Senate Floor

Secretary, please call the roll

[Roll Call]

Members, a quorum is present. Would the Members and our guests beyond the rail and in the gallery please rise. We will be led in prayer this morning by our chaplain, Sister Michelle Gorman, after which, please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

As we gather in the presence of the holy. May we relate to the song of the builders in this short poem by Mary Oliver. On a summer morning, I sat down on a hillside to think about God, a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket. It was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope it will always be like this.

Each of us going on in our inexplicable ways, building the universe, creator of mystery and wonder, grant that this day we may go about our work with the humble effort of the cricket and the joy of being human. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Members and guests, please join us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

Thank you to the students who joined us here today. That was fabulous. It was great to hear your voices. We're honored to have you join us. Welcome to the Senate. We're going to move on in our agenda. Please. Under privileges of the floor, there are none. Messages from the Governor will be deemed read, messages from the Assembly will be deemed read, reports of Committee will be deemed read, and amendments adopted. Moving on to motions, resolutions and notices. The following Bill.

Pursuant to rule 29, point 10 c, the following bills are referred to the Committee on Rules. Item number one, AB 610. Senator Wiener, I understand you have a notice.

Thank you, Madam President. I arrived to submit a letter to the Senate Daily Journal. On behalf of myself and Senator Stern. We're submitting this letter to clarify the intent of SB 253 and SB 261 as it relates to wholesale electricity transactions operated by the California independent system operator. The letter has been cleared by both sides of the aisle.

Very good, Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Madam President. Members, even though Republicans do not oppose this letter, we oppose the bills. Republicans have no objection to the letter, as it adds clarification to ensure that the lights stay on when we need power. However, I wanted to point out that we should have addressed these issues last year. Instead of hastily rushing bills through to make political headlines and get them right the first time.

So for those reasons, I wanted to just make sure that, you know, our side of the aisle is watching closely. And that we need to vet these bills properly in the first place. Thank you.

Very good. This is with unanimous consent. Thank you very much, Members, we're going to move on. And if I could ask you to keep the noise down. If you have something you want to say, please go off the floor. So that we can get through our agenda today. The next item is introduction and first reading of bills.

Secretary, please read Senate Bill 986.

Members are going to move on to consideration of the daily file. Second reading. File. Secretary, please read Assembly Bill 610. Members are going to move on to the governor's appointment. We have three items. We'll start with item number two. Senator Grove. She is prepared.

Thank you, Madam President. Could you please ask the former secretary of natural resources. To stop distracting me and take his seat?

It's so ordered.

Thank you. Colleagues, file item number two. Is a confirmation of Harry Lagrande. For the appointment of the California Community College Board of Governors. Mr. Legrand is a longtime career in higher education Administration. Working three decades in student services and housing for UC Berkeley. So the budget chair should be 100% in favor. And he is currently in the special consultant at San Francisco State University. He was approved by the Rules Committee. On January 24 in a unanimous vote. Respectfully asked for your I vote.

Members, is there any discussion or debate? Any discussion or debate? Seeing none, please call the roll. And if I can remind you to please take your conversations off the floor. Please call the roll.

Allen. Aye Alvarado, Gill, Archuleta aye Ashby aye Atkins aye Becker aye Blakespear aye Bradford aye Caballero aye Cortese aye Dahle aye dar aye Durazo aye Eggman aye Glazer aye Gonzalez Grove aye Hurtado aye Jones aye Laird aye Limon aye Mcguire aye Menjivar aye Min aye Newman aye Min. Aye Niello aye ochoabo Padilla aye Portantino aye Roth aye Rubio aye Seyarto aye Skinner aye Smallwood-Cuevas aye Stern aye Umberg aye Wahab aye Wiener aye Wilk. Hot.

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes, 38. No, zero. The appointment is confirmed. Moving on to file item number three. Senator Grove is prepared.

Thank you, Madam President. File item three, colleagues, is the confirmation of Mary solace. To the Member of the Community College Board of Governors. Former Assembly Member Ms. Solace has served as mayor and City Council Member for the City of Chula Vista. She was approved by the Rules Committee on January 24 on a unanimous vote. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Blakespear.

Thank you. I just want to put in a good word for Mary Salas. I served with her in local government. She's excellent. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Any other discussion or debate? Saying none, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

39. No, zero. The appointment is confirmed. Moving on to file item number four, Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam President, colleagues. Item number four is the confirmation of Sheriff Jim Cooper for appointment to the Commission of peace officer Standards and Training, or post sheriff. Cooper currently serves as a Sacramento county sheriff. He's a former Assembly Member and also previously served as mayor and City Council Member of Elk Grove. He was approved on the Rules Committee on January 24 on a unanimous vote. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Ashby.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to rise in support of former Assembly Member Jim Cooper, now sheriff of Sacramento County, a person who has served in the Legislature with many of you and has done a great job in and around the city and County of Sacramento in service to people and my constituents. Urgent I vote.

Thank you. Any further discussion or debate? Saying none, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Ayes 36. No, zero. The appointment is confirmed. Members are going to move on to Senate third reading. First item we're going to take up is file item number 10. Senator Allen is prepared.

Please read Senate Bill a 63 by Senator Allen Enacrilane to elections.

Senator Allen, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President. Members, the Legislature has the ability to propose bonds, certain legislative measures, and amendments to the constitution to the California State Constitution for voter approval at a statewide election. State law currently allows the Legislature to specify in a bond or other legislative measure at which statewide election it will appear before voters. But due to a unique process that I got to know last year, the same flexibility does not exist for proposed constitutional amendments.

And so this Bill seeks to streamline the process and allow the Legislature to specify an election for constitutional amendment to appear before voters without accompanying legislation, just like we do with bonds and other legislative measures. With that, I respectfully ask for my vote.

Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam President. I have some helpful amendments at the desk.

Very good. Secretary, please read amendments my Senator Grove. Set one.

Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, I respectfully request to amend SB 863 to delete the PUC's authority to establish an income based fixed rate charge passed by AB 205 in 2022. In April 2023, the Republican caucus raised concern with proposals to create an income graduated fixed charge and requested the California PUC reject a proposal that unfairly targets hardworking families in all of our districts.

Several months later, 22 Democrat Members, 22 Members of Democrat Members of the Assembly and one in the Senate also raised similar concerns, siding with us on the Republican side of the aisle about implementing this policy. California has the nation's third largest energy cost. We are creating energy poverty in the State of California, where bills are not sustainable. For the average californian, electricity rates have been rising three times faster than inflation. I believe it's up to 6.8%.

There is not one person that I know of in the State of California who got a 6.8% wage increase to help cover these costs. Energy costs are simply too high, and California should not have to choose between putting food on their table or paying their utility bills. Again, energy poverty is striking us and every person in our district. Respectfully, for these reasons, I respectfully ask for your. I vote on these amendments.

Majority Leader Mcguire, thank you so much.

Madam President, good morning. There is legislation on this exact subject today. These amendments are not germane to the Bill. Respectfully would ask to lay the amendments on the table and would respectfully ask.

For, and I vote the motion is to lay the amendments on the table. It is non debatable. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

Aye. 31 no's, 8 the amendment. The amendment to lay on the table is granted. Moving on to the Bill. In chief, is there any discussion or debate on the Bill? Any discussion or debate? Saying none. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes, 30, noes, 7. The measure passes, Members, we're going to move on to file item number 16. Senator Skinner, she is prepared.

Please read Senate Bill 254 by Senator Skinner Inacc. Relating to correctional facilities.

Thank you, madam President. Members, SB 254 pleased to present it. I recently took cost cutting amendments which removed county and local jails from the Bill. So the Bill now only applies to our state prisons. And as a result, our sheriffs, the California State Sheriff's Association, has removed their opposition to the Bill. What SB 254 does is provides journalists limited access to our California prisons. It also opens access to Members of the Legislature, the governor's office, and other state officials.

Senator Skinner, the floor is yours.

I actually knew which crime that was. It was really interesting for the warden to watch that interaction. But we can see what's going on in the prisons. What we don't need is more information coming out from a media eager, and especially nowadays, eager to paint our correctional facilities and officers as bad. Our law enforcement people is bad. I have a problem right now with media entrusting everything they say. They're not as unbiased as they used to be, although they will tell us they are.

Prior to the 1990s, California allowed much more press access to our prisons. What SB 254 does is align California with many other states that provide access like this, including Florida, Maine, Rhode Island and others. And what this access allows us to do is, for example, Members of the Legislature. We can get key info about the effectiveness of rehabilitative programs, the conditions, say, at our facilities, the mental health services that are provided. So let me say specifically what it allows our news media to do.

It allows them to tour a prison and to interview incarcerated people during tours, in prearranged interviews. So they have to be arranged in advance. There has to be consent by the incarcerated individual and okay by the facility. And if the prison authorities determine that the tour or the interview poses an immediate or direct threat to the safety or security of the institution, they can deny it.

SB 254 is sponsored by the California News Publisher Association and the California Broadcasters Association and is supported by dozens of news media organizations. And with that, I ask for your aye vote. Is there any discussion or debate on this item? Any discussion or debate, Senator Ciarto?

Thank you, Madam President. On this issue, I'm really kind of torn because we hear that there are safeguards to the process of entering a prison and having media access our prison population and being able to interview them. But part of those safeguards, it seems like when we put this into practice, that's not what happens.

And what happens is misinformation leaks out when we get interviews with prisoners who, some of which have some severe credibility issues, when their word is taken out and put out into the media for us to consume, without a review of the staff or the warden, we wind up getting misinformation about what's going on in prisons. I've been on several prison tours. I've had no problems accessing those.

That is the best time to be able to see what's going on, because you can see with your eyes, you realize that, yes, there is somewhat of a dog and pony show that might be going on, but that's what our job is, is to discern whether that is actually occurring or not. But you can see the condition of the prisons, then that's what we should be concerned about. You can tell by the results of what's going on, whether they're being effective or not, whether our programs.

There's no doubt. We all know it. We need to improve the way we run our incarceration system so that people that can be rehabbed can be rehabbed, and that people that aren't can't. And we can continue to work with them, and we can continue to keep them separated from the population who they've victimized. So I don't see this as a necessary item for the press to gain even more access than they probably already do.

I think the wardens are the best persons to allow for us to understand what the conditions are going on in the prison. I did get to talk to inmates when I went there, including inmates that were in solitary confinement and inmates that were on death row. And they speak freely, believe me. But we can also discern what's not true and what is true by what they're saying. The inmate I happen to speak to happened to commit a crime in an area that I worked in.

And that's my concern. I think we have the access we need. I think we need to work on our prison system. And I'm glad, thank you for taking the amendments for the correctional, I mean, the sheriffs and the local county facilities, because they simply can't afford to take resources away from their already stretched issues, from the realignment of our prisons to be able to accommodate this type of activity.

And then one last thing, one thing to remember, and it's kind of like in fire stations, we had to remember that that's also where the guys lived. And so while the public was always welcome to come visit the fire station, it probably was discouraged that they drop in at 11:00 at night. That's their house. That's where they do get their privacy.

And when that privacy winds up being invaded by outsiders who are trying to find a story or trying to create an issue, that's not fair to them sometimes, especially in some of these issues. The incident when I talked to the young man that was in solitary, he didn't want people to know where he was. And for them to be able to come in and video and have that kind of invasion of these folks privacies, I think that's wrong, too.

If we want to make our prisons less onerous and more respectful and more humanistic, then that's something that we need to consider. For now, that's their house, and we have the access we need to do our job, and the media has it when they need it. So I don't think that this Bill is necessary. So I would urge a no vote on it. Thank you.

Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Madam President. I think the only thing I agree with the Senator from Ureta is that we need to change our prison systems, because everything else, I think needs to change. I, like him, have visited various locations throughout the state in the past couple of months, from juvenile halls to women corrections facilities.

Recently, the Legislative Women's Caucus went to the Chowchilla location for the women's prison because a correctional officer raped a majority of the women there, and it was being hidden by the warden that was in place there. So when we talk about a system that is paramilitary, you're always going to look after your own. You need to ensure, when you're looking to obtain unbiased information, that you get information from all sides of the table.

In that conversation that we had with so many of the residents there, the women there, it was about the fear of retaliation if they said something. Currently, when you report sexual assault, it's being reviewed by the same peers of the individual that commits that act. There is no unbiased individual to address any kind of case like that. This Bill from the Senator of Berkeley is so important to ensure that we protect our residents of these prisons.

I represent a district that has La County's worst Juvenile Hall, Barry J. Nydrof, where a kid overdosed and died because a probation officer did not do his rounds during the night, a death that could have been prevented. Another location in La County was running a fight club with our youth, and just eight probation officers were put on suspection.

We need the media to come highlight all the atrocities that are happening in our juvenile halls, in our correctional facilities, to protect the individuals that are under our care. And the only way we're going to be able to do that is to ensure that we have open doors to everybody. Because I visited one juvenile hall and I wasn't allowed to tour one section of that hall, even though I am the Senator of that area.

So we need to make sure that we're exposing everybody where this is not about being bad or good. This is not about putting together our officers who take this hard job to do. To work in our prisons, in juvenile hall, is to ensure that we're exposing the good apples, we're exposing the work that is happening and changing, but we're weeding out the bad individuals. I urge you, my colleagues, to vote aye on this Bill.

Any further discussion or debate? Any further discussion or debate, Senator Skinner, you may conclude. Thank you, Madam President. Members, I'll just remind you, while I think it is important to have access to, for example, our juvenile halls and our county facilities due to the local mandate costs that is no longer part of the Bill. And this does provide us access only to our state prison facilities. But it is still very important to do so. And with that, I ask for your aye vote.

Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes, 29, noes, 8. The measure passes. Members are going to take a little break right now. Don't go anywhere.

Members, we're going to be back. Paying attention. Back in session, paying attention. Talking outside. We're still on Senate third reading. Item number 12. Senator Becker looks prepared. Please read Senate Bill 719 by Senator Becker in Accri Lane to law enforcement agencies. Senator Becker, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Colleagues. I rise to present SB 7119 about radio communications. What this Bill does. Well, let me just start. So for 80 years, news outlets, journalists, and the public had access to police communications. For 80 years, access, and this is access has proven to be critically important for public safety, for police transparency, and for accountability. However, in the last few years, law enforcement agencies have, many are starting to fully encrypt their radio communications, and that is cutting off vital access to the public and press.

Last year at Monterey Park, if you remember, the tragic shooting where the Local Police Department had fully encrypted their communications, the public was not notified of an active shooter for 5 hours after the mass shooting took the lives of 11 people when the shooter was on the loose. So for 5 hours, the public did not know. And by providing no access to the public, no access to the media, we are saying that that is okay.

We are 100% in the hands of police to decide what they want to release, when they want to release it, with zero oversight. So basically, we're going from a world where we had 100% transparency with media, with scanners, with everybody, to zero. And what this Bill is saying, we don't have to go from 100% to zero. Police want to encrypt. That's great. The DOJ said they do have to protect personally identifiable information. PII and they said there's various ways to do that.

They said you can encrypt. Granted, it was a bit of a confusing memo, but they said you can encrypt or you can provide know, you can do the following things like CHP does, right? CHP does not encrypt. You don't hear about massive issues. They're not coming here to lobby on this Bill. We need this. They don't encrypt. They're able to both to protect personally identifiable information and to protect it and also provide access to the public. And so we're working on this Bill for three years.

So we've really, I think, bent over backward and happy. I know some of my colleagues will speak, some colleagues have concerns. We're willing to make one major change that I'll mention in a moment, and we'll have a number of months here to work in the Assembly. This will, of course, come back here. So I know people have concerns, but we've really worked to do this.

So number one, anything, there's broad exceptions for any kind of information, and I'll just kind of read this quickly because I think it's important. So this doesn't apply to a radio channel that's used for operation tactical operations, threat or security operations, undercover operations, or any other communications that would jeopardize public safety or the safety of the officers have made public. So basically it's in the police discretion.

If they've already encrypted, if they feel like something would jeopardize public safety or the safety of officers to make public, they don't have to do it. So number one, we've already exempted that. Number two, we've given them various options. We don't want to put different costs. I know some folks spent a lot of money encrypting. I think they didn't have to do that, but they spent money encrypting. So we don't want to put substantial costs on them now.

And so we provide a number of ways to provide access. They can do what CHP does and say, come up with, say, a different system of, hey, we protect information on this channel, but we use this channel for other stuff. Number one. Number two, they can stream on the web, right, very low cost, if any, cost to stream it on the web, as many cities still do today.

And three, they can actually charge a reasonable fee, it says right now, to journalists or other Members of the public, but they can actually charge a fee for basically decryptors that then folks would have and say, news organizations would have say in their offices.

And so I think the change where I did hear concerns, especially my colleague from San Diego and others, there were some concerns around hecklers or just Members of the public that might be listening to the scanner again, doing this for three years, I haven't heard of any really specific public harms, but I have heard a lot of concerns about just random people listening or bad guys listening.

So I'm willing to make this change in the Assembly to limit it to authorized representative media or other intermediaries, organizations that are ClET or sieges certified. Say, for example, the Citizen app, which LAPD is working with, by the way, LAPD works with citizen. They've actually caught a criminal. There's a positive benefit. They asked them to put it out there, and they actually caught a criminal via that situation. But I am willing to limit it in that way.

And again, I know colleagues have concerns about that, and we're committed to doing that. So last year there was a big cost concern. Most of that was UC and CSU put a massive price tag on this of like $70 to $100 million, which we didn't really agree with, but that was really never the target. So we've exempted them out of UC and CSU. And talking to my colleague, my other colleague from Santa Monica, we're willing to exempt out the Fish and Wildlife as well.

If that, Parks and Wildlife, if they believe that's a financial concern, we're willing to take those out as well. Again, I think you can. Some people have sent you the LA Times article ed, op ed from 2022. Basically, I don't think we should be in this position, but we are in this position. And readily what this Bill says is let's not go from 100% to zero. Right.

We understand people want to encrypt, do other things, but let's provide some minimal amount of access to some basic information so we don't end up in that situation again of a mass shooter or of an emergency, some kind of natural disaster or something where people don't know what's going on. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Blakespear.

Yes, thank you. I appreciate the author's focus on this topic and work on it for three years. I think it's a really important thing to be thinking about.

And I come from having been a journalist and working in newsrooms for the Associated Press in the Los Angeles Times, where the cops reporter would be listening to the police scanner and would go out to things or have advanced heads up about things to write about the next day that let the public know about really important public safety information as it's happening in our communities. So the issues around access and transparency, I think, are really important.

When I reached out to my Police Department in San Diego County about this, one of the things that he told me that they experience is people who are harassing and targeting law enforcement and following them to places and basically stopping them from being able to do their jobs. And I think we all recognize the importance of public safety and our public safety agencies being able to do their job.

So the question of how do we strike that right balance is something that I've been communicating with the author about. And I also just want to say that listening on the ground, when you talk to people who go into law enforcement, sometimes they were the little kids that were listening to the police scanner, and they loved that work, and they loved that there was a public servant who was helping individual people with their real life problems.

So I think there are diffuse benefits to having public access to the work that law enforcement is doing in real time. So the author has made a commitment today that one of the ways that compliance, that law enforcement could comply with this Bill, if this Bill moves forward, which would, the Bill would more broadly allow for or would more broadly require that departments not have everything encrypted. So a Police Department couldn't just have every channel of everything encrypted.

And so one of the ways that police departments could comply with this is, and this is what he said previously, but I just want to repeat, it is to provide equipment or the option to monitor the encrypted communications to journalists or other Members of the media, and then it's for a reasonable fee to be able to comply with other sections of the law.

But I think I see that as something that would really strike that right balance where the media would be able to have an access to this real time data, but it would also stop any types of harassment or targeting that we might see from Members of the public who might wish to do our law enforcement harm or ill. So I'm happy to support it today.

I know it's going over to the Assembly for more analysis, but I think it's a really important topic for us to be thinking about. And I applaud the author for not letting us slide into a situation where every channel of every law enforcement in the state is encrypted, because I don't think that the public interest is best served by that.

Thank you, Senator Smallwood Cuevas.

Thank you, Madam President. And I also stand in support of SB 719. Like my good colleague, I spent the early part of my years coming out of journalism school, working the night cop scanner. And I want to say it is one of the most important tools when we talk about transparency.

I remember a case where what we got out of the Police Department in terms of a report of a shooting that took place, the journalists had direct evidence by being there early as the police were arriving, to give a very different account of what took place. So part of our layers of government is a freedom of the press, and in this instance, it is the freedom of the press that helped to ensure that justice was done and that family in that particular case was served.

So I stand in support. I'm glad that the author has done the work of working through these issues in terms of giving options around a remedy for decryption that allows the press to do its job. And I know that there are many communities, particularly communities of color, particularly black communities, where we have state sanctioned violence against communities, where neighbors and residents are shot on their streets, and we don't have the adequate accounting.

We need all hands on deck to be a watchdog to provide that level of transparency that can save lives and make sure that communities receive justice. And with that, I ask for your. aye vote.

Senator Seyarto. Thank you, Madam President. I rise in opposition to this Bill, and I rise in opposition with a good knowledge base about our communications and public safety and what it takes to get to where we are today versus where we were 40 years ago. One of the big differences, 40 years ago, you didn't have instant communications that can instantly spread misinformation out into the public before you even have an idea of what's really going on. Communication systems and public safety are extremely complex.

We can have as many as 20 or 30 different channels that we can go to to be able to set up a complex communication plan so that we can have various teams being able to talk to each other. It's really important, number one, to understand the complexity. It's not as easy as flipping a switch or grabbing the right radio that's going to communicate to everybody. The news media has always had access to what calls we're having. They've had monitors, and those monitors monitor dispatch systems.

They don't monitor the various channels, specific channels that we have, like tactical channels and such, but they monitor the dispatch so they know where there's a call. They know what type of call is going out, and they know who's going to the call. And many times, the media would beat us to the call because they'd be right around the corner covering another issue or something like that. They'd beat us to the call.

And not only that, but they'd become part of our problem, because the first thing you do when you get on scene and you're the incident commander, is you got to figure out what the hell is going on.

And you can't figure it out with a bunch of people running around adding to another issue, which is, who do we have in this scene that we need to make sure is not going to be either part of the people that caused the scene in case of law enforcement and also people that are hurt and people that need help, people that belong there and people that don't. We have a lot of sorting out to do.

And during that sorting out process, sometimes there are channels that we have to be able to talk to the different teams so that we can get those done in a way that keeps everyone safe. And that's the big deal. That's the biggest issue we have when we get on scene, is keeping the people that aren't involved safe. Now, media has always, when I had an incident command post, I would have a place right behind me for the media.

They could come in, they could hear my radio communications. But there are some communications that we don't need to go out instantly, and those are the communications. Because if you look at. I'm going to go back one step here. When you look at deaths on a fire scene or a law enforcement scene or anything like that, most of them boil down to one thing, and that's communications. And that's because it's really complicated. We have all day drills on communications.

We'd go in every morning with our crews and say, hey, get to this channel. And they'd fumble around with the radios and do all that. And that's when there's no pressure. Well, what about when there is pressure? What about when you're under duress? I've sometimes walked into my house after opening up a couple of different combinations, and I stand at my alarm panel and I'm thinking, zero, because it's beeping, wants me to enter the thing.

And I'm thinking, zero, man, under duress, I can't even think of the number to undo my alarm panel. So I have to step back and come back and regain that, because it was such an automatic thing before. But under duress, there are steps you can take. You've thought you have it nailed and you don't. And those are the ones where we wind up killing people.

And the last thing we need is for the media to have access to some of those communications and putting it out to the public. This is a dangerous Bill. This makes communications even more difficult. The media has the information they need to get to the initial scene and wait for the information to be put out. Another part of this is we just had an incident out in the desert, San Bernardino. Six people shot, not a lot of information coming out, and they want it.

And the reason the media wants this, make no mistake, it's not for the public to know. It's for the public to know and tune in. This is about making sure ratings are going up. This isn't about public safety first. This is about informing the public so they stay safe. If they need to stay safe, we'll let them know. Hey, you guys, this is what's going on. And that's why in the one example you gave. Yeah.

How did we use the media we use the media to catch that guy. They had the information they needed to go catch that guy. They don't just come to thing and have the media say, zero, you know what? We're going after a guy that has all these characteristics and is driving this car. And then we find out, WHOOP, that's the wrong guy. That wasn't the guy. And everybody's looking for that guy because the media has put it out there.

No, we make sure the information is correct. We use the media to ensure that they're putting out correct information to the public so they can help us out. So this is something that I think we don't need to make our communications more complex than they already are. Nobody's trying to hide anything. It's impossible to hide anything anymore in this day and age.

And especially when you have people out there with TikTok, with all these other media things that they can immediately put out on Facebook, they can put it out on. Yeah, and there's just no accountability for the information that's coming out unless it's coming out from us. After we have done a study. I was talking about the incident in San Bernardino. Not a lot of information came out of that. You know why? Because they're trying to catch the bad guys. And they did.

They've arrested people that they think are the bad guys. But if they put that out, if the media puts that out, if they have instant access to them talking on their channels and they put that out, you know what those guys know? Whoops. Yeah, they're on to us. They're gone. We'll never find them. And they'll continue to be dangerous individuals for the public. So, folks, I urge you to vote no on this and stop this now, because this is something we don't need.

The interoperability issues with radios and trying to make them so that police could talk to firefighters, we could talk to them, and we could talk to other cities. Has taken us 15 years and millions and millions of dollars just to get there, and we still haven't accomplished it yet. So let's not make this more complicated. The media has what it needs. I urge you to vote no on this issue and end this Bill right now. Thank you, Senator Padilla.

Thank you very much, Madam President. And I certainly have great regard for the direction the author is trying to go here. It is the correct direction. I will respectfully be staying off today, but I wanted to put some comments in the record here. And I'm dedicated to continuing to work with the author to try to get this objective achieved because it is in everyone's interest to have maximum transparency and understanding of what our law enforcement community is doing at any given time.

It has been that way in the state for many decades before the advent of certain technologies forced many departments to basically take the easy way out and encrypt all of their comms. I took a deep look at the bill's language, and I'm very grateful to the author that there's specific language in the statute that exempts certain encrypted communications around tactical operations and allows that to remain encrypted in real time under certain circumstances.

I do, however, respectfully have some concerns that that language is not as clear as it could be to be helpful. Secondarily, while I appreciate the position of the UC and CSU systems with regard to cost, my personal position is that that is not sufficient to justify exemption there. To the best of my knowledge, many of the police departments in these institutions serve large, certainly daytime student populations, and they are 832 peace officers.

And as a matter of fact, if some of the justification for opening up some of these comms in real time of police departments has some public safety benefit in certain real time crises, then it would seem to me that one of the most applicable places to have this openness and not an exemption would be in an academic setting, in a University setting. So I do not accept the fact that we should be excluding those 832 personnel and departments because of cost alone.

So I think there remains some work to be done here in order to get, I think, to the level of transparency that strikes an appropriate balance. And so, due respect to my colleague and Madam President, I will be staying off the Bill on the floor today.

Senator Allen Wow.

Well, great discussion, and I think the discussion has done a fantastic job of pointing out a number of the competing interests here, everything from press access and transparency to some very serious issues associated with implementation and potentially impacting the efficacy of our law enforcement doing its work. There are just a lot of issues, I think, that still need to be addressed in this Bill if this is going to be ready for prime time.

And I understand there's a lot of tricky issues that the author has been working on, implementation issues that still need to be addressed. I do think with respect to my very much respecting my colleagues previous comments, I do think we have to think about the costs. The reason why the CSU and UC were dropped from the Bill is because DOF had estimated that this Bill would impose hundreds of millions of dollars of costs on those two entities.

I appreciate the author making his commitment to drop parks and recreation and Department of Fish and Wildlife, especially in a year like this. From the Bill, I also want to point out that the DOF analysis did not give a specific estimate as to the cost to local law enforcement, but it did say tens to hundreds of millions. So I don't think any reasonable fee for decryptors is going to make up that cost that we would potentially be imposing upon our entire public sector through this.

So those are, I think, some things that the author really needs to work on, really figure out ways to make this a significantly more cost effective effort. I think we need a tighter definition. We've talked about people wanting media to have access. I understand my other colleague mentions that maybe media doesn't need to have as much access. I think there's a strong public interest in media access. But I also think that the definition that we're looking at right now in SB 98 is not tight enough.

You have a lot of fly by night folks out there that claim media credential, and yet they're really out there trying to incite. I was shown a pretty extraordinary Facebook page based right here in Sacramento that is just full of blood and guts and Gore that has been used where folks have been using the access to the dispatch. Another issue is this whole question of tactical channel versus dispatch channel.

Now, I'm sure the author will point out language that he has in the Bill, section a three b, which does exempt radio channels that are used for tactical operations, threat or security operations, undercover operations, or other communications that would jeopardize public safety or the safety of officers have made public. I also know that the folks from the police chiefs have concerns about ambiguity because of previous language in the Bill talking about providing access to encrypted communications to any interested person.

So that's another ambiguity, I think, that needs to be addressed. I'm watching the floor debate. I know the author and I like him, and I know that he's a capable person and. There are works of.

Progress that do go through this Legislature. I myself engage in that. We talked about it yesterday on another Bill. So I know this is going to face a really hard hearing in the Assembly because of all these issues. These are a lot of issues that need to be resolved. So I certainly would not feel anywhere close to comfortable voting for this if this were going out of going to the governor's desk.

I'm watching the floor debate, but willing to consider supporting it today, understanding that there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed with this Bill.

Senator Umberg question of the author Senator Becker will take a question you will take predicate to the question to follow on my colleague's comment from Santa Monica. There is a clash of values here. There's a clash of values, the transparency value. We have an interest as policymakers in making sure that those that protect us are doing so in a way that adheres to the law, and monitoring communications is a way to do that. And I agree with the author's concern.

I do have concerns about public safety, though, about the dissemination in real time and the theory that somehow that the General public can do either a better job or a complementary job to law enforcement. When there is an issue that folks with guns showing up, if there's, for example, a mass shooting, that kind of thing, I'm grave concerns about that.

But I'd ask the author if the author would consider simply addressing that transparency concern by requiring that these communications be preserved and then provided at a later time, not far distant, 24 hours later, 12 hours, but after the emergent event has basically dissipated. So let me ask the author that question, if I might.

Yeah, I appreciate that, and I'll address the rest of the stuff in my close, but specifically to your question, willing to look at that. I hadn't heard that directly from law enforcement as a big issue. I do know there are other cities. I think San Diego does five minutes a delay, so I'm willing to look at that. I'd want to talk to law enforcement and see how they feel, if that helps them significantly, but I'd be willing to consider it.

Thank you, Senator Jones. Thank you, Madam President. Members, I'll try to be brief. This is a two year Bill. There's obviously lots of conversation regarding this Bill, lots of concerns. I think as Senators, we should be concerned about any Bill we send to the Assembly that's going to be worked on and the condition it's going to come back in.

I would recommend to the author that he just let this Bill stay here and then reintroduce a new Bill for the new legislative year and let's get it to the proper committees and make sure that we're passing a good Bill over to the Assembly. I'm going to urge you. No vote on this Bill. Thank you. Any further discussion or debate been very robust. Senator Becker, you may conclude.

Thank you. I do want to say I appreciate the comments from my colleagues, and I think there is a balance to be struck here, and many, my colleague from San Diego, my colleague from Orange County just mentioned it, and it was mentioned over here as well. I think there is a balance to be struck, and I think that we can strike it. I think we can strike this balance again. This Bill has gone through a lot of vetting. Some of these concerns are new.

We hadn't really heard concerns directly about some of the hecklers or some of those folks. That's really honestly a new concern, having worked on this for three years. But I'm willing to address that. We are going to address that. Committed to address that. I appreciate my colleague mentioned the delay. That's something we're willing to look at as well. But I don't think the problem with waiting in this Bill is every year that goes by, more folks encrypt and they're going to city councils.

Those city councils don't know all the issues. They're saying, hey, we need all this money. We have to encrypt. And then that puts more entrenchment for folks who don't want to provide access. So I do think it's really important that we keep this Bill moving forward. I appreciate the colleagues pressed, my colleagues from Baldwin park has pressed me very specifically on a lot of the issues that have come up today, a lot of concerns that have been raised. So I appreciate those concerns.

I do think, though, that we do not want to continue to delay this, because, as I said, since I started working on this a couple of years ago, a lot more people have encrypted, a lot more entrenchment. And I think the sooner we have this conversation to have this balance, and I'm happy to have it over in the Assembly, I think the sooner we have that conversation, the better. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Please call the roll. [Roll Call] If everybody could please stay on the floor, please. We are almost done.

Members, we're going to lift the call on file item number 12. Want to make sure you're all ready. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

On call again. Members, we're back in session and we're going to lift the call. We will be going through the roll call twice. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

One more time. Please call the roll again.

[Roll Call]

Aye 17, no 12. The bill fails. If there is no other business, Madam Pro Tem Atkins, the desk is clear.

Madam President, thank you so much. Colleagues, thank you. Our next floor session is scheduled for Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 9:00 a.m.

The Senate will be in recess until 3:30, at which time the adjournment motion will be placed. We will reconvene Thursday at 9:00 a.m. Thank you all.