Assembly Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning. Welcome to the Committee on Public Safety Assembly. We're waiting for a quorum. Mr. Lackey and I are on the on time caucus and we are here, so we're waiting for other members to get here. We have three items, but before that, I must read the following. All witness testimony will be in person. There will be no phone testimony option for this hearing. You can find more information on the committee's website, assembly.ca.gov/committees. We'll be hearing measures and sign in order. We appreciate your patience. Main witnesses will have a combined time of five minutes per side, including authors. Except for... we have Wahab and Essayli for SJR... wait, no, which one you want to do first?

The SJR of you and I, and...

Then I think you mean the SJR 7, ours?

Yes.

It's whether or not I come down there and we present together or... I feel lazy today, so I'll stay up here. Okay, you may have a seat. We'll do SJR 7 first.

Thank you.

Whenever you're ready.

Thank you. Good morning, chair and members. A recent report from Attorney General Rob Bonta's office stated that if the firearm mortality rate in the rest of the United States had matched Californians between 2013 and 2022, there would have been nearly 140,000 fewer firearm-related deaths nationwide in that decade alone. Clearly, California has been leading on how to reduce gun deaths, but our work and our lives are now at risk. The 2022 Supreme Court decision in the Brune case limits our ability to enact reasonable restrictions on public carry of firearms and impacts our ability to enforce and maintain existing gun laws. I support the Second Amendment and an individual's right to bear arms, but if the Supreme Court is going to dramatically expand the right to buy, own and carry firearms, we deserve also to have basic safeguards to protect us against the violence they can cause. To that end, I believe in the balance provided by the four common-sense regulations in this resolution. Recent polls show a majority of Americans across the political spectrum, including gun owners, support this resolution that calls for a limited constitutional convention to enact these regulations in the United States Constitution, and it has been carefully drafted to be nullified should the scope of the convention go beyond the specified measures. We have an opportunity for California to continue to be a leader on gun safety, not just for Californians, but for the nation. And I hope that you will join me in this effort. Today, I'm joined with Mary Duplat, who is here to share her story as a survivor of gun violence. We also have available, if you have any questions, with Ari Frelek from the California Department of Justice. I will now turn over to my colleague if you would like to mention anything and then so forth.

You know what? I'll wait till the end, because I have a final word. Whenever you're ready to begin.

All right. My name is Mary Duplat. I'm going to talk a little fast because I have a bit to say. My name is Mary Duplat, and I'm a gun violence survivor. My daughter, Lorna Clark, left for college but never came back home. Lorna died in 1988 at age 19 after she was shot and killed by her boyfriend in Chico, California. She was a beautiful, talented young woman, an artist, an actress and a dancer. In the year before her death, Lorna was accepted into the first California Summer School for the Arts. There, she was recruited by several colleges and Lorna chose Chico State. It was such an exciting time for her. She moved to Chico, but she never got to attend a single class. She never got to have a family, and she never got to reach for her dreams. Her life was senselessly cut short by a gun. The last time I saw Lorna in person was here at the state capitol where she was testifying before a legislative committee on behalf of the California State Summer School for the Arts, and her art was on display. On that day, I got my last hug from my daughter. I worked to honor my daughter and to give gun violence survivors, families and youth a voice as they fight for safety in California. California leads the nation in the fight against gun violence, yet there is still more work to be done. Under Governor Newsom and the state legislature, California has become a leader in the fight against gun violence. Governor Newsom, Senator Wahab and Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer's proposed constitutional amendment is another example of unyielding commitment to ending gun violence in California and across the country. California gun safety policies are overwhelmingly popular amongst the American public. Laws to keep guns out of dangerous hands and keep assault weapons off our streets are critical to saving lives. That's why we've seen other states from California to Illinois, taking action to pass comprehensive legislation to address the same kinds of policies Governor Newsom is talking about. Our nation is a patchwork of laws, and the reality is we're only as safe as our neighboring states. Lawmakers at every level of government, from Congress to state legislatures to city councils must take action to save lives. I am truly grateful to be here with you all, and I ask you to vote in favor of this monumentous, gun violence prevention resolution. Right to Safety. SRJ 7. Thank you.

Thank you. And just for the record, we're beginning as a subcommittee until we get more members to get a quorum. Thank you for being here. Assemblymember Bonta. Now we'll open it up to anyone else have comments. Name and organization?

Izzy Swindler on behalf of Mayor London Breed of San Francisco in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else with any comments? Anyone in comments for? We're going to go to the comments in opposition in about one second. Okay? Are there any comments in opposition?

No, I'm in comments for. I'm the CEO of Starlink, a nonprofit organization. I think it's wrong to have a guns, but... actually, it is right to have a gun, but it's wrong at the same time because you don't want to use it too much because then it gets people hurt and it hurts the environment.

Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for your comment. Thank you for coming today. Is there anyone else in opposition or tweener or just want to say something? Yes.

Mr. Chair. Michael Pimental here on behalf of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors in opposition.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the committee for questions or comments. Mr. Lackey?

Yeah, I'll save most of my remarks for the floor, but I do believe that, once again, we do have a problem with behavior, with a gun, but to focus on the right to defend oneself, I think is the inappropriate approach to our problem. I do agree that there's a problem, and it's very, very serious. But when we disassociate behavior and focus solely on the possession of the gun, we're missing the mark. And so I'll speak to this a little further on the floor, but I won't be able to support this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lackey. Anyone else? You may close. Oh, may it close.

Thank you. Well, I do just want to say that the United States is seeing an average of one mass killing a week, and they have become so commonplace that the media barely does cover it. We also know that firearms are the leading cause of death for children under the age of 18. Now, I stated earlier that I do believe in the Second Amendment, but at the same time, we as lawmakers deserve, and it is our responsibility to create laws that protect more and more people. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And as a co-author, I am extremely proud to not only be a co-author with you, Senator Wahab, but I think we should be proud of our governor who brought us both together to move this forward to start this national conversation on four tenets that I believe, and I think you believe that most Americans would agree as sensible laws that will help people, help our witness prevent further catastrophes that have been going on. And I think it's just so important that, as you mentioned earlier, that this does not inhibit or harm the Second Amendment. There is, when you read the Second Amendment, it talks about how we need to have rules and regulations so we're not just doing this at will. I just remember reading about Wyatt Earp going to Jazz City. Everybody had a gun. Everybody was shooting, and he was trying to figure out, how do you bring, it was lawless, just out of control. He's trying to come up with a way to make sure that innocent people wouldn't get hurt. And so he didn't take people's weapons away from him permanently. He just said, while you're in town, could you just holster your gun and leave it here in the marshal's office? And when you leave, you can come and get it and go away. And crime went down dramatically, murders went down dramatically. And I think that's kind of what we're talking about. How do we work to make sure that individuals, especially individuals who started out because when you look at the mass murderers, if we look at their history, many of them started out as law-abiding citizens, if not all of them. And these law-abiding citizens, if we may have had some of these in place, we may have been able to pick up that there were some issues that we needed to address before we issued them lawfully issued them weapons and firearms. And so I think it's in that vein that we're not trying to stop people from exercising our Second Amendment rights. We're trying to make sure that it's done in a way that everything... and then lastly, there was a discussion even yesterday on my floor, which has been hotly debated on this floor, about concealed carry, where it was mentioned from the other side there may have been just one concealed carry violation or incident. One. I would attribute it to the fact that we probably had the best concealed weapons regulations, having law enforcement as partners to make sure that people who do carry concealed weapons are the right people. And we don't give them the criminals. We don't give them the people who may have some psychological problems. And I think that is proof that a law like that can work to keep people safe. And so with that in mind, not only have I signed on as co-author, but hopefully we can get this message out to everyone else that what we're really trying to do is make people safe. This is about the Safe Act. With that, chairs recommend, I don't have a quorum yet. I do. One, two who am I missing? 1,2,3,4, oh 5. Okay, let's go ahead and take roll.

Jones-Sawyer. Here. Alanis. Here. Bonta. Here. Bryan. Lackey. Here. Ortega. Here. Santiago. Zbur.

Okay. Chairs recommend the aye, call the roll. I need a motion. I'm sorry need a motion. We have a motion. A second. Call the roll.

SGR 7 by Senator Wahab. The motion is to be adopted. Jones-Sawyer. Aye. Alanis. No. Bonta. Aye. Bryan. Lackey. No. Ortega. Aye. Santiago. Zbur.

The measures on call. We need some more members to come here. We'll now take up AJR 8, Essayli, and we're going to allow my esteemed colleague from the red carpet, the Chair of Senate Public Safety, to also make comments.

Good morning, Mr. Chair. Would you like me to begin?

Yes, whenever you're ready to begin.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Today I'm here to present AJR 8, which calls on the federal government to refrain from reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This act allows for the government to gather and use information without a warrant, which is then used to prosecute and incarcerate individuals, and in a lot of cases, Americans. Section 702 is sold to the public as a tool to combat terrorism, designed for surveillance of foreign individuals that possess foreign intelligence information.

The term is so vague, it has been interpreted broadly, resulting in mass surveillance of any American citizen who has contact with any foreigner. Since 911, Muslims have been disproportionately targeted by Section 702 and multiple court cases have concluded these warrantless searches were in fact, unconstitutional. In fact, the United States government has a track record of misusing surveillance capabilities to target marginalized groups, political dissidents, political candidates and activists in the past, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Caesar Chavez.

The information obtained by Section 702 is stored in a database for years and in some cases indefinitely, where the FBI, CIA and NSA routinely search through them to gain information on American citizens. They literally rummage through this anytime they want. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and generally requires a warrant to be issued upon probable cause only. Section 702 is a direct attack on our Fourth Amendment and was created specifically to bypass traditional judicial safeguards.

In a recently unclassified court ruling, it was found that between 2000 and 2021, the FBI misused their surveillance capabilities by more than 278,000 times. That number isn't since the implementation that's just for that one year. The government uses Section 702 for domestic surveillance under the guise of proactively, preventing national security threats, allowing for warrantless collection of American citizen information. This has been used to monitor and track Americans and strips citizens of their right to privacy.

AJR 8 simply urges the US Congress to refrain from reauthorizing it. It's expiring this year, so unless Congress affirmatively reauthorizes it, it will expire by default. So what we're asking today is a resolution imploring Congress to not reauthorize it. This resolution has no opposition. It is supported by Council on American Islamic Relations, it's supported by Oakland Privacy, and we worked in collaboration with the ACLU on drafting the language of the Bill.

Presenting with me today Senator Wahab, chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, who is also a principal co author of AJR 8. Thank you.

Thank you. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you. The Fourth Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. We have protocols that the government agents must follow to access our emails, texts, or even social media direct messages. If the government wants to look at our private communications, they need a warrant, plain and simple. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has eroded those protocols and government trust.

At the time when this was enacted, we understand that we were looking to be at war and obviously needed more additional information. However, 22 years later, we need to kind of close these loopholes. While Section 702 was intended to be used for counterterrorism purposes, it slowly has been allowed to cast a much wider net. Today, ordinary Americans are being surveilled on a massive scale under the auspices of Section 702.

Our constitutional rights are being violated because of Section 702, the protests of the summer of 2020, even the groundswell of labor efforts of this summer are being subjected to illegal and unconstitutional surveillance. Congress has the power to stop or even end Section 702. And AJR 8 would call on Congress to require agencies to obtain a warrant before searching information from American communications. This is a bipartisan issue and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in favor of the resolution would like to comment in the room? Seeing none. Is there anyone in opposition to AJR 8? Seeing none. Bring it back to Committee for comments. For questions. I have a motion do I have a second? When we have a second bipartisan. And we'll bring it back to the Committee for questions. Were there any questions or comments? Seeing none. You may close.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to close from a personal context. I think we look historically in America when people have fear, they often want to clamp down and erode some of our civil liberties. I just think that's wrong. It was wrong when it happened to Japanese Americans after World War II and it was wrong when it happened to Muslim Americans after 2011.

I can remember the day after 911 where instantly, I won't speak for anyone else but me myself was automatically looked at with suspicion, whether it was at school or anywhere else, just because of who I was. And so having the government view particular people with a lens of suspicion is not only wrong, it's un-American.

And so regardless of what the intentions are, we just cannot have these types of systems that expose people to a two standard tier of justice where if you're in one group of society, you get instantly targeted, searched. All your emails and stuff are looked at and they look for any little excuse to target you and prosecute you. And I know this for a fact. Having been a formal prosecutor, Lebanese men of Muslim descent are of great interest to the federal government.

So it is personal for me, and I think I'm grateful that this is bipartisan and we can send a strong message to our fellow electeds in Congress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Senator, just for clarity, because I always like to make sure we have clarity here in the Committee. During Martin Luther King's time, I don't think there was a FISA, as was said it before, but it was A-J-E-H rule. J Edgar Hoover, who erroneously accused Martin Luther King of being a communist and subsequently did the same thing, went after him, bugged him, did a whole lot of things.

They made a lot of false comments about him to then. So I'm in sympathy. I just want to make sure we linked up our timelines together and so that we're talking apples to apples. So with that, we have a first and a second cold roll.

AJR 8 by Assembly Member Essayli. The motion is to be adopted. John Sawyer, aye. Alanis, aye. Bonta, aye. Bryan, absent. Lackey, not voting. Ortega, aye. Santiago, absent. Zbur, absent.

That measures on call.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

AB 709, McKinnor Criminal History Information is next today. Thank you, Assembly Member McKinnor, whenever you're ready to begin. Welcome Public Safety Committee.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm here to present AB 709. AB 709 allows for a public prosecutor to provide a list containing the case number and the names of the defendant and the peace officer in order to facilitate an expedite, notifying counsel representing other criminal defendants whose cases may involve testimony of expulitory evidence or impeachment evidence involving that peace officer. Overall, this Bill would allow prosecutors to make Brady disclosures in a much more timely and efficient manner.

It will also assist prosecutors with expediting our constitutionally mandated Brady obligation. I have Dan Felizzatto from the LA DA's office with me to testify.

Whenever you're ready. Begin.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Members. Dan Felizzato. On behalf of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, we are pleased to sponsor AB 709. As the Assemblywoman said, AB 709 will help expedite and make our required Brady notifications a more timely and efficient manner, which will benefit both the prosecutors and, of course, the criminal defendants. We are obligated under the Constitution to notify defense counsel anytime we discover that there is potential Brady information. This process could involve hundreds of cases in LA County.

We are required to make thousands of these Brady notifications each year. In our experience, 85% to 90% of the cases are handled by the public defender or the alternate public defender. But because of the mechanism that we are required to use today, it takes anywhere from six to 10 months on average, from the time we make our Brady determination until defense counsels are notified. Under AB 709, we will dramatically reduce that time in order to make these notifications.

And for some defendants, that will be incredibly beneficial, because there will be some defendants, based on the Brady information, who deserve and will be, if they're in custody, either released from custody if they have a case pending. That case will be dismissed. That will be the exception. But in those cases, that will be very important. And AB 709 will speed that up by almost a year, which obviously is in society's best interest. And for that reason, we ask for your support today.

Thank you. Are there any others in support of AB 709? Seeing none. Anyone in opposition to AB 709? Seeing none. Bring it back to the Committee for any comments or questions. We have a motion and second seeing no comments. You may close.

This Bill has received bipartisan support. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. And the chair is recommending an aye vote. Madam Secretary. Call the roll.

AB 709. Assembly Member Mckinnor, the motion is to concur in Senate amendments. Jones-Sawyer, aye. Alanis, aye. Bonta, aye. Bryan, absent. Lackey, aye. Ortega, aye. Santiago, absent. Zbur, absent.

That measure passes.

Thank you.

Thank you. We still have two measures that are on call, SJR 7 and AJR 8. I don't know if I need I've been told I have a lot of power. I didn't know I did. I need to find out, maybe from the clerk, if I need to go out and have sergeants find the absent members and bring them here because we have business to conduct. I don't want to overstep my authority. So if someone can get an answer to that question, that would be important. But most important, hopefully, the absent members come here soon. We will keep the roll open until they arrive. And to make it clear, that would be Assemblymembers Santiago, Assemblymembers Bryan and Assemblymember Zbur. We will recess for a few minutes until the absent members are here. We're back into committee. We have two more items. SJR 7, which is on call, and the AJR 8. Call to roll of absent members. Okay, we're about to call you in.

For agenda item one, AB 709 by Assemblymember McKinnor. The motion is to concur in senate amendments. Bryan. Santiago. Santiago aye. Zbur. Aye. Zbur, aye. Agenda item two, AJR 8 by Assemblymember Essayli. The motion is to be adopted. Bryan. Santiago.

Yeah, I didn't have a chance to, but I think in the interest of it moving out...

Santiago, aye. Zbur.

I echo Mr. Santiago's comments. In the interest of voting, of allowing it to proceed without having vetted this, I'll vote aye.

Zbur aye.

That measure passes.

Agenda item three, SJR 7 by Senator Wahab. The motion is to be adopted. Bryan. Santiago. This is agenda item 3, SJR 7 by Senator Wahab. The motion is to be adopted.

That's the constitutional amendment for guns.

Santiago aye. Zabur. Aye. Zabur, aye.

That measure passes. There are no other agenda items. Thank you. For the two members. We have one more member that's probably calling, and we'll see if so, we'll stand in recess again for a few more minutes. And we're now adjourned.

Jones-Sawyer, here. Alanis, here. Bonta, absent. Bryan, absent. Lackey, here. Ortega, here. Santiago, absent. Zbur, here.

You may begin. Just let you know, Mr. Kalra, you have a motion and a second. You can only make it worse.

I'll cut my comments down from seven pages to five. AB 58 is a simple Bill that would extend the sunset date of the Young Adult Deferred Entry Program until January 1, 2026. Program authorizes selected counties Alameda, Butte, Nevada and Santa Clara counties to allow young adults between 18 and 25 years of age who have committed a nonviolent felony to voluntarily enter into the program that will offer age appropriate services in the juvenile system.

Evidence has shown that these individuals are still undergoing significant brain development that could lead them to make impulsive decisions and result in a felony conviction, jeopardizing any opportunities for them in the future. By extending the sunset date by two years, AB 58 allows pilot counties to continue offering this program to give transitional age youth the best opportunity to receive age appropriate services as the state evaluates its impact for future action. I sincerely ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Do you have any witnesses? Is anyone in support of AB 58? Please take the mic. Name and organization, please.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in support? We'll now go to opposition. Is there any opposition in the audience? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to Committee Members for comments, statements or questions. Seeing none. We've already moved on.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and Members. Brian Maramantes with Ask Me California in support.

I'm very excited about this Bill. Thank you so much for bringing it forward.

Call the roll. You get to make the final statement.

Well, I ask for an aye vote.

Call the roll.

AB 58 by Assembly Member Kalra. The motion is to concur in Senate amendments. Jones-Sawyer, aye. Alanis, not voting. Bonta, aye. Bryan, absent. Lackey, not voting. Ortega, aye. Santiago, absent. Zbur, aye. Aye. Alanis? Alanis? Not voting.

It's on call. We're waiting for two more Members. No, one more Member. Two more.

Bryan and Santiago.

Well, we only need one more vote, right?

Yes.

Okay, so we will go into recess waiting for this additional Member. Let's finish calling a role for absent members.

Bonta. Bryan. Santiago.

Okay, so we'll go into recess until they get there, and then we'll finish the vote.

We're back in session. Call the roll.

AB 58 by Assembly Member Kalra. The motion is to concur in Senate amendments. Brian Santiago, aye.

I think you got to call him. Whether or not he's here. Take the role first.

Yes.

We just did the role.

Present.

Here, okay. The last time they had me do the role and then have you vote. Okay, go ahead. The measure passes. Thank you. We'll now officially close Assembly Public Safety Committee.