what they're hired to do. These are professionals. And to have politicians come in and say, that's banned. That's banned. That's banned. To me, that is outrageous. We need to be very clear what this is. Whether it's burning books or banning books, this is government censorship.

These are school boards, a government agency, engaging in censorship and deciding what people are allowed to read and what they are not allowed to read. And if you think it stops at school libraries, let me tell you, it's not going to stop at school libraries. As soon as they realize that they can get away with this, and we're not going to let them get away with it, it will move beyond that. It'll move to adults, too. And this is absolutely government censorship.

And what are they trying to do? This isn't about age appropriate. They're trying to whitewash history. They are trying to remove any history that they don't want people to learn about. And it's not just happening in Florida. It's not just happening in Florida, where they're trying to lionize the era of slavery. Slavery had some good benefits for people, according to the Florida curriculum.

It's happening here in California, where school districts are trying to prevent kids from learning about accurate history, whether it's about racism in this country or the history of race in this country, whether it is about LGBTQ people, whether it's about Jews. They're trying to erase entire communities so that kids graduate from high school and do not know their own history or the history of other communities, and they think everything's fine because it's all whitewashed and all is good. That's what they want.

It is actually lying to children about the reality of the world that we live in. And we've talked about some of the books that have historically been banned, but just recently banning books about the Holocaust. We have a problem with Holocaust denial in this country, when 6 million Jews were methodically exterminated, poison put in ovens, exterminated 6 million of us, and we have school districts that are banning kids from even reading and learning about the Holocaust. So it doesn't happen again.

Is it any wonder that when you poll young people, the percentage is increasing of kids who don't even know about the Holocaust or think it didn't happen? And this just makes that worse. This is a very important Bill, colleagues. What's happening in other parts of the country is horrific. California should not be a party to it, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Rubio.

Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, let's ask a teacher. I'm standing right here. Well, first of all, I'm really encouraged by the fact that we're having conversations about kids reading. You know how hard it is to get our students to read. So first of all, to all, the teachers out there, they can agree it's the one issue that we constantly have just trying to get them to read.

But we don't necessarily spend all our time trying to figure out how to embed one book or the other. We have curriculum that's given to us, that's vetted that's put before us, and we really do, as I believe the great Senator from San Francisco stated, we're professionals. We're there to take care of our kids. The one thing I will say, it's not even about reading appropriate. Sometimes we have fourth graders that are reading at a first grade level.

So our job is to monitor and make sure that they can actually read the book. So we don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how do we embed this information that may not be appropriate. Believe me, we have a lot of curriculum to get through, and that was always our challenge. Not enough hours in the day to get through core curriculum reading, writing, science, math, the list goes on and on and on.

We don't carve out time to read things because we want to just give extra information. We have a curriculum that we have to adhere to. And believe me, again, I'm really happy we're talking about kids reading, because that's one of the biggest challenges teachers face. But teachers just want to teach. Kids just want to read. And I think that this feels important just to ensure that kids have that diversity, that they can see themselves in books, that they can see themselves in these stories.

And I know when I started teaching, we had very little diversity. And as I started teaching, I remember we started getting authors that were Spanish speakers or certain names that were Latino. And I just think it's important to have books and material that reflect who we're teaching. But I just want to say, teachers just want to teach. And with that, I ask for your support. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto, then Senator Nguyen. Senator Seyarto.

Thank you very much. I'll be brief. The Bill infringes on parents' right to engage their elected school boards regarding their children's education and what they feel is appropriate. Because what this essentially does is take a conversation that is usually had between a school board and the community in General and take that conversation away and put it at the state level so there is no conversation. School boards are elected by the people that are in that community.

And if they don't like what the school board is teaching, then they will get rid of the school board. If we're going to do these kinds of actions and allow these kinds of bills to go through, then we essentially should just get rid of school boards because the state will be running the entire show, and that will disengage parents from having a say in what they feel is appropriate or what they feel is not.

And that's what this is really about, is keeping this at a local level where people can engage their elected officials, and if they don't agree, they can get rid of them. And so with that, I am opposing this Bill for those very reasons. I think this has been blown way out of proportion, because as far as censorship is concerned, if you go to a market and you go over the magazine aisle, guess what they do?

They cover up a lot of the magazines, or they used to cover up magazines that had content that might not be appropriate. And that's exactly what my colleague, who was a teacher, was trying to point out. And parents should have a right to be able to go up to their school board and voice their concern about the content of some of the material that's being taught.

Most of the parents I talk to have no problems with teaching the respecting other people no matter what they think or what their lifestyle is. What they have problems with is when it gets into some of the nitty gritty of what a relationship looks like to a six or seven year old. And if that's not happening and their school board can prove that that's not happening, well, you know what? That's great. But at least they were able to engage. So don't demonize the parents who are getting upset about this because we're fueling the fire by mischaracterizing what some of their concerns are. So with that, I ask you for a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Nguyen.

Thank you, Mr. President. There was a comment mentioned from one of my colleagues in Orange County talking about Orange Unified School District. I just want to be clear in making sure that there's been given full content of it, is that it was an app that was asked to be banned. And the reason one of the parents brought it up is that his second grade daughter had access to books that included an example.

Is that a polar bear who gets to fall in love with a young seal? I mean, those are the kind of things that we're talking about. Is the age appropriate? There's no discussion of book ban. It's about making sure that we as parents are given the opportunity to know what our children are looking at.

And this whole summer, I've taken my ten year old every week to the library and I sit with him and I watch him and wait and see the types of books that he's looking at. And that's what you're getting right now is this. In itself, we're talking about age appropriate, not the issues. And so with that, I just want to clarify making sure that that is stated for Orange Unified School District. Thank you, Mr. President.

Seeing no more mics, Senator Gonzalez, would you like to close?

Thank you. This has been a very robust discussion, and I want to thank all my colleagues, whether I agree with them or not, for the robust discussion. I'm going to start with this. This Bill does not preclude age appropriateness discussions from the governing board. They can still make those decisions on what is age appropriate curriculum. This still has to be guidance provided by the Department of Education, the State Board of Education, on age appropriateness as well.

Again, I am a parent of a third grader who is now learning to read. Where is the age appropriateness that we're considering for him when books are being banned, when in Temecula, they're banning books? Because there was just a biography of Harvey Milk. Just a biography on an LGBTQ leader. Just a biography. And for that reason, Temecula Valley Unified School District decided to ban this book. And my stepson goes to school in Temecula Valley Unified School District. He's 16, 17.

So where's the age appropriateness in allowing him to learn about LGBTQ history? That is really unfair for our California students. This Bill will ensure that we are expelling disinformation. We're not putting writers, especially black authors, black poets, brown authors, brown poets, indigenous authors, indigenous poets at risk that we're not perpetuating educational censorship and that again, we're complying with the Fair Act, which was 2012.

An Assembly Member, Senator Mark Leno, Bill that basically said we need to ensure that we are focusing on underrepresented groups and that our California students know everything about underrepresented groups. This has to comply with the Fair Act. Doing otherwise is not complying with the Fair Act. Lastly, I just want to say in regards to my colleague from Ukipa, this is exactly the problem when you're quoting Vladimir Lenin, which has not been scholarly sourced. That's exactly the problem.

We need to make sure that everything that comes out of our mouths as state senators and even educators are scholarly sourced and that we're not perpetuating disinformation. And we will continue to do that through this Bill. I want to thank Assemblymember Jackson, the LGBTQ caucus, and all of the colleagues today for allowing us to present this Bill and for everybody's voices to be heard. Again, lastly I said lastly.

But the last last is as a parent, everybody has the opportunity as a parent to go to their school board, to petition their school board if they have an issue. Again, this Bill will hopefully even empower parents to continue to do that. What we're saying is don't ban books, don't ban history that our California students need. With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And I remind all Members to address comments here, not directly towards other Members, but I appreciate the robust debate here today. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby aye. Atkins. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove no. Hurtado aye. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh no. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth aye. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Please call the absent Members.

Alvarado-Gil no. Atkins. Bradford aye. Nguyen no.

Ayes are 30 to 9 on the urgency. The ayes are 30 to 9 on the measure. The measure passes. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, under privileges of the floor, I'd like to ask you to join me in welcoming Congresswoman Barbara Lee to the California State Senate. We'll take a group photo. Anyone who would like to join in a group photo, please do so. Sure. Everybody on the floor. Bring it on. Yeah.

Members, if I can have everyone back to their desks. We are moving to motions, resolutions and notices of the recognized Senator McGuire from his majority leader's desk. Go ahead.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Good afternoon, Members. There's a resolution at the desk requesting permission to suspend Joint Rule 61 and 62 A for the purpose of allowing Assembly constitutional amendments one, six and 13 to be heard in committee after the deadline. These requests have been approved by the Rules Committee.

Senator Jones. Thank you, Mr. President.

I would ask for a roll call vote on the motion, please.

Secretary please read the resolution.

Resolve that Joint Rule 61 and 62 A be dispensed with as requested.

Senator McGuire is asking for an aye vote. Senator Jones asking for a no vote. Please call the roll.

Allen, Alvarado-Gil, Archuletta, Ashby, Atkins, Becker, Blakespear, Bradford, Caballaro, Cortese, Dahle, Dodd, Durazo, Eggman, Glazer, Gonzalez, Grove, Hurtado, Jones, Laird, Limon, McGuire, Menjivar, Min, Newman, Nguyen, Niello, Ochoa Bogh, Padilla, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Seyarto, Skinner, Smallwood-Cuevas, Stern, Umberg, Wahab, Wiener, Wilk.

Please call the absent Members.

Atkins Aye Dodd? Aye Durazo? Aye Jones no.

Ayes are 32, no's are eight. Joint rules are suspended. Back to Senator McGuire.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. Grateful for your work today, sir. I moved to approve the committee report from the Energy, Utilities and Commerce and Communications Committee referencing AB 1373. Upon read being reported, the Bill will be read a second time and amendments will be adopted.

Senator Jones.

Thank you, Mr. President. I would object to this motion as well. And if the majority leader accepts, I would accept a roll call or a substitute. The last roll call for this.

Is your objection to applying the previous roll call? See none. The previous roll call is 32 to eight. That will be applied now back to Senator McGuire.

Really appreciate, Members, your patience. This will be my third and final for the moment. Members, I move the adoption of amendments for bills that crossed the desk on Friday, September eigth, 2023. These amendments will be adopted and published. Would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Jones.

Thank you, Mr. President. Deja vu all over again. I would ask that the role on the previous motion be substituted for this motion as well.

Is there objection to applying the previous role seeing none? Ayes are 32, noes are eight. Motion carries. Thank you. Go back to Assembly. Third reading, file item 305. Senator Bradford. He's ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1483 by Assembly Member Valencia an act relating to Firearms.

Senator Bradford.

Thank you, Mr. President. AB 1483 brings parity to existing law by closing a gap that allows multiple firearm purchases to be made through a private party acquisition. Specifically, AB 1483 will cap the amount of firearms that an individual may acquire through a private party, transfer to one per 30 days. The same restriction that already applies for purchases that made through commercial dealers. Two other states have already done this. What 1483 proposes to do closing a gap will prevent mass shooters from immediately acquiring an arsenal of weapons. I respectfully ask for aye vote.

Any discussion or debate. Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil no. Archuleta aye. Ashby aye. Atkins aye. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove no. Hurtado. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen no. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh no. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Please call the absent Members.

Hurtado. Menjivar aye. Roth.

Ayes are 29, noes are nine. Measure passes. Next up will be file item 319. Senator Ashby. She's ready. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill 557 by Assembly Member Hart an act relating to local government.

Senator Ashby.

Thank you, Mr President. I rise to present AB 557 on behalf of Assembly Member Hart. AB 557 removes the sunset on existing law to give local governments the option to teleconference during Governor declared emergencies. It will ensure our locally elected bodies can do the essential work that they were elected to do without jeopardizing their health and safety. This Bill has received bipartisan support. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. One moment. This measure is eligible for unanimous roll call. Any objection? Seeing None. ayes are 39, noes are zero. The measure passes. We're back to file item 239. This will be Senator Cortese. He's ready. Secretary please read

Assembly Bill 230. Assembly Bill 40 by Assembly Member Rodriguez an act relating to emergency services.

Thank you. Mr. President and colleagues. I appreciate the opportunity to present AB 40 on behalf of Assembly Member Freddie Rodriguez. AB 40 is a bipartisan Bill that takes several steps to prevent ambulance patient offload delays, also known as Wall Time, to ensure ambulances are available to respond to 911 calls for emergency medical services. This has been a problem for decades. According to a 2020 Emergency Services Medical Authority report, each year, roughly 70,000 Californians wait over an hour on an ambulance gurney once they arrive at the hospital. The authors worked on this issue for several years.

As a result, EMSA convened a walltime task force in November 2021. In June 2022, the EMSA Walltime Task force voted on 19 recommendations to mitigate ambulance patient delays. And this AB 40 codifies some of the most impactful recommendations therein, including better data collection. I would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Any debate Members see? None. Secretary, please call up Senator Eggman. Senator Eggman is recognized.

I wonder if the author would take a question?

Okay. This came through health committee and we heard it and it passed. And we made some amendments to it and asked that they continue to work on it. As anybody who's been in a hospital or an emergency room knows, they are busy places.

And while I believe that we have a real problem with our workforce and our ability to process things through, and I'm hoping a lot of the work that we've done these last couple of years are going to go far towards being able to address some of the issues that we find in our ERs. But currently, with what this Bill is doing, it's holding the hospitals 100% responsible for being able to offload people.

Hospitals aren't allowed to say what patients are coming in, who's coming in, what kind of staffing. We know we have staffing ratios they can only admit. And as we've talked earlier about, educators are supposed to educate, emergency rooms are supposed to triage. And when you triage, some folks wait. And we know that in our current system, with a lot of people not having access to primary health care, people use the 911 as a way to go to the hospital a lot of times.

And you could have somebody in there with a heart attack or a car wreck or something else. Somebody else comes in on an ambulance that doesn't appear to be as ill, it's very difficult for that hospital then to take that person. So what we ask for, and the hospitals realize this, and they work towards getting people offloaded as quickly as possible, it doesn't do anybody any good to have backups.

I know personally, I hate to go to the emergency room late at night on a weekend in my community because the ERs are packed. And as people have heard me say, I have a spouse with a lot of health problems. The 911 and transporting an ambulance and sitting in ERs is not foreign to me. And if you sit in there for a while and you see what goes on, we realize we have problems.

But I don't know, holding the hospitals 100% accountable for that timeline and who is accessing the ER at what time is totally fair. And so I asked about there being a phase in as hospitals work to be able to implement this. They're already trying to get here, but as they continue to work, it would have been, I think, helpful for a phase in. And that's what I asked for in committee. Is there any room to have some kind of phase in?

The Bill is being presented today. First of all, thank you through the chair, through the presiding officer. Thank you for the question and on behalf of the author, I'm not clear as to whether this was amended in or not, but there are no penalties or fines now in the Bill for exceeding the standard.

So basically, what will happen in terms of accountability is EMSA would be required to inform that the local standard was exceeded the previous month, and then they would have to engage, including the EMS providers, direct hospitals to implement the reduction protocol, host weekly calls with relevant stakeholders to reduce their delays, but again, no fines or penalties. So I think what it sets up is a forced roundtable discussion so that this issue doesn't slip off the radar like it evidently has over the years.

We don't know if this is going to work, but it's going to at least mandate accountability to have some dialogue if the numbers aren't aligning with what the Bill calls for.

Senator Caballero.

So I'm trying to understand the issue, not having heard it in committee. My concern was essentially that of my good friend from Stockton. As you know, I had a hospital in my district that closed this year, and we had a Senate committee that involves seven or eight senators that were at risk of losing their hospitals this year as well. And our goal was to make sure that they continued to operate post pandemic. And I had an opportunity this past month to visit another hospital. It's a large hospital in Fresno, and they probably had 50 emergency beds. Every single bed was full.

And as I walked around their emergency room, the largest emergency room I've ever seen, there was a bed outside of every single hospital emergency room that had an occupant. So not only was the emergency room full, but the hallway was full as well. And the inhumane part of it was that these people were in gowns already. They were waiting for beds to open up inside the hospital in order to move them in.

And they were subject to everybody's eyes walking through the emergency room, doing their personal business in front of everybody. It was difficult to see. And then this Bill comes along and I'm trying to figure out, how does it help my hospitals? One that hasn't opened back from being closed in January, the other one which has declared bankruptcy too, and is being helped out by another hospital that's come in and they're going to be merging.

And then this third one that has every single emergency room bed full. In an era when we just haven't had the ability to recover from the pandemic, and we're seeing more people go back into the hospital because of COVID it seems to me that the timing is absolutely wrong on this. And I have to tell you, I have the utmost respect for the firefighters. I think they're the responders. We want to show up when we have an emergency and they do an excellent job.

But I have a hard time understanding how putting the pressure on these hospitals at this particular point in time when they are also trying to figure out how they're going to meet our seismic safety requirements, how this makes sense. And so I don't know that I have a question for you.

As much as I'm really concerned with saying you've got to do this and then not having any mechanism that allows them, number one, to say, here are our extenuating circumstances, here's what has happened in our region. And there not being an off ramp where if they have a natural disaster or an emergency in the region that necessitates or that keeps them from meeting their goals, there's no off ramp. I guess the hard part I have is they're trying to do their best.

They don't want to be overcrowded. And I don't believe that the money is going somewhere where it shouldn't. So I'm just trying to figure out how this helps gets us to more emergency beds and a quicker offload time, because I know the ambulance services work really hard to offload their patients. They're interested in hitting the streets again and going out and saving somebody. They don't want to be sitting in a parking lot with a person inside. So maybe you can help me understand how this is going to make it possible.

Will you remind her to go through the chair?

Yeah. I'll take that as a question to try to help my understanding of the Bill in print, as noted, is it subsidy primarily forces a stakeholder conversation. It sets up data points that are uniform on questions like when was the arrival of the emergency Department? When was the patient care actually transferred? When were they back in service after the hospital? So everybody gets on the same page in terms of data.

Then there's a stakeholder discussion if the goal of 20 minutes isn't met. I think at one level, and I'm not trying to make this sound like it's magnanimous or great for the issue, Senator, that you brought up or you or the Senators brought up.

But the fact of the matter is the transparency in the stakeholder discussion around what really is the problem, if it's overcrowding, if it's a hospital that's, in effect, partially shut down or an emergency room that's, in effect been crippled by lack of staffing or financing, all of that's going to come out through this process.

And I think it'll lead to facilitating some of the other remedies that we've been looking at as a Legislature, like budget, like funding, like augmentation of some of these rural hospitals so that they can be staffed up enough to meet these target goals of 20 minutes turnaround.

But as it is right now, it seems to me we just don't have uniform data and we don't know in each and every case whether the cause is the examples that you just cited, in many cases, some cases or a few, we don't know that. But enacting this Bill will give us that information.

I have Senator Blakespear. Senator Ross. Senator Grove.

Thank you. I want to align myself with my two colleagues comments and concern for the hospitals. I'm particularly concerned about the fact that there are many people who want to save the cost of taking an ambulance and they drive themselves in or they walk in. And this will, by necessity, prioritize those who are in ambulances over everybody else. And that's really a big concern of mine.

I think that in reading this Bill and its evolution, my understanding of where it currently is is that there's the requirement that 90% of the time somebody in an ambulance would be brought into the hospital and dealt with within 30 minutes, 90% of the time. And what the hospitals are asking for seems very reasonable. It's the flexibility to have that phased in over three years.

So starting at 60%, 60% of people in ambulances will be brought in within 30 minutes, and then it would be phased in at 10% for the next three years, getting to 90%. So my question, if I may direct a question to the author, is, is this still something that is an ongoing discussion? I had understood that maybe this would be something that was accepted. I don't understand that it has been, but I just wanted to specifically clarify that before needing to take a vote today.

Thank you. Senator Cortese, will you take a question?

I will take a question, but I don't have the answer as to whether or not the author is continuing over the last week of session to conduct those phase in discussions. Again, I just want to reiterate that what the author is primarily trying to do is set up a standard of 30 minutes 90% of the time. In terms of response time.

As we know, whatever the excuses are, these are life and death seconds that are being talked about here. But at the same time, in a sense, rather than a phase in, he's created the altar's, created a stakeholder process that will allow for discussion and further remedies to come into play. I know there's no financial or fiscal penalty in the Bill at this point in time.

In some sense, I don't want to say it's making the phase in discussion moot, but by taking away any hard accountability like penalties, there's going to be two, three, four years of dialogue in many of these cases anyway, and hopefully it'll lead to some long term resolution.

Senator Roth.

Thank you, Mr. President. You know, before this gig, I did other things. And some of the things I did was serve on hospital boards over the decades. And I have to tell you, sitting on hospital boards and getting reports from hospital emergency departments and hospital CEOs, you know how old I am. This has been a problem for decades, decades. A problem that has been there, that has not been solved. And I'm not blaming anyone. It's a very complicated issue. And I'm not interested in punishing hospitals for this particular situation unless and until we decide that punishment is necessary and appropriate.

But, you know, it's caused by a variety of things, EMS staffing and ambulances. They don't hire enough paramedics. They have EMTs. The fire Department, the fire service is most often the first responder who's on the scene, the fire service with a paramedic. So the paramedic starts treatment on the individual that badly needs it, and it's paramedics providing the treatment. And the paramedics perform a different scope, work under a different scope of practice than EMTs.

So once the paramedic starts the treatment and the paramedic climbs into the ambulance to accompany the ambulance to the hospital, the paramedic cannot leave the gurney and leave the gurney and the patient with an EMT until the physician in the hospital or the appropriate hospital employee takes charge of the patient and starts to provide care.

So while this wall time is occurring, we have a paramedic who ought to be on the streets handling other calls, sitting in the hospital, hugging the wall until the paramedic is relieved to return to the fire service and the fire unit to hit the streets. We have a problem with staffing, hospital staffing, nurses, allied health professionals, in some cases physicians, maybe they're not hiring them. But also we know here in this floor that there's a problem with workforce in the healthcare arena.

So it's both hospital staffing and the availability of staffing to hire in these hospitals. And of course, we all know, some of us better than others, the lack of acute care inpatient psychiatric beds in this state, at least up to the present, the failure to appropriately deal with that. And we know that our emergency departments in this state are our de facto acute care inpatient hospital care facilities. Our emergency room physicians, our emergency room nurses have become psychiatrist, psychologists and psychiatric techs.

These are very, very complicated issues. You're not going to solve them overnight. I was one of the ones who asked for the off ramp or on ramp, whatever you want to call it, in the health committee. Apparently that doesn't seem to be feasible. I still support that.

But what I really support after decades and decades of this problem, one, not punishing hospitals, give them an opportunity to work it out, but that's what this Bill in part does because it requires and prompts a plan, the development of an emergency services plan to deal with this wall time. And it prompts discussion in local communities about how to solve this issue as we are attempting to solve the other problems that are really creating it.

The workforce shortage, the shortage of paramedics and EMS units, and of course, the acute care inpatient psychiatric capacity bed shortage that's forcing our emergency rooms to be packed with people that should be in other facilities. So this is clearly not a perfect Bill.

I would clearly rather have this ramp up be longer than 2024, maybe 25, maybe 26, because it's going to take a while to solve all these problems and roll out, hopefully some psychiatric bed bond money so we can expand that capacity if that happens to occur. But as it is, I think the planning and the study and the conversation is worthwhile, and I think we should do it. And I plan to vote I and I'd ask you to do so as well.

Senator Grove.

Thank you, Mr. President. What a difficult Bill. I aligned some of my colleagues with my colleague from Merced, who used to be from Salinas, but now she's from Merced under Redistricting. But we actually worked almost the first seven months of this year on hospital legislation because of the Madera closure and then me getting notification that Kuia and Ridgecrest specifically had less than 30 days worth of cash left in order to operate a hospital that serves 70% of our medical recipients in the state of California.

70% of the patients they see not in the state of California, but it's the highest, predominantly medical hospital. Without these hospitals, we don't have access to care. And even realistically, with these hospitals, there's not a lot of access to care because there's very few doctors and nurses to be able to treat individuals specifically in our rural communities. I get the point. On wall time, I echo my colleague from the Riverside area.

The bottom line is that do you really want a paramedic or an individual standing on the wall for hours at a time when they could be out there as a first responder helping some other constituent that's in a car wreck or had a stroke or a heart attack or some other reason that you call 911 on an ambulance?

This is a very tough situation to be in because anymore I really do feel like any more impacts that this body puts on our hospitals without off ramps to seismic and I'm not trying to make a condition here. But I'm just saying, like in Ridgecrest we had one of the largest earthquakes in the state of California in recent years.

And the only building part that was structurally sound is the old part that wasn't seismic retrofitted and everybody had to move out of the new part that was seismic retrofitted and approved. So I just think that the expense that's on our hospitals does not allow us to have adequate hospital services. I think hospitals are struggling. I think there's legislation going this building that is going to continue to put burdens on our hospitals that will limit the care that we have for our constituents.

But again, on the other side of the issue, do we really want first responders standing on the wall for hours at a time? Is 20 minutes unrealistic? Absolutely. I mean, if the average is 30 minutes 90% of the time, why would you adjust it to 20 minutes?

I realize that sometimes legislation like this goes through the building so that there can be some type of agreement or conversation that moves forward to come to some kind of alliance or understanding that the parties would come together and work it out themselves. But this is a very difficult situation. Going to stay off the Bill now. And the reason why I'm staying off the Bill is obviously because I see both sides of the issue.

But I am very concerned specifically for our rural hospitals about the mandates coming out of this building. And if we don't offer services to our rural communities, it's bad know, a lot of us have to drive for care services, cancer services. You have your Valley children's two and a half hours north or LA two and a half hours south and that's pretty hard to swallow when you can't afford gas money in the state of California and especially for our poor communities.

So I hope they can come to an agreement. It is a very difficult situation. I think, like I said, the hospitals have a point and absolutely our first responders. But that was a piece of legislation. Used to be ambulances that were on the first call.

And then Hertzberg passed a Bill that said that the fire Department would be, well, why don't we let the fire Department go back, be in the fire Department, and let our ambulances take care of those individuals, those ambulance companies take care of those individuals that get the 911 call. So that could be a possible solution. Anyways, thank you for listening to my arguments on both sides of this Bill and I'll be laying off.

Senator Seyarto.

So hopefully I can ease everybody's mind on this one just a little. I am struggling with this too. And the reason I'm struggling this because I know this firsthand. And the issue is on both sides, on the fire side, managing equipment and resources so that we maintain the coverage that we need to serve the public is really important and it's been impacted and sometimes by a great deal by this particular issue because we're taking squads and we're taking ambulances out of service for hours at a time, which means service delivery times for other areas start being impacted.

Trying to address this issue with the hospitals and EMS has not worked for the last 35 years, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this today. The hospitals themselves have been super impacted by the collapse of some of the trauma centers and things like that have left us with less hospitals serving more people. Litigation has created more crowded conditions inside ERs. There are staffing obligations that hospitals have to follow and so you can't load them with a patient and exceed their staffing requirements.

So there's a lot of moving parts here but this is the one part that I'm kind of landing on and I was a little dismayed because I think 90% in six months is a little much for them to do. But there is no financial penalty for that which means what they're going to be doing is having to report why they're not meeting that 90%.

And that is a question that we really need to get an answer for because that will help us eventually address and solve the problem or at least get the right resources into the right places so that the problem can be solved. If we don't move this Bill forward, then I fear nothing happens at all for another legion of time. For me, I am not blaming the hospitals for this. I'm sorry. It is not their fault.

Over the years, yeah, sometimes there's some internal conflicts, but those are few and far between. The real issues are the structural issues within our EMS and hospital systems that have clashed. And in order for us to solve those, the only way we can do it is to go forward, find out what those problems are.

So while this Bill did not do everything that I asked I was hoping for, because I was on the initial conversations with this and my one ask was this can't be solved on the backs of one agency or the other. This is an everybody get together and try to fix this. The 90% will give us I think it's a little much, but at least it'll get us the data that we need to figure out what is realistic and then it can be revisited.

If it moves off this floor, then we can at least hopefully they can have that conversation with the governor's office and maybe make some changes there to fix it, to address that part. So today I was going to lay off it, but I think we need to make this Bill go so that we can once and for all address this issue.

And so with that, I will leave it up to you to vote however your conscience says you should or however you think this problem can be solved. But I don't want to kick it back into another legislative process in a different year because we need to solve it now for the sake of our constituents. Thank you.

Senator Cortese, would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Look, the author, Assemblymember Rodriguez has proceeded with not only great effort, but great integrity. I think, on this Bill in terms of what was in the balance and what could be compromised and what couldn't be compromised. If the metric that's been established is 30 minutes, 90% of the time, for the author to come back and compromise that standard, which is an agreed upon standard by EMSA, would not be an appropriate compromise for the author to come in and say, let's phase something in that.

Hospitals and emergency providers, EMS are supposed to start reporting 15 months from now would be a compromise of integrity. Why shouldn't they start reporting their data 15 months from now? The only thing left which was a compromise with great integrity was to say, look, we'll amend out the fines and penalties in the Bill.

Nobody's going to get hurt by this, but we're going to bring everybody together to start drawing ultimate conclusions about what to do, particularly in those cases where at the end of 2024, December 31, 2024, we see that folks, by their own data, are not hitting their marks. I think it's a very, very good Bill.

I think it is the first time, as we have said over and over again in years, that somebody has been able to wade in legislatively and create a framework for going forward that really literally doesn't penalize anybody, but brings everybody to the table. And with that, I would urge an aye vote.

Secretary please call the roll.

Allen, Alvarado-Gil, Archuletta, Ashby, Atkins, Becker, Blakespear, Bradford, Caballaro, Cortese, Dahle, Dodd, Durazo, Eggman, Glazer, Gonzalez, Grove, Hurtado, Jones, Laird, Limon, McGuire, Menjivar, Min, Newman, Nguyen, Niello, Ochoa Bogh, Padilla, Portantino, Roth, Rubio, Seyarto, Skinner, Smallwood-Cuevas, Stern, Umberg, Wahab, Wiener, Wilk.

That'd be Senator Wiener. He's ready. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 251 by Assembly Member Ward an act relating to California Transportation Commission.

Weiner go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm presenting AB 251 on behalf of Assembly Member Ward. This Bill directs the California Transportation Commission to study the merits of a weight based passenger vehicle fee similar to those already in place in other states and already in place for commercial vehicles. In California, pedestrian fatalities from vehicle collisions are at their highest level since 1981. More than 7500 pedestrians, about 20 per day, are being killed by drivers on US.

Roadways, and heavier vehicles are contributing to this worrying trend while increasing wear and tear on our roadways. AB 251 simply implements a recommendation from the CTC's 2022 Annual Report to create a task force to analyze this issue and report back policy recommendations to this body. AB 251 will help the state develop policy solutions to confront the growing pedestrian safety crisis on our streets. Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate. Secretary please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins aye. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove no. Hurtado. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen no. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh no. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth aye. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Ayes are 30. Nose are nine. That measure passes. Members, we're going to take a five minute break. We come back, we'll go to part two part two of today's session. Please plan on being on the floor through up to about 05:00 please plan on being here at about 05:00 today. Five minute break.

Please call the absent Members.

Alvarado-Gil no. Hurtado. Stern aye.

Alright, Members, we are going to do Assembly Third Reading. Then we will move to unfinished business concurrence, and then we have two other sections to get through. So let's start with Assembly Third Reading File Item 131. This is going to be Senator Wiener. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill 1449 by Assembly Member Alvarez and Equity into Housing.

Senator Wiener.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Colleagues. I rise to present Assembly Bill 1449 on behalf of Assembly Member Alvarez. This bill provides that until 2033, there will be a sequel exemption for 100 percent affordable housing projects that fulfill infill labor and environmental protection standards. We're in the midst of a housing crisis which is causing deep damage to our state, particularly to middle class and lower income residents, and this bill will help address that crisis and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any discussion or debate? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Aye. Becker?Aye. Blakespear? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Dodd?Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? Niello? Ochoa Bogh? Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Stern? Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? Aye.

Please call the absent members.

Dahle? Aye. Grove? No. Limon? Nguyen? Niello? Aye. Ochoa Bogh? Aye. Portantino? Smallwood-Cuevas? Stern?

One moment. Ayes are 32, noes are two; that measure passes. Next up, File Item 225, Senator Portantino. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1406 by Assembly Member McCarty. An act relating to firearms.

Senator Portantino.

Thank you, Mr. President. Members, I rise. Presenting Assembly Member. McCarty's AB 1406. The measure, I believe, has received bipartisan support and gives the California DOJ an additional 30 days to notify a firearm dealer whether a gun purchaser is legally eligible to possess a gun if it is during a state of emergency, guaranteeing that the DOJ is 100% confident that a deadly weapon is given to a lawful resident. It's a top priority and a common sense proposal. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote on AB 1406.

Any debate? Seeing none. Secretary please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins aye. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove no. Hurtado aye. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh no. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio. Seyarto aye. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Please call the absent Members.

Alvarado-Gil. Nguyen no. Roth aye. Rubio. Smallwood-Cuevas.

Ayes are 29. Noes are eight. Measure passes. Next up. 227 Senator Wiener. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1451 by Assembly Member Jackson an act relating to healthcare coverage.

Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, I rise to present AB 1451. On behalf of Assembly Member Jackson, this Bill will require health plans to provide medically necessary treatment for emergency or urgent mental health and substance use disorder treatment. We're in the midst, as we know, and we've worked very hard on this, of a mental health crisis. And unfortunately, because of the lack of access to mental health and substance use treatment, far too many people are ending up in emergency situations. And we need to make sure that there's no question that these emergency treatment for behavioral health situations will be covered by insurance without prior authorization. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Any debate see none. Please call the roll on file item 227.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil aye. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins aye. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer aye. Gonzalez aye. Grove. Hurtado aye. Jones. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar aye. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen. Niello. Ochoa Bogh. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth aye. Rubio aye. Seyarto. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk aye.

Please call the absent members.

Dahle. Grove. Jones. Nguyen. Niello. Ochoa Bogh. Seyarto.

Ayes are 33, noes are zero. That measure passes. Next up, file item 283. Senator Dahle. Secretary please read.

Assembly Bill 1059 by Assembly Member Friedman and act relating to product safety.

Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Members. AB 1059 by Friedman allows us to take out--both the Federal Government and California have both set standards for flammability and mattresses. This bill basically takes out fiberglass, replaces it with other products that are still non-combustible but safe, and this bill is do--support. Support. I request an aye vote on this bill, please.

Any discussion or debates? Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen? Aye. Alvarado-Gil? Aye. Archuleta? Aye. Ashby? Aye. Atkins? Aye. Becker? Aye. Blakespear? Aye. Bradford? Aye. Caballero? Aye. Cortese? Aye. Dahle? Aye. Dodd? Aye. Durazo? Aye. Eggman? Aye. Glazer? Aye. Gonzalez? Aye. Grove? Aye. Hurtado? Aye. Jones? No. Laird? Aye. Limon? Aye. McGuire? Aye. Menjivar? Aye. Min? Aye. Newman? Aye. Nguyen? Niello? Ochoa Bogh? Padilla? Aye. Portantino? Aye. Roth? Aye. Rubio? Aye. Seyarto? Skinner? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Stern? Aye. Umberg? Aye. Wahab? Aye. Wiener? Aye. Wilk? Aye.

Please call the absent members.

Nguyen? No. Niello? Ochoa Bogh? Seyarto? No.

Ayes are 35, noes are three; that measure passes. Next up 296 would be Senator Allen. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 1322 by Assembly Member Friedman an act relating to pesticides.

I'd like to join my colleague from Bieber in presenting a Laura Friedman Bill. This is AB 1322. Adds difacinone to the existing rodenticide moratorium to better protect wildlife from unintended rodenticide poisoning, while maintaining exceptions for its use to protect public health, water supplies and agriculture. Recent evidence from our DFW, the Department of Fish and Wildlife suggests there's still widespread exposure and deaths to wildlife from rodenticides. Something like 3000 human poisonings a year as well.

AB 1322 requires that the Department of Pesticide Regulation enacts stronger permanent restrictions on difacinone as well as second generation rodenticides, and also makes difacinone a restricted material to ensure only trained professionals use this dangerous pesticide. It will protect public health, agriculture and the environment. There are a wide range of safer alternatives. Let's respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Wilk?

Thank you, Mr. President. This may be another freedmen Bill, but it is not support-support.

Any other discussion or debate. Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mr. President. Members. As a farmer who occasionally has to use these to protect our crops, I just want to say that we're moving in a direction I understand why we're trying to go that way, but we must, if we're really going to get focused on coagulants and these types of pesticides that we need in agriculture, we must go after the black market. Those who are having marijuana grows and using these.

That's the problem where we're getting most of our contaminations, not from liable good people who are regulated in the business. So I'm going to be a no on this vote. I think there's more work that needs to be done for the illicit market of people who are growing Marijuana and poisoning the wildlife out there, and there's nothing being done about it while we're penalizing people who actually need these, who are trying to store food in places where we really have to have it. So for those reasons, I'll be opposing this Bill.

Any other debate, Senator Allen? Would you like to close.

I appreciate the comments. I will say that there are lots of alternatives out there, and we know that the current use of diphaceanone is harming a lot of wildlife. It's actually harming human beings as well. For that reason that I enthusiastically support this Bill and ask for an aye vote.

Secretary, please call the roll.

Allen aye. Alvarado-Gil no. Archuleta aye. Ashby. Atkins aye. Becker aye. Blakespear aye. Bradford aye. Caballero aye. Cortese aye. Dahle no. Dodd aye. Durazo aye. Eggman aye. Glazer. Gonzalez aye. Grove no. Hurtado no. Jones no. Laird aye. Limon aye. McGuire aye. Menjivar. Min aye. Newman aye. Nguyen no. Niello no. Ochoa Bogh no. Padilla aye. Portantino aye. Roth. Rubio aye. Seyarto no. Skinner aye. Smallwood-Cuevas aye. Stern aye. Umberg aye. Wahab aye. Wiener aye. Wilk no.

Please call the absent Members.

Glazer no. Menjivar aye. Roth.

Ayes are 28. Noes are eleven. That measure passes. Members, we're now going to go to unfinished business and concurrence. And we'll start with file item 46. Senator Caballero. Secretary, please read.

Senate Bill 599 by Senator Caballero and acquisition to child custody.

Senator Caballero.

Mr. President and Members, SB 599 is back from the Assembly for concurrence. The amendments taken in the Assembly resolve a conflict with an Assembly Bill and add double jointing language to avoid chaptering out issues. Thank you. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.