Senate Floor

Good morning. Good morning, Members. Good morning, Members. The Senate will come to order with the secretary. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Members. A quorum is present. Would the Members and our guests be on the rail and in the gallery? Please rise. We will be led in prayer this morning by Senator Archuleta, after which, please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance to our flag. Senator Archuleta.

Thank you, Mister President. Let us recall that we are in God's presence, o God of peace. We seek rest for our spirits and light for our thoughts. We bring our work to be sanctified, our words, our wounds to be healed, our hopes to be renewed.

You, in whom we are one, lift us from the loneliness of self and fill us with the fullness of your love. Rise us above the limits of your daily imperfections. Our daily imperfections send us visions of our love that is in you and of the good that will be accomplished in us this day. Your greatness is beyond our praise. Amen.

Amen. Members, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Members, I want to give you a game plan for our session this morning. If I could have everyone's attention. It is our intention to take up some budget bills, so we will begin with one here on our floor.

As the Assembly deals with a couple budget bills on their floor, so it might require us to jump around on our agenda somewhat as we wait for the processes to work their way out in both houses, it's possible that we may take some things out of order, including potentially some adjourn in memories, if that's required.

We do have a consent calendar today. I know you're all excited about that. And we have Governor's Appointments, so it's quite a lineup for us to go through this morning. And we're going to begin by moving to motions and resolutions. I want to recognize Senator Wiener for a procedural motion. Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Mister President. I move to suspend the Senate rules as they relate to Assembly bills 107, 154 and 167.

Recognize Senator Niello.

Question, Mister President.

Question to the author. The author take a question. He will. Is that a question to me?

No author through you. I have a question as to why the motion?

Senator Niello, let me try to respond to your question. The measure that he has moved, he has made a motion, is on second reading today. His motion will allow it to be considered by the House, by the Senate immediately. So that's the purpose of that motion, to take it out of our normal order of hearing so that we could hear it today.

I understand that, but that still doesn't tell me why we need to suspend and speed up the process.

Mister President, would you like me to respond?

And we don't want to be here tomorrow. They're not going to say no.

Sort of dumb. ..., stop.

That is what Senator Wiener has done, and it will be appropriately followed through on by the House in terms of whether or not they want to support that or not. Okay?

Okay. Thank you very much, Mister President. I do object to the motion, and I'll defer my question until we discuss the substance of the bill.

Terrific. Thank you very much. Okay, so Senator Wiener has asked to suspend the rules. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll call]

On a vote of 29 to seven, the Senate rules are suspended. Members, we're going to move now to file item 32. This is Assembly Bill 107. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 107 by Assembly Member Gabriel an act relating to the state budget to take effect immediately. Budget bill.

Senator Wiener, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Mister President, colleagues, AB 107 is the Budget Act of 2024. It represents a budget package that includes $293 billion in total spending, of which 211.3 billion is General Fund.

The bill maintains 23.2 billion in combined total reserves, and the budget is balanced in both the 2024-2025 and 2025-26 fiscal years. It includes $46.9 billion in solutions in 24-25 Fiscal Year and 29.8 billion in solutions in the 25-26 Fiscal Year in order to close our budget deficit.

Highlights of this budget include increased funding for K through 14 public education, going beyond what was proposed in the May Revision, ensuring increased funding for schools in future budgets as we prioritize the education of California's children, and maintains the same level of programmatic spending as the May Revision.

The budget before us today restores proposed reductions, cuts from the May Revise to core programs, including CalWORKs, foster care, in-home supportive services. It retains additional childcare slots and rejects a delay of Developmental Services rate increases. The budget maintains funding, full funding for our active transportation program and for public transportation programs.

The budget reduces the budget of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by approximately $1 billion and protects rehabilitation and reentry services. The budget funds programs such as the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and support for crime victims, among other items.

The budget protects more than $3 billion in climate-related investments by shifting General Fund costs to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. The budget before us today rejects the May Revise proposal to permanently eliminate over $2.4 billion in annual new health investments scheduled to take effect January 1st.

Instead, the new investments will be delayed one year, until January 1st, 2026, with $200 million in new investments instead starting this budget year. The budget also restores $1 billion for the Homeless Housing and Prevention Program, HAPP. Round six restores some funding for affordable housing programs and approves $500 million in low-income housing tax credits.

This budget represents the work of 54 budget subcommittee hearings, four hearings of the full Budget Committee, in addition, of course, to all of the work in the Assembly.

I want to thank our pro tem, our budget sub chairs, and all of our budget staff for the tremendous work that they have put into the budget before us today, which balances our budget both this year and next year, and protects the progress that we have made around education, around healthcare, around supporting some of the most at-risk and marginalized communities in California and our climate action agenda.

With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. Any discussion on this measure? Discussion? Senator Niello.

Thank you, Mister President. I'll dispense with the question that I had earlier, actually, and just speak to the substance of the budget bill as I did yesterday in committee. This budget is balanced nominally. I realize that our budget chair doesn't agree with that last comment I make, but I still maintain that is the case.

We have several items in this budget that are going to cause problems for the next budget, and it's easy to predict right now. For example, the healthcare minimum wage, which will go into effect in July. There is inadequate funds in the budget to cover that, excuse me, $2 billion expected expense.

The Health Committee our health community has become weary of us playing around with the funds from the MCO tax, and so they are placing an initiative of their own on the ballot for November that in the calendar year of 2025 will cost an additional $2.7 million, estimated.

That's over two budget years because it's the calendar year 25, but nonetheless, it's a substantial expense. And the Governor's May Revise included a revenue estimate that is $7 billion higher than the leg. analyst estimate. And this two-party budget includes a revenue estimate that is $4 billion higher than that.

Now, we can always question what revenues should be, but as I've said many times in the last couple of months, I'm always more receptive to the advice of the budget advisor as opposed to the budget writer. Different pressures are involved.

And as I've also said many times, one of the easiest ways to balance the public sector budget is to just assume more revenues. So, in this two-party budget, I see that as an $11 billion potential problem. Once we get through this budget year, there is also three unknown impacts.

One is the Proposition 98 maintenance factor, which will cost future budget years, including the next one. Also, the Governor's rather confusing measure with regard to the 22-23 Proposition 98 overpayment that creates an obligation on the General Fund. It's basically an interest-free loan, and that will be additional expenditures in future budget years built-in.

And the last one is the 8% across-the-board cut. That is to say, agencies within the bureaucracy are expected to come up with their own cuts of 8% of their own expenditures. That is not going to the oversight that's provided in the language of the budget bill notwithstanding. I am highly skeptical of that number.

Those three, I don't know exactly what the impact is, but the May Revise did reduce the out-year known problems, which were about $30 billion a year for three or four years, down to about 10 billion. But these differences puts it back up to $30 billion. Again, or virtually.

Again, the budget is balanced nominally, but it is not sustainable. And all of these issues will come back to roost when the Governor needs to present his January budget proposal in January of 2025. I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Niello. Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mister President. Members, today is the day that we all look forward to this most important vote I believe as a Legislator that you make is the budget vote. It's about our priorities.

I want to just identify in this budget some of the priorities and some of the things that aren't priorities that I think we've failed to recognize. We're going to spend $1.1 billion on high-speed rail. We're going to spend 1.2 billion to bail out public transit. That's a priority.

But we're going to cut over $75 million for housing for veterans. So, just to remind you, that's where our priorities at, high-speed rail and bailout of transit over our veterans.

When we talk about healthcare, we have the MCO Bill we passed a couple years ago, which is a tax on the health plans, which goes into the General Fund and doesn't fund hospitals. There's $4 billion in the General Fund that goes to undocumented. That's the priority over hospital funding.

Now the people that walked across the border yesterday did not participate in paying taxes or anything, but they have the right to go to our hospitals and use our emergency rooms, but we're not funding them. So, I think that's a priority that needs to be addressed.

We have $20 billion to fund offshore wind, but we're cutting CDCR by 500 million.

So, priority is wind over making our streets safe, a priority to fund Caltrans for electric vehicles, $280 million to replace zero-emission vehicles as we're cutting broadband for rural communities, and for students to be able to get on the Internet and do their homework.

Now for my last point and the one I talk about every year, the business community in California, one I'm very near and dear to because I actually operate a business in California and it's one of the toughest places in the country to do business.

If you recall, during the pandemic when unemployment was rampant, the State of California borrowed money from the Federal Government to pay unemployment benefits. The business community has to pay back that money, not the state.

When we had fraud, billions and billions of dollars of fraud, and that's saddled on the backs of the businesses, $18.8 billion we still owe the Federal Government. That's the State of California and businesses in the state.

So, if you're operating a business in this state, this budget is going to pay the interest, $500 million, even though it was our unemployment agency that squandered billions of dollars in California. The net operating. So, in a business, you can either raise taxes or you can take away tax deductions.

$5 billion in tax deductions are coming away from businesses in California and so, the net operating loss. Now, I know that I always ask every year to show me one thing in this budget that's going to help keep a business in California. Just one.

And I challenge you to show me what keeps businesses to stay in California because I can't find any. Now I know yesterday during the budget hearing, we heard about the TAP funding, which $23 million goes to Technical Assistance Program for startup businesses, small business. We heard a lot of folks talk about that. That's great.

That's to start a business. That's not to keep a business running in California, that's to start a business. So, I think we should focus more on the people that pay the original tax. Our businesses in California pay the original tax. You cannot have a strong public sector unless you have a strong private sector.

And so, I want to just end by sharing some statistics I've worked on for the last couple months. I have every single district in the State of California right here. You're welcome to look at it. Of businesses have left your districts and left California. These are high-paying jobs.

There are green jobs and I'm just going to take the top five districts and just name off a few. So, in Senate District 10, we've lost 36 companies. $264 million battery plant went to Kentucky, tesla moved to Nevada, 5,000 jobs. In Senate District 11, 122 companies. Over half of those were headquarters that left for other states.

And I have a list of all the places they went. Texas, Tennessee, Florida. Senate District 13, 69 companies including Google, Tesla, Oracle, Johnson and Johnson, worldwide companies leaving California. Senate District 15, 33 companies. Apple went to Austin, Texas. Netflix. Senate District 26, 63 companies including billion-dollar solar energy companies. Green jobs leaving California.

And the last one, Senate District 37, 39 companies. Rivian, $5 billion plant expansion, Panasonic solar manufacturing plants, $2.5 billion. Folks, look, at the end of the day, I've been talking about this for some time, that it's very difficult to do business in California.

And if we don't have businesses, we don't have a tax base to do all the things we need to do in government. We need to supply health care, we need to make sure our streets and roads are safe. Absolutely. And we keep our streets safe.

But we're not doing a very good job when it comes to keeping the tax-paying businesses in California. So, until we start focusing on how we keep businesses in California, keep them safe, they're getting ransacked by criminals. That's part of the reason they're shutting down and leaving. We need to do a better job.

For those reasons, I can't support AB 107 and I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Dahle. Senator Seyarto.

Thank you, Mister President. I'm going to be joining my colleague today in voting no on the budget. And here's why. Very simply, the budget does not reflect the priorities or needs of my district that I represent. We come from a very different district than a majority of this house and the Assembly. This budget reflects.

Yes, it does reflect the governor's priorities. It reflects the priorities of a majority, the super majority of the Legislature. But don't lull yourselves into thinking that somehow because it reflects those priorities, that those are the priorities of the normal citizens out there that right now are being hammered.

Go out into your districts, sit there, don't talk, but listen, and you will find a lot of unhappy customers. And here's the thing with our budget, we have a revenue and spending problem. And when we don't make enough revenues, the answer can't be, well, let's do some hidden taxes for businesses and keep raising taxes so we do that.

Because what you're doing is you're driving out the very people that are going to help support your economy. The way to fix a revenue and spending problem is to ensure that you're not spending more than you're taking in. And what you're taking in has to depend on a positive economy. We are not.

We are not promoting a positive economy. Yes, we are. Because of our size, we are supposed to be the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world. But we sure don't reflect that, not in the pain that our people are feeling out there. And this budget doesn't do that. As my colleague pointed out, look at those priorities.

In the meanwhile, people can't afford homes. And yet we've been saying for years, our priority is making affordable housing. Our priority is the homeless. We spent $20 billion on the homeless and they're still homeless. Our kids are still unable to afford a house.

They're all talking about leaving because we don't have great jobs for them, because we've chased out all those great jobs. We have to adjust the way we think if we're going to make California the optimal place to live and an affordable place to live. This budget doesn't reflect that kind of an effort. It doesn't fix our roads.

It doesn't fix our flood issues out in the Coachella Valley or in my district. It doesn't bring us a bunch of more jobs. It doesn't incentivize jobs from coming in. In fact, it piles on more stuff to disincentivize businesses from coming in and giving people jobs. That's how we get out of an economy.

People working pay their normal taxes. But right now, we got less and less people working. And guess what? Less and less people are paying taxes. And if we keep raising the taxes on those, we're going to have even less people doing that. What we're doing doesn't make sense.

At some point, whether we have a supermajority or not, we're going to have to figure this out. And the sooner the better, because the longer we let it go on, the worse it's going to get. I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Senator Grove.

Thank you, Mister President. I too rise in opposition and join my colleagues on AB 107. In the last two years, colleagues, the Governor, and this Legislature has gone from a $100 billion budget surplus to a 50 billion, or 55 billion or 62 billion, whatever the number is today. It's been different throughout the last few weeks.

We spent $24 billion on homeless programs, and we have no progress to show for it. Our homeless population has actually gotten worse. And that's left Californians with the highest energy cost.

When we spend all this money on climate, Californians pay the highest energy cost in the nation, highest utility rates in the nation, some of the highest gas prices in the nation. It's becoming very, very unaffordable for everyday products and we keep dumping money into these programs. California has the highest energy prices, like I said, in the country.

And despite many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle knowing again. And the reason, one of the main reasons I'm objecting to this budget is there's $105 billion going to the high-speed rail through other funds and sources, but it's still being allocated. We need to think about this for a minute.

Prop. 1A was passed in 2008. There was a promise that all of us today would leave this building, not get on an airplane, and we would be on this train going, you know, 200 miles an hour from San Diego to San Francisco or to the Central Valley. There's not one bit of track connected.

I think it's less than 1 mile of track that's available. They haven't secured all the lands. But the biggest irony of still funding this project is Sigma. You guys take groundwater from farmers that grow food. I represent the top three food-producing counties in the world.

You take their water, don't allow them to access water on their own land. And the reason and the science that you say is behind that is because we have a sinking valley floor. But yet this budget allocates over a billion with a B dollars to the high-speed rail project that is a multi-ton cement project monstrosity that I pass every week going up and back on 99, and you're building it on a sinking valley floor.

Up to 28ft in the last two decades. Do you think that that thing is going to survive anything, even if it is built? Look at it. Look at Google right now.

Central Valley, sinking floor. That's why you implemented Sigma. So, we would stop taking water out of the ground and stop the valley from sinking or having subsidence is the correct word. So, just think about that. This budget, this $1 billion could go to fund our healthcare, our hospitals.

I can look out here and probably count to nine legislators on both sides of the aisle where we have hospital maternity wards and labor and delivery wards closing. We have emergency rooms going on standby, and we're not funding our hospitals and making sure that our people, the constituents that we represent, have healthcare.

But you want to fund a project. I mean, that cement has got to weigh hundreds of tons on our sinking valley floor. Just think about that for a second. It's a multibillion-dollar project. No promises from Prop. 1A have ever been fulfilled.

I just ask you just to take a deep breath, and it doesn't take a lot. You don't even have to say, we made a mistake. You can blame it on the voters for approving it by 53%, but you can take a stand and say, look, we're in a budget deficit.

We got $1 billion going to this project. It's not going to meet or exceed any type of deadline that they've ever set. You know, it's supposed to be on a 2020 deadline. Now it's 2030. It'll go to 2050, 2060 and we'll continue to dump money in it.

But we can cover a lot of things that are cut out of this budget that we desperately need. Desperately need. Self-help enterprises. $27 million. My colleague that I share Bakersfield with that is just to the north and surrounding me, we have communities that don't have water.

They go out for several years, and currently adding to that community, you turn on the faucet, they don't have water. These are farm worker communities. They go out, Self-Help brings them this big black tank, fills it with water, and they have water to wash their clothes and dishes. It's California.

And our farmworker families like Tooleville, other areas in our communities in the Central Valley do not have running water. We could use that $1 billion to hook them up to city water in a heartbeat. Wouldn't even use a fraction of it. So that's a priority that is overlooked. You cut $17.5 million out of Self-Help.

Out of Self-Help. It's an organization that works with communities to connect them to water. Water you need to live. High-speed rail in a project that's over budget and over time built is not something that's desperately needed this year to fund.

I look at the Central Valley communities that we represent, and I was talking to one of my colleagues, and I'm not going to say who it was, but again, it's like, well, I went down to the Central Valley, and your bar is really low. Like your bars.

You just want access to healthcare, and you want to grow food and you want to keep your job. I'm like, yeah, we don't demand a lot. We don't. We maintain more miles of road than any other district. More miles but road distributions are based on population, so we do it for less money.

So, our roads and infrastructure are crumbling. But you guys will dump $1 billion into high-speed rail that is not even operational, not even close to being operational. It's not going to be built in our lifetime.

Why not just suspend that money and spend that $1 billion on something that we all care about, like healthcare access to our constituents? I have a hospital in Ridgecrest that's financially distressed. We got a little bit of money to them. It let them survive. That labor and delivery department has closed.

It is an hour and 10 minutes to the next available hospital. An hour and 10 minutes. My colleague from Bieber mentioned that we're cutting all these veterans' benefits. There are veterans on this floor that have put their hand in the air and swore to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

They are living on the streets, and they deserve better. $75 million from their housing projects, but you're spending $1.5 billion on high-speed rail.

You could add up a whole lot of things that every one of us deeply care about that our constituents are talking about every single day, and it would not even meet the $1 billion going out the door to high-speed rail. And I realize it's a combination of funds and not directly from the General Fund.

Another thing that bothers me a lot about this budget is what my colleague from Bieber again mentioned from the business aspect. Every single dollar that comes into this budget is from a small business or a large business. It's from a business. And I know you guys were like, I pay taxes, too.

I pay taxes out of my check. But your original check comes from a business paying taxes, employing people to pay taxes, paying property taxes, paying permit fees. Like the Water Board is 100% industry funded. CalGEM is 100% industry funded. There are several other organizations or agencies that are 100% industry funded. Every single dollar comes from the business community.

You can say, well, I invest money and I do this, but you earn that money through a business community. And even if it was an inheritance, it came originally from a business if you track it all the way down to its source.

So, the bottom line is hurting our business community while we're still reeling from the facts that. That we have a $32 billion food tax reduction credit because of the fraud and all the EDD that was over drafted from the federal account, and it's costing our businesses an additional 6.9% every single year to pay that loan back.

That means a small business with so many employees, let's just call it $1 million a year in payroll, has $100,000 bill due with January as soon as that bill comes, and they've got to come up with the money to pay. So, we're still addressing that.

We're still addressing employees trying to come back from COVID. We should realize that because we all sit on committees and we're talking about the staff reductions and not being able to get staff filled for government agencies. You know, why is it, how come we can't get staff?

Well, we're trying, we're recruiting, we've done this, we're running ads, we're running social media. So, we have the same problems as a small business owner. A lot of us in this, a lot of us, I say a lot of us, several of us in this building are small business owners. And we get it.

So, the attacks on business is completely just ridiculous especially when you're squandering a billion plus dollars in a high-speed rail system that has no chance of even being built in our lifetime.

And if you take all that money, shoot, we could fund a lot of things that our constituents, like I said earlier, really, really do care about. Respectfully, asl a no vote on this. I think we should look at priorities.

Definitely a priority should not be spending over $1 billion on a high-speed rail when you can't put veterans in housing and you can't even provide access to healthcare, and you can't keep your promise on the MCO tax for providers to provide healthcare to those individuals that are Medi-Cal recipients, the poorest communities.

I had a constituent call getting into Medi-Cal and he's like, they can't see me for four months. They can't see me for four months because there are very few doctors providing that, because the reimbursement rates on Medi-Cal rates are so low, so low that it's a pathway to bankruptcy. So, why treat that?

And that's the poorest of our poor that you guys all say you care about. That $1 billion would go a long way with that. I respectfully ask for a no vote and put our priorities in place.

Thank you, Senator Grove. Members, any further discussion or debate? Any further discussion or debate? Senator McGuire.

Thank you so much, Mister President. Colleagues, I rise today and ask for your support of the legislative budget plan. As we all know, California's budget is complicated. It's big, it's bold, and we are working to get this job done. And today we're moving forward.

This year, we have faced some challenges that this state hasn't seen in many years. And the pieces have come together in this spending plan, which is the result of literally hundreds of hours of testimony, analysis, and dozens upon dozens of meetings within the budget subcommittees and of course, our larger Budget Committee.

I want to take a moment to say thank you so much to our Chair, to our Vice Chair, to the budget subcommittee chairs, to the Budget Committee members, both Democrat and Republican, for their tenacity and their hard work to be able to get this document delivered today.

As promised, I'm proud that we're putting forward a balanced budget, not just for the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year, but making sure that we deliver the next fiscal year as well in 2025-2026. I'm not going to bog my brief words down with the slew of numbers, but I want to focus on a few.

California has seen record funding for K12 public schools. We've gone from dead last in the nation in 2015 to nearly 24,000 per student per year this year. And we're funding our public schools with an additional $2 billion higher than what the May Revision, the May Revision was going to deliver.

And we're restoring full funding for the Middle-Class Scholarship Program because we know student debt is drowning thousands of kids across this state. We're restoring nearly 11,000 childcare slots and rejecting cuts to core programs that the most vulnerable families rely upon, like CalWORKs, foster care, and in-home support services.

We're keeping CAL FIRE and wildfire funding whole because we know we have to focus on wildfire mitigation in response. We're providing $1 billion. $1 billion help tackle our homelessness crisis in this state and over a half $1 billion for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, making housing affordable for working families.

We are restoring cuts to domestic violence programs and victim support service programs. This is responsible budgeting and protects the progress that we have all made together over the past many years. You know, in the past, our state's budget process worked like this.

The Legislature passed a budget, and the Governor signed it, vetoed it, or took a blue pencil to it. In recent years, we have become more accustomed to finalizing the budget via three-way agreements between the Senate Assembly and the Governor. That's great. And I'll be honest, we're right around the corner from this happening.

But make no mistake, this budget that we're putting forward today will stand on its own and it's worthy of being California's next state budget. And here's what I'll say today. What we have today for this framework, I firmly believe you're going to see in front of this body and the Assembly next week as well.

Given our financial challenges this year, we put the pieces together in a way that gives us the best possible fiscal picture for California's future. We have made some really tough but responsible decisions that preserve funding for the most vulnerable populations in the state.

And we're investing in schools, housing, wildfire prevention, healthcare access, public safety, climate impacts, and desperately needed resources to address the homelessness crisis in big cities and small in every corner of this state. I want to do a quick look ahead. Final budget votes as early as next week. Final discussions.

Thanks to the hard work of our Budget Chair and our budget sub. chairs, they're advancing in a collaborative manner, and I will characterize them as extremely productive. And I firmly believe the final budget that we're going to have in front of us here next week will follow the same framework that's in front of this body here today.

Thank you to the Chair, to Mister Vice Chair, to the Budget Committee Members. Mister President will respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator McGuire. Any further discussion or debate? Recognizing Senator Grove for the second time.

I apologize, Mister Chair. I was really upset about the priorities, and I forgot to say something that I need to say.

This is the first year that I have been on Budget Sub. Three, where we, no offense to previous chairs, have had a chair that stood up and fought for seriously against the Governor, against everybody, not to have cuts for our developmentally disabled individuals, those on SNAP benefits, the individuals who need IHSS services.

To the point where I was just set in awe sometimes with because she was going after him. Like, what do you mean by that? Who does that? I mean, she just really went after them to make them recant or take back the cuts.

And so, I just want to applaud my colleague from San Fernando Valley as the Budget Sub. Three Chair. Again, no offense against my colleague from Stockton. He used to be the Budget Sub. Three Chair.

There is a marine in charge of Budget Sub. Three now, and I am totally confident that our most vulnerable members of society will always have the benefits that they need because she is in charge of that Committee. And I was just really honored to serve on that Committee with her.

And in my rant earlier over a high-speed rail, I failed to mention that. Wanted to make sure I did that, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Grove. Members, any further discussion or debate? Any further discussion or debate? Seeing none. Senator Wiener, you may close.

Thank you, Mister President. There has been a lot of very dramatic rhetoric today, and I'm not going to complain about dramatic rhetoric. That's sometimes part of politics. And so, people are entitled to their dramatic rhetoric.

What I do take issue with is when that dramatic rhetoric trashes the State of California and dismisses all of the good in this state and all the good that is happening in this state and all the good that is in this budget.

And I appreciate the Senator from Bakersfield acknowledge that we're restoring the funding for folks with developmental disabilities. And that is just one example on a list of priorities that we have been able to fulfill in this budget for people who need our help. And so there is so much good in this state.

And I just take issue with the constant trashing of the State of California. This is a balanced budget. This is a responsible budget. And I said this earlier in the year, and I'm going to say it again. When we had our last Republican Governor, we had no budget reserves. None. We were paying state workers with IOUS.

The State of California was paying workers with IOUS under our last Republican Governor. Since we shifted administrations in 2011, we have gone to over $30 billion in budget reserves, and we are protecting the bulk of those reserves in this budget.

We have gone from, as the pro tem mentioned, severely underfunded K through 12 public schools to dramatically higher funded. And we are protecting and prioritizing that funding in this budget.

And I'll tell you, when we talk about what supports businesses and supports economic development in any state, including California, it is our education system and we are supporting K through 12 and the UC and CSU, which are absolute crown jewels and the best public higher education systems in the country, and we are prioritizing and supporting them.

It is childcare so that people can actually both have children and work. That is what supports our economy and our businesses. And we have prioritized childcare in this budget. It is access to healthcare that supports businesses.

And when we force immigrants to get all of their healthcare through the emergency room, because even though they are working and supporting our economy and putting food on our table and doing all of the things that hardworking immigrants do, when we force them to get their care in the emergency room that is terrible for our healthcare system and for our economies.

I am proud that we are providing health care for all Californians and all of our workers who are paying taxes and are contributing members of this state. I am.

And I want to just say, in terms of healthcare, also, I am really glad that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle appear to really like Medi-Cal. Please communicate to your partners in Washington, DC, to stop trying to destroy Medicaid in this country, because that is happening, and we need Medi-Cal.

And I'm proud of what we've been able to do with this healthcare system. Finally, I just want to say, in terms of our prison system, I want to just note that in 2013, CDCR's budget was $9.3 billion for a population in prison of 135,000 people. In 23-24 it's 15 billion.

It's gone up by over 50%, but the population is down to 92,000. So the budget grew by 60% while the population decreased by 30%. That's a problem. And so, by rightsizing this budget, we're not undermining public safety.

We're actually responsibly stewarding the taxpayer dollars as we do all of the policy work that we are doing to make sure that people who commit retail theft are held accountable. So, colleagues, this is a responsible budget. It reflects our values.

I am proud of the state, and you can cherry pick about this or that company left, the number of companies that are coming to California that are starting here, that are growing here, a company like Tesla that never actually left and kept its operations here and is now expanding its operations here.

I'm proud of this economy, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Members all, debate having ceased. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

On a vote of 29 to eight, the measure passes. Members, we're going to move next to privileges of the Floor. I want to recognize the Majority Leader, Senator Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mr. President. Well, colleagues, today we have the honor of welcoming a distinguished delegation from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California and the Japanese Business Association of Southern California to our chamber. This delegation is comprised of 11 representatives from two organizations, including members of their government relations and business and commerce committees.

Leading the group are Kazuhiro Gomi the President and CEO of NTT Research, Inc., the global R&D arm of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, who is President of the JCCNC. And Akira Minamiura, the President of Kintetsu Enterprises Company of America, who is President of the JBA.

They are at the Capitol today in association with their respective organizations annual visit to discuss issues of importance to the Japanese business community, and collectively they represent approximately 750 member businesses and they work to provide their members with a better understanding of American cultural culture and business practices and to build bridges with local communities to improve Japanese-California business relationships.

And I was pleased to have led a delegation of our Members to Japan in March to learn about the many contributions of Japanese businesses to the California economy, and it was absolutely extraordinary, given these strong economic and cultural ties in the form of over 100,000 jobs in California.

We look forward to our continued partnership and they certainly see saw a really nice debate today on behalf of the State Senate. So please join me in warmly welcoming these distinguished guests to the California State Senate today.

Welcome to the Senate.

Could I ask Members to return to their desks? We have more business to conduct. Members without objection, we're going to move to Assembly third reading for file item 100. This is file item 100, Assembly Bill 1955 by Assemblymember Ward. Secretary, please read

Assembly Bill 1955 by Assemblymember Ward, an act relating to pupil rights.

Members, please give Senator Eggman your attention. Senator Eggman, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Mister President. Today I rise to present AB 1955 to the State Senate on behalf of Assembly Member Ward and on behalf of the LGBTQ caucus. Probably some of you remember at the end of last year towards, you know, we've all been through the through Covid together. We've all been through strife together.

And over the last year, we begin to see our school districts and our school boards become turned into things that I wouldn't call civics.

One of the early bills I did was to provide a seal of civics for high school kids so we could get more people prepared to be active citizens of our society and learn to engage in respectful debate. So this Bill attempts to put some guardrails on the forced outing type policies that were happening in school boards.

We know some of those policies have not been able to go into effect. We know some of those school board Members have since been recalled. And the LGBTQ caucus wanted to be very careful and strategic and surgical about how we approach this. We did not want to add to the vitriol.

We did not want to add to the. The temperature, the volume going up on school boards. What we just want to do is make sure everybody's safe at school. We want to return schools to do what schools are supposed to do is teach our kids.

Is teach our kids and provide a supportive environment where they can figure out who they are. That is one of the major developmental tasks that every single one of us has to do is to begin to separate from our family of origin. As we go out into the world and find our people.

That is probably the largest developmental task any one of us can do, is to find our community, find our people, find our support, and learn to be healthy people in this society, healthy and productive people. So when we saw the. Seemed like the proliferation of these forced outing policies were like, what can we do?

How can we approach this? So we work with groups across the state. We work with parent groups, teacher groups, administrator groups, board groups, the LGBTQ community, about what can we do? Because we know when we saw those spectacles at our school Board Meetings, we know we saw the impact on students.

We know, we saw the number of referrals for mental health go up. We know we saw the amount of bullying and harassing and division begin to increase, and we thought, how can we turn down the temperature on some of this? And just kind of, you know, let's say, how do we get back to the basics?

How do we get back to how it was when we went to school? We went to school to learn. And I can tell you as a out 63 year old person, I began to come to terms with myself when I was probably in elementary school, began to question more when I was in early high school.

I became pretty sure by the time I graduated from high school, but it was not something I shared with my parents right away. Did I feel like my parents would throw me out? No, I didn't. But I knew it would be hard for them and they would struggle with it.

And you don't want to do that to your parents until you're sure. And while I knew my parents would be loving and supportive, I also knew a lot of other parents that weren't. And let me just say, this was in the seventies when I went to high school. Right, seventies. So it was a different time.

And I do remember when I was still exploring around. I was dating a guy. That's right. I was dating a guy. And the school called my family. I remember my dad taking me for a ride, and he said, did you know the principal called me, which put fear in somebody like Susan Eggman?

I said, no, I didn't know that, dad. And he said, the principal called to tell me that you're dating a black guy. Is that true? And I said, yeah, it is. And while my parents were not bigots, it was also the seventies and not something that they were celebrating.

But to this day, I am left with the thought of, how dare a school district, not knowing what was going to happen to me at home, take it upon themselves to share something personal about me that I hadn't felt comfortable sharing at home.

So why would the school feel compelled to do that and interfere with my relationship with my parents and my own developmental process? I'm still struck by that, and still, it makes me angry. So what this Bill does is simply says, schools, you cannot. School boards cannot get in between students and their parents.

Schools should not be inserting themselves in between a child's developmental process in coming to adulthood. This Bill simply says, schools cannot pass policies that mandate teachers become the gender police for students.

This Bill also says education departments should provide information for all parents on LGBTQ issues if they want to be able to seek things out because maybe sometimes parents don't know. This Bill also says that a teacher cannot be penalized for refusing to follow a policy like that.

And this Bill also affirms that students have an innate right to privacy unless it's something that's going to hurt them, that we all have an innate right to privacy.

And so let's talk about what this Bill does not do, because I watched the Assembly hearing and I was left a little bit confused about what some of the arguments were. But what this Bill does not do, this Bill does not put students at risk.

There's nothing in this Bill which prevents teachers from getting students in crisis the help they need. Nothing changes that. This Bill does not keep secrets from parents. There is no. We don't know of secrets that need to be kept from parents. This Bill mandates that resources are provided to support families if their kid is LGBTQ.

Parents are always free to have important conversations at home, as parents do. All this does, basically, is say schools. It's not your job to be the gender police. We don't want those policies. We want everybody to be safe and affirmed.

We don't want this increased pressure in schools, and we want kids to be able to learn and develop on their own time.

So there's been a lot of scary stuff about what this Bill is, and I hope I've been able to leave some of those doubts and just say this Bill is about keeping all kids safe, making sure school boards aren't inserting policies into school districts that make teachers gender police can't punish a teacher for not policing kids, and kids have a right to privacy.

That's what this Bill is. And I would respectfully ask that you all join me turning down the volume, turning up, valuing our kids and their process, and I'd ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Eggman. Any further discussion on this measure? Senator Newman. Excuse me, Senator Dahle. And then followed by Senator Newman.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Respect my colleague from Stockton a lot. So much. I'm taking a little different tack to this Bill. She actually reached out to me and shared. She wanted to chat with me, got some information about the Bill, but I'm going to talk about what I think needs to happen here.

I came to the Legislature out of local government, and you've heard me many times on this floor talk about local control, and I'm not a big fan of the state telling locals how to run their county or their city or their school boards, quite frankly.

So for me, this is about why would we have elected school boards if we're going to do top down policies that tell them what they can and can't do. So for me, it's a local control issue. Parents are engaged in those elections at the local level. They choose their candidate and they get behind those candidates.

And so for me, I'm going to be not supporting this Bill because I want to make sure that we have that local control, that we have those school boards that make those decisions. And there are conflicts. Absolutely there are conflicts, and those should be settled at the local level.

And I do know in my district, there has been some policy around this area, not so much as maybe in Temecula and some other areas of the state, but I do have parents who are engaged and school boards who are engaged, and there are some conflicts there, but I believe they'll be able to work those conflicts out at the local level without overriding state coming down and saying, hey, you're going to do this or that.

I believe in parents and school boards, and that's why I won't be supporting the Bill today.

Thank you, Senator Dahle. I have Senator Newman, followed by Senator Skinner and Senator Wiener. Senator Newman.

Senator. Thank you, Mister President. I rise in support of this measure. We heard this measure in the Senate Committee of education, and I commend to you, my colleagues remarks about not only what this Bill is, but what it is not.

And it is, in my view, wholly appropriate that the state should articulate in defense of fundamental principles, especially in the defense of a very important principle, that schools should be a safe and nurturing place where no student should be afraid to attend school or fearful of what might happen if what happens at school.

And, of course, a normal day winds up going home to my Senator, my colleague from Stockton's comments, or winds up in the news as part of this increasingly fractious, really toxic culture war argument that has come to school boards and often seems likely to subsume the more important conversations, which is, how do we as a state provide the best, highest quality, most equitable, most nurturing education we can?

That's why this Bill is necessary, and I'm glad to support it. I respectfully asked when Aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Newman, Senator Skinner.

Thank you, Mister President. Members, appreciate the conversation we've had so far and especially appreciate our colleague from Stockton's remarks. My daughter came out when she was pretty young, considering she was the end of her freshman year in high school.

But she decided, and it was her right to make that decision, to not come out to all of her family. And at that point, her father and I were not together, and she did not want to come out yet to her father, and I needed to respect that.

And if we had been in a situation where the school would have called her father, for example, what a violation of her privacy and what a violation of her ability to talk to her father when she was ready and to work that out between them, which, of course, they eventually did.

Now, additionally, she had many friends who were not out, and the stress on them about the fear that they would be rejected by their families if they came out, I observed, cause really severe self destructive circumstances with those kids. One of them who would regularly spend the night at our house

because she felt much more comfortable would do self mutilation. We know that LGBTQ kids have the highest rate of suicide, and suicide, as we know amongst our teens, is up. We do not want to contribute to higher rates of suicide. It is not.

I really appreciate our colleague from Orange County's comments about it is the role of our schools to have our kids feel safe and around these things that are personal to them and something they need to work out with their families should be left to them and not imposed.

And I think our colleague from Stockton's description of what her principle did in relationship to her, you know, dating is just the most perfect example of why we need this Bill and why it should not just be left up to either local control or the discretion of a principal who we don't know what their motivation might be.

So I appreciate this Bill. I appreciate our colleagues comments, and I urge our Aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Skinner, Senator Wiener.

Thank you very much, Mister President. I also rise in support of AB 1955, and I want to thank the author for moving this forward. I had apropos of what the Senator from Stockton just said, I admitted to myself that I was gay when I was 17 years old in the late 1980s.

I have the most amazing parents in the world who so supportive, so forward looking around LGBTQ issues. I literally have a Lesbian aunt, Lesbian cousin who were out in the sixties and the seventies. So I had no doubt in my mind that my parents would be completely supportive and affirming.

It still took me three years to tell them, because regardless of how your parents are going to react for any parent child relationship, as a child, you have to be ready to have that conversation with your parents. It's always hard, no matter how supportive they are, and they were amazing.

But I made that decision on my own timetable when I was ready, not when someone else was ready to tell my parents, when I was ready to tell my parents, and for any LGBTQ person, whether gay, Lesbian, Trans, it is their business and their business only and no one else's business when, whether how they tell their parents.

And that's what this is about. We want to make sure that these kids are safe, and we want to make sure that they're doing it on their own timetable as human beings. I asked for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. I have microphones up from Senator Niello, Durazo and Seyarto. Senator Niello, thank you.

Excuse me. Thank you, Mister President. I also have great respect for my colleague from Stockton, not just as a colleague in the Senate, but as an individual person, which she will be at the end of this year, I think, and still the same person. My colleague from Bieber mentioned the issue of local control.

I do think that is a very important issue in this, but it's not the fundamental question in my mind. I understand the challenge of a minor going through questioning of sexual orientation, of gender dysphoria. I cannot minimize that at all, though I didn't experience it. I hear the comments of my colleagues, and I fully appreciate that.

And we're talking about the rights of students legitimately, but we haven't talked about the right of parents. And parents do have a responsibility in listening to my colleague from San Francisco with understanding parents, but he still delayed. I understand that. I appreciate that. I happen to feel that most parents are like his parents.

There are some that aren't. But to a certain extent, we're treating this as if all of them aren't. And I just asked the question not just for relevant colleagues in the room, but for anybody else that might be watching this session or the press that might report on this session.

I asked the question, as a parent or grandparent, but primarily parent, how would you feel if your child came to you to express their conclusion relative to sexual orientation or gender dysphoria, not just after struggling with it, his or herself, but learning that the kid had gone through counseling with the school or counseling unbeknownst to the parent.

And the issue being in the child's mind concluded at that point, that's a little bit different than what my colleague from San Francisco stated. Now, this Bill is going to pass. I get it. I'm not going to support it. But it would seem to me that it ought to at least express.

A priority for the school to talk with the child about communicating with his or her parents. It doesn't say that. I do think we have to include in the consideration, the responsibility that parents have and the rights of parents, too, in the way that I've stated.

Thank you, Senator Niello, Senator Durazo, followed by Senator Seyarto and Senator Menjivar. Senator Durazo.

Yes. My remarks are very short and simple. I want to thank the author very much. I want to thank the Senator very much for your comments, and I want to.

I want to thank my grandson for his courage and for his strength and for his love.

Thank you, Senator Durazo. Senator Seyarto, the floor is yours.

Thank you, there we go. Thank you, Mr. President. So I want to start out by clarifying and making sure that my colleague from San Diego and my colleague from Stockton understand that I really appreciate the work that you put into this. And I want to give you a perspective.

And I have to stand and give you this perspective because I am from the districts that you are talking about. I represent all three of those districts. And so I understand.

But there is a difference between parents who want to be part of a process and want solutions that work for them and want to be included in their kids lives. And that's, you know, a lot of the parents that I represent, that's what they want. They want to be included.

They want to be able to have those conversations. They want to know what is going on with their child, because when they don't, they get a child that is one way at home and a different way at school. Those are the kids that they wind up losing and they don't know why.

Parents need to be part of the process. And I am glad and I don't know what extent the process for including those parents in the discussion of developing this bill.

But what I notice in this bill is at the end of the day, when a student goes off to school and they may dress one way when they're leaving the house, and, you know, my sister did this.

She was not gay or anything like that, but she dressed one way at home and then when she got, sometimes she took the clothes she wanted to wear out of the bag because my dad wouldn't let her out. We were a single parent family in those years, so she would change when she got to school.

This is a little different. But when that happens, they're already outed. They're already out. What we're really dealing with is where do we go from here so that we can support the child?

Because that is the most important part of this. It's supporting the child and ensuring, because if they don't have the support they need at home, and they are not going to do well with the school part.

And some of those statistics that have been quoted over the last few years about this indicate that. Wind up homeless and wind up without an education because they're not being supported. And we need to find out sooner than later whether they're going to be supported or not.

So at that point, we can help somehow. Now, is this a teacher's responsibility? No. My whole family were teachers, and this is not something that I would lay on them, because guess what? They're not trained for that.

They are not trained to try to take a potential conflict in a family and meld that family back together again and work their way through an issue like this. That's what parents are afraid of. They don't want to be left out of that conversation.

And, yes, some parents won't handle it well, and some parents may even do the rejection. And that's really sad. I went through high school at the same time that my colleague from Stockton went through high school, and I had a lot of really funny, good friends that were athletic, funny, really smart. And you know what?

Some of them were gay, and none of us cared. And the school did not call up their parents. Their parents already kind of knew. They may have not had the conversation, but their parents knew. But we're talking about what we're talking about today.

There was a lot of not transgenderism back then, but what we're talking about today is a little different because now we're going into a medical part of it that requires any minor that's under 18 a parent to be involved with that and to ensure that they don't do something, the child doesn't do something that they will regret later.

And maybe they won't. Maybe they won't regret it later. When I was raising my three daughters, I had a rule. Yes, you could have your ears pierced once, but you couldn't do tattoos until you were 18. Then you could make those decisions. You know why?

Because when I was 40, I didn't want them coming to me and saying, dad, why did you let this happen to me? We had to be involved. We were great parents that were involved with our kids. We knew every aspect of what's going on most of the time.

But when they were in danger, yes, I did go, not danger, but when there were conflicts, I once got a call from a teacher at school, and I'm glad I did because I was able to intervene. We talked to different parents, and we were able to repair what was going on.

But the bottom line is, if I didn't know, it had nothing to do with this issue, but if I didn't know, I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. That's the frustration you are seeing at these boards, board meetings and things like that.

And that's what some of that, some of the board actions are built around that frustration and trying to diffuse it because the loudest people in the room are doing that. We need to have a conversation. We need solutions that include parents, not teachers, that teachers aren't the notification process.

But when this arises up, when this rises up in somebody's life, they're already out. They're going to find out. Social media, all the informal lines of communication will ensure that somebody's going to hear about it in an uncontrolled manner.

When this happens, what we should do is develop a process where we do have a family counselor that's able to sit down with the student, which is able to sit down with the parents and say, this is what's going on. How are we going to handle this?

That way we know which parents handle it well and which parents don't, and that way we can offer the type of help for these students that they need. I'm afraid what this bill does is it just pokes another stick in the eye of people that are concerned about that and further cements the ideological divide.

And that's my concern with this. If we include the parents, that's the best way to take something from people being angry and mad to developing a solution that works for everybody. And this doesn't quite get there. So unfortunately, I will not be able to support this.

Parental rights are super important, and if we don't, if we keep ignoring that, it's going to keep being a bigger and bigger issue.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Let's recognize now Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to share a different perspective to what you've heard from two of my LGBTQ Caucus Members. What my parent, my mom, thought was her responsibility when I was outed to her. At 16 years old, I was in a high school that was safe and affirming to me. I felt very true to myself.

There I was able to be with my other queer friends, but the boyfriend of my cousin outed me. He told my cousin, who was at a different school, who then told my aunt, who told my mom. I came home to literally all my things on the front lawn because I was kicked out.

That's what happens when parents don't accept queer kids. Okay, you can have all these positive stories, but there are more than enough stories just like mine. I went back into the closet because I needed a place to sleep, because I needed a roof over my head to continue high school.

So I hid myself and I told my mom it was just a phase. And then I started dating a boy. And I would bring him home so my mom would see that I was, in fact, just confused and lost.

So I lost my room, my big room, because I was an A student, I was an athlet, I had my own bathroom in my room. And she put me in the smallest room. And this was right before we got evicted from our home. I didn't come out to my mom until the age of 25 after that.

And then she said, my life was like a prostitute. Till this day, my mom doesn't accept me. Endless amount of conversations. You want to talk to counselors. No amount of counselors are going to change certain parents perspectives of their kids who are queer.

My friend would spend endless amount of hours crying in my car because her mom did not accept her. At 23, at 24. And to this day, we trauma bond about how we continue to have to kind of code switch whenever we're with our mom.

I'm 35 years old, and I represent 1 million people, and I have to still code switch when I'm with my mom for safety reasons, both mentally and maybe physically. And there are many queer kids in California who have these stories who go to school and feel safe.

They can be their true selves, they can wear whatever they want, and then they have to code switch at home.

Until they're 18 years old, we are asking for 18 years of their life to not have to code switch at schools to be safe and know that no one in that establishment will out them until they are ready. And we do this because we know our parents. I knew my mom, how she was going to react.

I went to church, pentecostal church. You can imagine. I knew her understanding. The pastor spoke about homosexuality every single Sunday, Friday night and Wednesday. Three times a week, I would go to church. I knew how my mom was going to act.

I did this because I knew these kids, if they feel safe with their parents, will talk to their parents. If we do not feel safe, let us navigate that until we are ready, or until we don't have to live with them, or until we don't depend on them for a roof over our heads.

So this Bill is needed to protect us so that there's no barriers like this. And so a little 16-year-old queer kid who almost lost her home can grow up and be a state Senator. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Laird, Senator Rubio followed by Senator Laird. Senator Rubio?

Thank you, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen of the Senate. You know, I think that this bill, you know, I hear everyone's concerns, you know, and at the heart of it, you know, I do believe in parents rights, and I think that this bill does nothing to take parents rights away.

I think that parents still have the right to discuss anything they want with their children. I still think they have the right to inquire, set the table so that their children feel safe to come forward and speak to them when they're feeling confused, if that's what they choose to do.

But I also know as a teacher, so much that teachers have to take on, and this just simply says it's not one more thing that teachers have to worry about. That is not their job. Their job is to inquire about their learning deficiencies. How do we help them be successful?

What do they need to move forward in their educational world? But again, when it comes to parents rights, they still have every right to inquire, question, sit down with them. I think that's still going to be there regardless of this bill. And I think that's where I keep hearing the confusion. This does not take any rights away.

But I also want to highlight, and I'm so glad that my colleague from San Fernando highlighted a different perspective. I'm going to add another perspective. You know, everyone knows that I am a victim's right advocate. I've been fighting for domestic violence victims, human trafficking victims.

And I have to tell you, I keep hearing over and over again, let parents deal with this. If only all parents did the right thing. If only they open their arms and embrace their children. So I'm going to give you just two examples of how that is not always the case. And I think children are worth saving.

One, as I'm navigating, you know, being a victim's advocate, I'm always listening to these stories.

And I'll just tell you a story of a five, little, five year old little girl whose mother, at the age of five, was passing her around to men, from five all the way to 15, this little girl was abused, assaulted, sold, five years old. If only parents always did the right thing. That's not always the case.

I was a vice principal in an elementary school when a little girl told me that she was being raped by her stepfather. It was my responsibility to call Child Welfare Services. And later on, I learned that she was still in the home.

And when I started inquiring about why she was still in the home, it appeared that the little girl recanted because the mother didn't want to lose her boyfriend. So she rather have her little girl being assaulted and raped every single night rather than lose her boyfriend. Again, if only parents always did the right thing.

That is not always the case. And I agree that there's a few people that are bad actors and not all parents are bad. But again, it is up to parents, parents' rights to sit down with their children and set the table and say, we're here, whatever it is, not necessarily about this issue. Anything.

Gangs, drugs, anything that you want to talk about, we are here for you. Yes. So parents have the right to develop that relationship. So when something goes wrong, again, not necessary about this issue, it could be anything. They feel confident that if they went to their parents, they're going to be respected and listened to.

So again, I want to just highlight the importance of understanding that not all parents do the right thing, unfortunately. I wish they did. They just don't. And as a teacher, I can tell you we spend a lot of time trying to ensure that your children have a good education.

We don't need to continue to add more things that don't belong in the classroom. Our job is to teach. Our job is to make sure that your children are successful. Our job is to tell you where the deficiencies are, what you need to help your child succeed, what areas you need to focus on.

We don't need to get into your business, your life, your home. We are there just to teach and make sure that your children are safe. And I can remember many times children would come to me, and it wasn't because they came to me because I was the right person to tell.

They told me because they didn't have anybody to tell at home. They didn't believe that they were going to be safe if they said something at home. So let's just remember that not all parents do the right thing.

And I'm speaking for that five-year-old little girl who had to endure torture because her mother passed her around at the age of five to different men. And let's also remember Gabriel Fernandez, if you don't remember that case, his murder, his torture, his death was based on rumors that he might be gay.

And the parents tortured him, murdered him. And the sad part about that case is that school district did know. Adults did know. Adults saw the bruises, the harm. They shaved his head. He had bumps. I mean, all the signs were there.

And yet, parents not only did not do the right thing, they were the ones inflicting the pain on poor Gabriel Fernandez. So I will just add that this bill just keeps children safe. And with that, I also ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Rubio. I have microphones up from Senator Laird Padilla and Atkins. Senator Laird.

Thank you, Mr. President. I had put my microphone down because I thought the speech by the Senator from San Fernando made the case in a way that I couldn't see anybody adding to it.

But I think it's important to put that speech in the context of this debate because it was said earlier, and I'm not going to get it exactly right, but basically that this bill isn't about the majority of kids. That's right.

It's about the kids like the Senator from San Fernando and what happened to them, regardless of whether they're in the majority of all kids. And it is important for us to protect those kids. And I always refer, I wish I had a copy of it.

When I was in the Assembly, there was a study done by San Francisco State where they interviewed gay kids about what happened to them when they came out. And eventually they circled back to the parents and interviewed them. And there was a substantial number of kids that were thrown out of the house when it became clear.

And they just moved into, many of them, an unspeakable life on the streets, horrible things at risk in major ways.

And that study actually circled back to the parents, and many parents when confronted with the fact that the choice was what was happening to their kids on the street as a result of them throwing them out, they really, many of them changed their view about the safety of their kids, but in many cases it was too late. That's what this is about.

And I recall when I was a kid, my father was one of those teachers that everybody came and talked to, and he might advise people to go talk to their parents, but he was trying to have them have a place where they could feel safe and a voice and acknowledge who they were and work through what the issues were in a way that they weren't put at that kind of risk.

And it has been difficult to hear that this is a matter of local control, because I imagine if you're African-American and were in the south for the hundred years after the Civil War, you can imagine what local control meant.

It was called state rights, but it really meant you couldn't vote, you couldn't have equal facilities, you were at the risk of being lynched. And we as a people felt like there was a higher calling and a higher civil right to act in unison to make sure that we protected those people that were not in the majority.

And it was not about, well, it was about the majority because it was about what the majority was doing to the minority. But in essence, all these issues are what we face here to protect the kids, regardless of where they are.

Whether they're in the majority, to override people that might not have that best interest and to just remember the speech that was given by the Senator from San Fernando, because that's why we should all vote for AB 1955.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Senator Padilla, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Mr. President and colleagues, my esteemed colleagues. Thank you for some amazing testimonials. Of course I rise in support and I think it's important to remember maybe an uncomfortable truth for some. This is not about parents' rights.

This is about returning teachers to a place where they are focused on providing quality education and a nurturing, safe and healthy environment for all children, no matter their circumstances. It is really an educational hippocratic oath. Do no harm, either intentionally or unwittingly.

When I was a very small boy in elementary school, I had a pretty pronounced speech lisp, something that unfortunately, in our culture and society for many generations, we stereotyped and were derisive and hostile towards as a stereotype of young gay boys and men.

There was a period of time when I was in third and fourth grade where literally every single day the same group of boys, because these were the days, of course, when kids could walk home four or five blocks unaccompanied and it wasn't a problem, but I would get jumped and beat up almost every day on the way home from school.

I would come home with torn clothing and some bruises to the point that it alarmed my mother so much. Not just the physical and emotional injury, but of course, the fact that she would continually have to keep shopping for a new set of school clothes.

We ended up in the principal's office with my mother holding some of my torn shirts in her hand and demanding that the school do something to intervene. Every single day for a period of time, I tried walking different ways, different blocks. I tried slipping away, staying late.

But there were some folks that just didn't appreciate how I expressed myself and jumped to conclusions about what that meant. Knew that I was different, and decided, for whatever reasons, they probably learned at home, or gleaned from the implications and dialogue of everyday conversations, all the things on the playground.

I won't repeat the names, the words every day, that it was worth putting a little energy into following Steve Padilla home, no matter which way he chose to walk. A few years ago, I had the opportunity as an elected official to address a convening in Chula Vista's East Lake High School of the gay straight alliance.

This was 400 people in an auditorium of all the gay straight alliance clubs in the district. And what I would have given, what I would have given to have such a thing as a boy. And I can't imagine what it would have been like those days, walking home and coming home with torn clothing.

If, on top of the treatment from my fellow students, I had to worry about what my parents might do, for whatever reason, cultural, social, religious or otherwise. And when I spoke to this group of GSA students, I was honored to speak alongside some Pulse Nightclub survivors from Orlando.

And I was able to tell my own story and my journey to hundreds of students. And when we were done, I was leaving with my staff, and I will never forget these two juniors.

Two young Latina girls came up to me arm in arm, and one of the girls was just weeping with tears coming down her face, didn't say a word. She was in bilingual immersion. Her friend was very fluent. And she just walked up to me and her friend was literally bawling. She said, my friend wants to meet you.

She didn't say a word. She just cried. And I will never forget thinking to myself, what must this child be dealing with every day that not only affects her as a human being, but certainly interrupts the environment she deserved to learn. This is not about parent rights.

This is about protecting the dignity and worth of every student and acknowledging the long-understood reality that there are situations in which, intentionally or unwittingly, we can place students in danger. And we ought not to do that. And I respectfully ask, an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Padilla, Senator Atkins.

Thank you, Mister President. I want to thank my colleague from San Diego for authoring this bill. Certainly, my colleague from Stockton and the LGBTQ Caucus for doing this and bringing this forward. I have appreciated hearing the stories of parents, of grandparents, of individuals that have had stories.

We all have stories that bring us to this moment, particularly my colleague from San Fernando Valley. I could have had a similar story. I was afraid of abandonment and rejection. So, I didn't come out to my parents until I was in college, and I knew I had a bed to sleep in and a place to be. Now my parents had a different reaction. And I'm grateful. I am so grateful.

But I just stood up because I wanted to add my voice of appreciation to teachers, because when I was afraid of abandonment and rejection and didn't come out to my parents, when I was in high school, there was a teacher there, and I never talked to one of those teachers in high school about the fact that I might be a member of the gay community.

I never had to do that, but I could always feel the support of teachers. And I know that all of us can think of one teacher that made a difference in our lives, and we can say their names even today.

And so, my voice right now is appreciation for all of your stories and your perspectives to have this difficult conversation. But today, the support, as a number of colleagues have said, for tools for teachers to be able to support their kids, whatever those issues are.

I remember a teacher giving $2 to one of the kids and telling him how to go to the laundromat and wash his clothes. And I ran into the kid at the laundromat, and he told me, I was a few years older than him, but he told me which teacher, Miss Clader, who I had had in elementary school, gave him $2 so he could go do his laundry in a laundromat, because the kid did.

I mean, that was about a kid who obviously had issues. So, this bill today is really support for kids. Yes, but it's also support for those who are trying to teach kids and to be able to support those kids in their everyday life.

And so, I wanted to give voice to that because I sat here and listened to the stories. I always appreciate it, but a list of teachers went through my mind who got me through and to college to be able to become the person I am. But this tool is for those teachers. This came through the Education Committee.

So, with great appreciation and a shout-out. I know we have teachers here, but wanted to say thank you for what you did to help me, us, and what you're going to do with this piece of legislation to be able to help our kids in school every single day going forward.

I urge an aye vote for AB 1955.

Thank you, Senator Atkins. Senator Ochoa Bog.

Thank you, Mister President. I've really appreciated all the stories that have been shared today by my colleagues and I have great heart and sensitivity for all of them. Great respect. I wish life wasn't as hard as it is for some. With that, I'm going to preface that this bill is putting everybody together with the LGBT community together.

But in reality, I'm going to talk about, going back to the school boards, what prompted this legislation today here. School boards have been passing policies that inform parents when their minor student is asking me to publicly be treated as a different gender than their biological sex.

That is, when the student is asking for the school to participate in the student's social transition. The policies in the school boards don't mention sexual orientation. What most parents are most afraid of is that their child adopting an identity that brings with it heightened suicide risks and irreversible medical intervention and blocking parents from helping their child.

Studies show long-term social transition leads directly to medicalization. Foundationally, I want to make sure that my colleagues are aware that the California School Board Association encouraged the 900-plus school districts to adopt administrative regulations 5145.3. AR 5145. I'm sorry.

AR 5145.3 required students and teachers to use other student chosen name and pronouns, or they could be disciplined for discrimination and likewise require that, and I quote, the compliance officer shall arrange a meeting with the student and, if appropriate, his or her parents or guardians.

Clearly, AR 5145.3 makes involving the parents discretionary, but really, it is a child who is deciding, just like AB 1955 does. AB 195 today, 55, I'm sorry, AB 1955 is seeking to codify 5145.3 into law.

My read of the parental notification policies is that there is no obligation to involve the parent if a student tells a teacher that he is transgender.

But there is when the student asks that the school use pronouns or a name, or permit him to use facilities for the opposite, or change his records. Simply, once a student requests a school to participate in his social transition, that is when parents need to be notified. It sounds like the student is outing himself to the school and other students.

This removes wherever privacy rights might exist. The federal judge in Mirabelli v. Olsen case states in his 36 page order dated September 14th, 2023, that, according to FERPA, the privacy right of a child takes second place to his or her parent's right to know, and that a secrecy policy is as foreign to federal constitutional and statutory law as it is medically unwise.

The judge also confirmed that no authority exists conferring upon children a privacy right in their gender identity as against their own parents.

Quote, concerning the California State constitutional right to privacy for minors and regulations like a parent secrecy policy, the state's highest court has not had occasion to issue a binding interpretation, and no state appellate court decisions have been identified. Parents' rights are superior to a right of a privacy belonging to their child.

A parent may curtail a child's exercise of constitutional rights because a parent's own constitutional protected liberty includes the right to bring up their child. The judge denounced Escondido's parent secrecy policy. policy 5145.3. The school's policy is a trifecta of harm.

It harms the child who needs parental guidance and possibly mental health intervention to determine if the incongruence is organic or whether it is the result of bullying, peer pressure, or fleeting impulse. It harms the parents by depriving them of the long-recognized 14th Amendment right to care, guide, and make healthcare decisions for their children.

And finally, it harms plaintiffs who are compelled to violate the parent's right by forcing plaintiffs to conceal information they feel is critical for the welfare of their students, violating plaintiff's religious beliefs. We hear a lot about the elevated risk of suicide of trans identified youth.

The figures go from 41% have thought about suicide all the way to 87%, which was the figure from Attorney General complaint against the Chino Valley School District.

If suicide is such a risk, and we know that suicides do not happen at school, but that the vast majority occur at home, why would we not alert the parents of the heightened suicide risk so that they can lock up poisons, prescription drugs, and be vigilant as well as get their child into therapy?

We can't justify hiding a child's gender dysphoria from their parents. Horribly, two out of 315 of those youth. Sorry. The National Institution of Health study that involved 315 youth at four major U.S. hospitals. The children were supported by family members and their trans identified and intended to be a multidisciplined mental team.

Horribly, two out of the 350 of those youth ended their lives during the first year of the study. That is more than 40 times the suicide rate of their peers. Socially and medically transitioning a child certainly did not prevent the suicide. A new U.S. study. I'm not going to read that for essence of the time.

I'm going to go for Doctor Erica Anderson, a trans-identified man, and psychologist who practiced at UCSF's Gender Clinic and is the former President of the U.S. Professional Association of Transgender Health, filed a declaration in a couple of California cases. Doctor Anderson states parent involvement is necessary.

Excuse me, is that permission to read?

Oh, permission to read. I'm sorry.

All right, I'm going to grant it.

Permission to read. States, parent involvement is necessary to obtain professional assistance for a child or adolescent experiencing gender incongruence, to provide accurate diagnosis, and to treat any gender dysphoria or other coexisting conditions. Doctor Anderson also states. Permission to continue reading?

Okay. Permission to read granted.

A school-facilitated transition without parental consent interferes with parents' ability to pursue a careful assessment and or therapeutic approach prior to transitioning, prevents parents from making decisions about whether a transition will be best for their child, and creates unnecessary tension in the parent-child relationship.

Nor is facilitating a double life for some children in which they present as transgender in some contexts, but cisgender in other contexts in their best interest. No Professional Medical Association that I'm aware of recommends that school officials facilitate the social transition of a child or adolescent without parental knowledge and consent.

It's difficult to navigate this space, incredibly personal to families, but I can assure you that historically, parents have always wanted the best for their children. When thoughts of suicide have entered, attempts of suicide, suicide attempts have happened to children.

I can assure that regardless of how parents feel about their child's gender identity, sexual orientation, parents will always step up and love their child. Maybe not always, but the majority, the majority of parents would. I'm going to end by just referencing court case in Hajin versus Minnesota, 497 US 47 1990.

The court said a natural parent who has demonstrated sufficient commitment to his or her children is thereafter entitled to raise their children free from undue state interference. With that, I respectfully ask for no vote.

Members, any further discussion or debate on this measure? Any further discussion? Senator Grove.

Thank you, Mister President. I'm just going to take a minute because I have deep respect for the author and my colleagues that spoke previously on the Floor from both sides.

But the personal stories that came from our colleagues, from specifically the LGBTQ community and those that are elected here in office, that represent them statewide, you know, like all of us, we all have individuals in our community.

My colleague from Stockton, when she was introducing the bill or talking in the presentation, she said, I want to dial down the conflicts or dial down. I don't remember the word, but it was like dial down the rhetoric, I guess you'd say.

And so, I just want to make clear that, you know, frantically reading the Bill while we were sitting here and listening to the debate. This text in 217. Permission to read.

Permission to read yes, it's granted.

Above 217, there's several paragraphs that talk about several resources that are available and the language that goes through. That is, it includes families.

But under Section 217 of the bill, Section A1, the Department the Department, meaning the Department, shall develop resources or as appropriate, update existing resources for supports and community resources and support of parents, guardians, families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning LGBTQ pupils and strategies to increase support for LGBTQ pupils and thereby remove overall school community improve overall school community climate.

The resources shall be designed and used to the school boards operated so the school boards will make the decision how these resources were designed, but the Department is recommending, under Section Two, the Department shall develop the supports and community resources for parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ pupils in collaboration with parents in collaboration with parents, guardians, and families, including, but not limited to LGBTQ pupils.

The Department shall periodically update the supports of the community resources with, again parents, guardians, families, and LGBTQ pupils that reflect changes in the law. As used in this section, School-based supports and community resources for the support of parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ pupils include, but are not limited all the following.

Parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ pupils, support groups and or affinity clubs and organizations. B. Safe places, safe spaces, excuse me, for parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ pupils. C. Anti-bullying and harassment policies and related complaint procedures for parents, guardians, and families to have access. Counseling services is D. E.

School staff who have received anti-bias or other training aimed at supporting LGBTQ youth and their parents, guardians. and families. F. Suicide prevention policies related to procedures for parents, guardians, and families to access.

As used in this section, the community resources will support parents, guardians, families of LGBTQ pupils included, but not limited to, both of the following. Local community-based organizations that provide support to parents, guardians, and families of LGBTQ youth. Local physical and mental health providers with experience in treating and supporting parents, families, and guardians of LGBT youth.

You could go on and on and on through the language of this bill. You could go on and on and on through the language of this bill. I think when my colleague says, dial down the rhetoric, we need to dial it down. The bottom line is that this bill says that teachers should not be mandated reporters.

Listening to the personal stories of our colleagues, on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and on our side of the aisle, we could all tell heart-wrenching stories about our upbringing. I think we grew up in a different era, I think for different reasons. My mom was very poor, single mom.

My dad was a jerk. I shouldn't have said that, but whatever. And we used to, like, steal potatoes out of the field to eat, and now I'm one of 40, and I went to a naval waiver continuation high school, and I was a fighter, in case you guys didn't know that, in high school. But.

So, we all have different backgrounds, but there are very touching stories. Frantically reading through the legislation, which I have not read all of it yet, but everything that I did read to you is in there.

And this policy that they are trying to develop is, the way I understand it, and I would like the author to correct me if I am wrong, is that they don't want teachers to be mandated reporters. That's in this particular space. Now, if they're being abused or they're being.

There's child neglect, all those other policies, but in this particular space, they don't want the teacher or. I'm sorry, I should get the language out again. Teachers, counselors, contractors, janitorial personnel, any school personnel that's paid by the school, I'm assuming, or contracted by the school, they don't want them to be mandated reporters in this space.

Everything in this bill includes families, guardians, and the whole language. I just read about the LGBTQ space coming together to develop these policies. I'm really going to get in trouble for this next step, and I know Greg Burt is flipping out right now. Nobody on this Floor.

I don't care who you are, nobody on this Floor wants LGBT kids targeted.

I have a pastor friend of mine who now works for CAPK, and they adopted a little boy from one of the mission fields that we went on to as a kid, and he came out to them, and he's transitioning, and they love him, and he's part of their family.

But based on the comments that were happening today, not everybody has that experience. I can't find anything in here in the language. And again, I frantically looked through it, and I haven't talked to a consultant about it because I've just been listening to, I don't know, what's been going around on both sides of the aisle.

And I feel like I'm in my space on the Assembly Floor when Scott Budnick brought me youth offenders, and I listened to the conversation in my office, and one young kid says, I drove the car. And the other young kid says, I pulled the trigger. And then this. I'm like, what's your story? There's an older man.

He's twisting his hat in his hand, and he goes, my son would be alive today if this policy was available in this state. So, he's actually campaigning for a bill that those two kids that killed his son to try to solve problems. I don't know what the solution to this problem is. I think love.

I mean, Jesus said love. You know, I say that I've said this before, maybe down on this floor, but I love the Lord with all my heart. And I know God didn't send his son to this world to condemn this world, and I'm pretty damn sure he didn't send anybody else.

So, I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that the bill does include parents, guardians for the solution. And I do know, or my understanding of the bill is that it does not require teachers or contractors in a school to be mandated reporters.

There has to be a happy solution where parents can be engaged and involved in this process. Because although, you know, like my colleague said, behind me, he said, if parents aren't involved in the process, it doesn't work. If parents aren't involved in the process.

And we do come across situations where parents are hostile to this situation with their children, then, you know, authorities need to know. If parents. And when I say hostile, I mean hostile. I mean, I'm not talking. I'm not talking, you know, the dad saying, I'm not going to let you do that.

You know, that's something you all work through. But I'm talking about hostile, detrimental, harm to the child. I agree with my colleague from Yucca Valley. Right? Sorry. Sorry, ROB. I agree with ROB that, you know, parents should be involved in this process, and it appears that the bill allows that to be involved in this process.

There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. I do have concerns about the constitutionality. I like my. I understand my colleague from Bieber. School boards are elected by the people closest to the people in those communities.

I understand my colleague, the former Secretary of Natural Resources', comments that you know about the south and things like that.

So, there are a lot of good arguments on both sides of this argument, but we need to come together and figure out what works, because right now, there is a lot of people in my district and in other districts that are fighting hard to gain control of their children's lives again without government interference in any way, without government interference about anything.

Parents want to be able to raise their children. They want to be able to raise their children, and they should be allowed to. So, I don't want to say, I appreciate the Floor debate because it gave me an opportunity to read the Bill. I can't support the Bill, Suze. I just can't.

I have to have an opportunity to talk to somebody who knows more about this than I do. But what I've read so far, I will tell you that my.

Unless there's some in code sections, because I haven't had time to read the code sections and determine what that is in another piece of legislation and so on and so forth.

On the face of this bill, it looks like they don't want teachers to be mandated reporters and that parents will be involved in the process to develop something for the LGBTQ students. Because I agree with my colleague ROB, that I don't think every parent is like this.

I think most parents of parents I know in my district are loving and accepting and working through this process without any government interference. But it grieved my heart from what I heard from my colleague from San Fernando Valley and so and others. And I think everybody should be loved and accepted. I don't think that we have to.

I don't think that belief should be pushed on one way or the other from either side. And contrary to some of the stories heard are on the Floor, my Jesus loves everybody equally, no matter who they are and where they're at. And I know I'm a horrible example of him, but I try to be good.

It doesn't work every day, you can tell.

But I think we should just look into this legislation and figure out how to make it so that there is a communication where the rhetoric is dialed down on both sides, and people really understand what the bill says and move forward that way instead of having it crammed through the way it's been crammed through.

And there needs to be a deeper dialogue is what I'm saying. So, thank you.

Thank you, Senator Grove. Any further discussion or debate on this measure? Any further discussion or debate? Senator Eggman, you may conclude the debate.

Thank you very much, Mister President. And I have appreciated all my colleagues and all the debate. And I understand when we're talking about kids and parents, it is an emotional issue, and I think we heard that from everybody. And I'd also just like to say on behalf of the LGBTQ Caucus, aren't we fabulous? Aren't we fabulous?

I mean, we show up and we smile and we're fun and we're all those things. But when you hear the struggles that we have gone through, I hope you really appreciate how fabulous we are. And I say that with pride.

And I also say that so you know how determined we are not to let this happen to another generation of kids, that this is why we are so set and firm on saying we've got to take care of our kids and keep them safe. And you'll say, that's parent's roles. We're not getting in between parent's roles.

Parents still have these kids all the time. Parents have a relationship with a child. The school is not the conduit for a relationship with a child. And I don't know anybody who would think that the school is the conduit or the platform for a relationship with the child. That makes no sense to me.

And the idea that local control. I mean, I hear that I was in a City Council, but the former Secretary of Natural Resources said, I mean, that's what we had when people would not let African Americans into schools, they couldn't go because that was local control. I don't. Why?

Why would we want to create a system like that again? Why would we want to create a system like that again? We don't. I don't believe we do. This piece of legislation simply says, prepare with parents' information for parents to be able to have it so they can help their kids.

That kids, and kids do have a right to privacy, and we are not superseding the FERPA law. There is no superseding. There is no superseding of the FERPA law in this. Parents still have the right. There's no secret files. The law you're referring to says parents have the right to the student's educational files. We don't touch that.

We don't touch that. And I heard your person that you were quoting from, I heard that testimony seemed to indicate there was secret files, secret gay files that would be kept at schools, that would be kept from parents. That's absurd.

Teachers don't have enough time to do the things that we ask them to do, let alone keep secret gay files from parents. That is ridiculous, Members. Think about this. All right, what we're saying is provide information for parents to be able to have if they want to be able to help their kids be supportive.

We're saying kids have a right to privacy. We're saying school boards should not mandate teachers to call parents and be the gender police. And we're saying kids have a right to privacy. That's all we're saying. That's all we're saying. And you can make up as much else as you want to say about it.

And you can say this is about medically and socially transitioning children at school. How could that happen? How could that happen without a parent knowing? I would ask, how could that happen without a parent knowing? Unless that parent is living under a table somewhere. As my colleague, the former firefighter, said, everybody knew. Everybody knew.

It wasn't a secret. So, then what are you saying if there's no secrets, that there's no need to be telling. Because I'll tell you.

When the school called my family to tell them I was dating an African American young man that communicated to my parents that something was wrong, that something was wrong with what I was doing, that is the way it was communicated. And that is what these policies do. Alert parents that something is wrong and something should be done.

Let's keep all of our kids safe. Let us tone down the rhetoric, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote on AB 1955.

Thank you, Senator Eggman. All debate having been completed. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll call]

On a vote of 29 to eight, the measure passes. Members, we're going to move next to messages from the Assembly. Ask the Clerk to read messages from the Assembly.

Mister President, I'm directed to inform your honorable body that the Assembly amended on this day, passed as amended, Senate Bill 154167 and respectfully request your honorable body to concur and set amendments. Sue Parker, chief Clerk of the Assembly of bills ordered to unfinished business.

Okay, Members, so we are now moving to our supplemental file. This is supplemental file number one. Hopefully we won't have a supplemental file number two today. And we'll begin with file item 159. This is Senate Bill 154. Secretary, please read.

Senate Bill 154 by Committee on Budget and Fiscal review enact relating to education finance and declaring the urgency thereup to take effect immediately, we'll.

Turn to our budget chair, Senator Wiener, for presentation.

Thank you very much, Mister President. Colleague. SB 154 is a budget trailer Bill relating to education finance, specifically to Prop. 98 suspension. The Bill is a cornerstone to the balanced budget that we're passing today and is critical to protecting schools and community colleges and programs outside of Prop.

98 from reductions in ongoing spending. The Bill suspends the Prop . 98 guarantee in the current 20232024 fiscal year to $98.5 billion, and requires future funding obligations towards the guarantee in the out years. These actions are aligned with what is allowed under the California Constitution. For context, without this suspension, the guarantee in the current year for Prop.

98 would be $106.8 billion, and that would mean reductions elsewhere. The school rainy day Fund will cover the difference between the revised guarantee level and ongoing costs for schools and community colleges, which will be included in the education omnibus trailer Bill. With these actions combined, the budget will be able to maintain Prop.

98 spending levels and leave a cushion for future years. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. Any further discussion or debate on this measure? Any further discussion or debate scene. Non secretary, please call the roll.

Allen I Al rodegil, Archuleta I Ashby I Atkins. I Becker. I Blakespear. I Bradford. I Caballero. I Cortese. I Dahle. No Dodd. I dorazzo I Eggman. I Glazer I Gonzalez. I Grove. No. Artado. Aye. Jones. No. Laird. I limome. Mcguire. I minjabar. I Min. I Newman. I win no. Niello. No. Chobo. No. Padilla? I Portantino. Aye. Roth?

Aye. Rubio? Aye. Siarto. No. Skinner I small cuevas I Stern Humberg. I Wahab. I Wiener. I will no.

That's a vote of 298 on the urgency. 298. The Assembly amendments are concurred in. We're going to move next to file item 160. Before I go to secretary to read, I just want to ask everyone to keep the volume down and go to the back of the chamber if you need to have a conversation.

Secretary, please read Senate Bill 167 by Committee on Budget and fiscal review an accolade relating to taxation and making an appropriation, therefore to take effect immediately. Bill related to the budget Senator Wiener.

Thank you very much Mister President. Colleagues, SB 167 is budget trailer Bill relating to taxation. The Bill enacts a net operating loss suspension and business tax credit limitation for the 20242025 and 2026 tax years, providing the state additional revenues to protect services for Californians and critical investments during this difficult budget time.

The Bill includes intent language to provide refundability for impacted taxpayers for the foregone use of business tax credits during the limitation period. It eliminates a variety of other tax deductions, including oil and gas subsidy, tax subsidies and a bad debt deduction for lenders.

It includes a variety of other taxation changes and technical cleanup provisions, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Senator Niello.

Thank you, Mister President. There are lots of problems with all of these tax proposals. I'll just go through three of them. Three of the four, the R and D credit. This comes under economic development.

This is an allowance that other states have for, in particular tech companies, but others too, that to the extent that we are inconsistent in our allowance, we will just encourage other companies to leave the state. I refer to the list that my colleague from Bieber referenced earlier.

I think we need to be a lot more concerned about that than we evidently seem to be. With regard to the net operating loss provision, I put this under the category of kick them while they're down. This is a fairness allowance.

As the Legislative Analyst has pointed out, in our system of taxation, when companies are developing or otherwise operating but losing money, they are depleting their capital.

When they start making money again, they need to refresh their capital, which is going to be considerably hampered if we immediately require them to start paying taxes once they make money after year or years of loss. I would also add two other things. First of all, we play around with this provision of the tax code frequently.

It's getting to the point where businesses really can't depend upon it. Businesses need certainty. This certainty doesn't exist with a net operating loss because of our practice, not just this budget year, but others too.

The other thing is this because of the three year time delay, it transfers a deficit to the Next Administration, which also kind of doesn't seem fair, but it just adds to the challenge that I articulated when I was talking about the budget Bill itself. Lastly, the apportionment factor.

We had extensive discussion about this and somewhat confusing in our Budget Committee meeting yesterday. But the fact of the matter is, as I pointed out then, and everyone agreed, this is not a deferral. This is a tax increase. It is an increase in taxes which requires a two thirds majority vote.

The budget, of course, will be passed by a simple majority, and it also basically invalidates the authority of the office of Tax Appeals. These proposals are flawed for all sorts of reasons. I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Senator Nielsen. Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mister President. I'll be brief. I just wanted to add some thoughts that structurally, for California need to be addressed. California typically does well because of capital gains that we receive off of the worldwide companies that are in California. Capital gains tax when the stock market is doing well.

And so I want to make the point that the stock market is doing well. The Nasdaq has exceeded its limits or its all time highs, and so is the Nasdaq. And so what has happened in California is that we have a structural deficit most other states don't have right now. Why is that?

That's the question that needs to be answered. Why is that? And it's quite frankly, because of bills like SB 167, which are penalizing businesses in California. Not only are we the highest tax, but we're the highest regulated.

We have a lot of policies that come through this house that tell you how many employees you have to have versus a checkout in your store or what the minimum wage is going to be in your business. Those are all regulatory taxes or regulations that hurt business.

So I just want to point out that America is doing well. Stock markets all time highs, Nasdaq's all time highs, and California's not doing well. So you need to be on notice that there's a huge structural problem in California, and it's not going to get better until we help businesses stay in California, which pay the original tax.

For those reasons, I won't be supporting SB 167. Thank you, Senator Dali.

Give the businesses a break. Thank you, Senator Dali. Any further discussion or debate? Seeing none. Senator Wiener, you may close.

Thank you, Mister President. I agree. America is doing well. I agree with my colleague from Beaver. So thank you, President Biden, for delivering such an amazing economy. So I wanted to stress that in terms of these, this is not an elimination of these credits. They will be able to recoup them in the future.

And, you know, I also just want to say in terms of taxation, I said this in Committee yesterday, it was only seven years ago, in 2017 that the federal corporate tax rate was reduced by 40% from 35% to 21%, a huge boon.

We now have large corporations, a significant number large corporations in this country who literally pay no federal taxes in terms of corporate tax or very little.

And so all we are asking here during a difficult budget year is to be part of the solution, that they'll get the money, they'll get the credits later, but to be a part of the effort to balance this budget, this is a very reasonable approach, and I. Respectfully ask for an aye vote I'll debate having seized.

Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members. Aye. On vote of 29 to eight. On the urgency, 29 to eight, the Assembly amendments are concurred in Members. We're going to move from unfinished business to Assembly. Third reading. We have one item. Excuse me, Senate third reading, we have one item to consider there. That's file item 61.

This is SCR 15 by Senator Allen. Secretary, please read.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 157 by Senator Allen. Relative to directing the Secretary of State to withdraw from the consideration of the people of the State of California Senate constitutional amendment number two of the 2021-22 regular session relating to public housing projects.

Thank you, Mr. President and Members. This seeks to pull back the question of Article 34 repeal from the next ballot. Article 34 was added to the Constitution in 1950 to prohibit the development of construction or acquisition of low-rent housing projects by any government entity until approved by voters. Building more affordable housing quickly is a priority.

We introduced SCA 2 a couple of years ago to put the repeal of Article 34 on the ballot as one of many efforts to help address the housing crisis. I also authored SB 469 last year, which substantially addresses some of the most significant concerns about how Article 34 might be impacting housing production.

This is a very crowded ballot. There are roughly a dozen measures on the November ballot. Reaching voters will be difficult and expensive. We knew when we made this decision last session to move forward with this. This would be a possible tool in our toolkit to pull it back.

Pending what was going on with SB 469 and what the ballot was going to look like. We all believe very strongly that Article 34 should be repealed from the constitution, but that the timing of SDA 2 is suboptimal and without the urgent need.

And with the many competing ballot priorities, it's best to pull SDA 2 from the ballot rather than waste time, effort and resources on a measure that would be really rather unpredictable as to its passage. So that's what this seeks to do. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator Allen. Any discussion or debate on this measure? Members, let me remind you, this measure does require 27 votes. Seeing no further debate, Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call[

All right, on a vote of 30 to zero, the measure passes. Excuse me. Members, we're going to move next to messages from the Governor. They will be deemed read. We'll move to reports of Committee. They'll be deemed read and amendments adopted. We'll move next to motions, resolutions and notices. Let's first recognize the majority leader.

Thank you, Mister President. I request unanimous consent to withdraw Senate Bill 1381 from engrossing and enrolling and return the measure to the Assembly for further action.

Without objection. That will be the order of the day. Let me turn next to Senator Dodd.

Thank you, Mister President. At the request of the author, please remove AB 1940 file item number 136 from the consent calendar. Also at the request of the author, please remove AB 2849. That's file item number 48 from the consent calendar.

The desk will note. Senator Rubio.

Thank you, Mister President. At the request of the author, I would like to request file item 126, AB 2146 by Rodriguez and file item 147, AB 2822 Gabriel be removed from the consent calendar for the purposes of amendments. Thank you.

The desk will note.

Senator Seyarto, I have two. Thank you, Mister President. I request unanimous consent to withdraw SB 1122 from engrossing and enrolling and return the measure to the Assembly for further action.

Without objection. That will be the order. Senator Seyarto.

All right. I would like to remove SCR 111 from the inactive file.

The desk will note. Senator Becker?

Yes, I'd like to. At the request the author pull file item 120 AB 2251 Connally. From the consent calendar.

The desk will note. Senator Bradford.

Thank you Mister President. At the request of the author please remove file item 138 AB 1986 from the consent calendar for purposes of amendments.

The desk note, Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Mister President. I move adoption of authors amendments for budget bills and budget trailer bills that cross the desk on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 14, 15th and 16th, 2024. These amendments will be adopted, published, and the bills returned to the Committee.

So this is a motion for an amendment? Well, we will take a roll call vote on it. Is any discussion or debate on the matter, Senator Niello?

I object to the motion.

Any further discussion or debate scene non secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

On a vote of 29 to eight, the motion carries. Members, pursuant to Senate rule 29.10 B, following bills are referred to the Committee on Rules, file item 103, AB 1186.

Pursuant to Senate rule 2910 C, following bills are referred to the Committee on Rules, file item 104, AB 996. File item 105, AB 628. File item 106, AB 1239. File item 107, AB 799 and file item 108, AB 863. Members, we're going to move next to consideration of the daily file. Second reading Clerk, please read.

Assembly Bill 1853, 2234 with amendments 2290 with amendments 2289 with amendments 2333 with amendments 2325, 2590.

File will be deemed read. Next up, Members, is the consent calendar. Okay, we'll take up the consent calendar in just a moment, Members. And just to make Members aware, we are not going to do adjourn in memories today. So I know that was on the docket for some apologies for that.

All right, secretary, please call the roll.

Members, we're going to be taking up two consent calendars consent calendar and the special consent calendar. Does any Member want to remove anything from either of the consent calendars? Seeing none. Secretary, please read.

Assembly Bill 2370, 2429, 3090 Assembly Joint Resolution 12 Assembly Bill 1916, 1941, 2301. Concurrent Resolution 143 Assembly Bill 1774, 1796, 1805, 1821, 1871, 1875, 1957, 2111, 2173, 2177, 2179, 2213, 2261, 2345, 2541, 3092, 3277 Assembly Conclusion Concurrent Resolution 124, 158, 177, 187, 198, 199, 200. Incidentally, Concurrent Resolution 201.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Member.

[Roll Call]

It's a vote of 37 to 0 on file item 120. 37 to 0 on the balance of the consent calendars. Members, if there is no other business before the Senate, Senator McGuire, the desk is clear.

Mister President. Thank you so much, Mister President. I know this is an incredibly busy time of the year. Stressful bills moving through committees. Just want to say thank you for your constant work to each and every one of the Members of the Senate. We will have additional budget votes next week here on the floor.

Folks should be prepared for that. The next floor session is scheduled for Monday, June 17, at 02:00 p.m. have a good weekend.

The Senate will be in recess until 03:30 p.m. at which time the adjournment motion will be made. We will reconvene Monday, June 17, at 02:00 p.m.