Senate Floor

Mr. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The quorum is present. Will the Members and our guests beyond the rail and in the gallery please rise? We will be led in prayer this morning by Sister Michelle Gorman, after which, please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.

As we pray in God's presence this morning, we reflect on this poem by Mary Wickham called Mercy. If we utter the word mercy, standing each of us by an open window, anywhere we are in the world, then the word mercy will carry on the sound waves outwards and unceasing through the air of the wounded world.

And maybe when it takes flight into deed and kindness, justice and effort, it will affect a healing, a hope and a blessing. It may call the homeless home. It may coax to hope the betrayed and broken. It may ease the burdened earth. Listen for it. Listen for its neighborly dialects and global idiom.

Imagine those who, like you, are saying it aloud and those who need to hear it today. One word, one deed of justice, one kind effort at a time. So, gracious God, we ask you to give us the courage to say and be mercy today. Amen.

Please join me as we pledge our flag. [Pledge of Allegiance]

Members, we have a lot of work to do today, and so we're going to be jumping around a bit in order to get it done. So I'd like to share the run of show with you so you know what we're going to be doing.

We're going to convene our first extraordinary session, and we will take up SBX13 followed by an AB, ABX14. So we're going to be waiting to get it back from the Assembly or to get it from the Assembly. If it takes a while, we will work through the other two measures on the first extraordinary session.

And once we do get the Assembly Bill, we have some procedural motions to take care of and a supplemental file to create. So I'm going to ask for your patience today. There may be some starts and stop after that, we're going to reconvene the regular session to take up one resolution and some of the governor's appointments.

So we may end up actually doing some of that if we have a pause that's too long, so pay attention. And if you need us to slow down, we can always do that. But that's going to be our process today.

So at this time, the regular session will stand in recess and the first extraordinary session will be convened. The prayer and the pledge will be deemed complete. And without objection, we will move to Senate Third Reading to take up file item number three, SBX13 by Senator Wiener. Senator Wiener, the floor. Mr. Secretary, please read.

Senate Bill three by Senator Wiener. An act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation therefore to take effect immediately. Budget Bill.

The floor is yours, Senator.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam President, SBX13 is a Budget Bill Junior associated with the Budget Act of 2024. Together with ABX14, this is a part of the $2.5 billion package to support the immediate response for the Los Angeles fires. Specifically, this bill amends the 2024 Budget Act as follows.

It appropriates up to $1 billion in one time General Funds for augmentations to departments and agencies to be used in accordance with the Disaster Response Emergency Operations account requirements in areas of the state affected by the Wildfire State of Emergency declared by the Governor in January of this year. It includes specific reporting and accountability requirements.

It appropriates $4 million in one time General Fund to the Department of Housing and Community Development for a grant program for local governments in areas impacted by the January 2025 fires to expedite processes for homeowner rebuilding.

It appropriates a one million-dollar one time General Fund to provide assistance to impacted local educational agencies to rebuild and recover school facilities damage as a result of the January 2025 wildfires. Members, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Is there any discussion or debate on this item? Senator Seyarto.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, I'm going to be supporting this measure today and its fellow measure from the Assembly. I'm going to speak once on this issue.

I have some concerns about why we're even bringing this to the floor, other than to send a message to our residents down in LA that we are deeply concerned about what has happened to them and we will be doing everything we can to support them.

But the Governor already has the power to do everything that we are doing. The Emergency Services Act gives him broad authority along with the California Constitution and the Disaster Assistance Act. He can do all of that with a stroke of the pen. He's already declared an emergency for 120 days.

He can draw from whatever pot of money he needs to draw to address anything that comes up.

This is going to be a hurry up and wait type of situation because there's a lot of things that are going to stand in the way of people that are going to need to rebuild and have their temporary housing and things like that.

And there are things that are not in control of the Legislature. We are not going to have enough architects and engineers to help people re-engineer and draw architectural drawings for them to rebuild their homes.

That is going to be a labor market issue. Other than perhaps designating money to go into workforce development right now. Where they can start training people in construction so that when the construction phase does come, we'll have some people that we can draw from besides the entire state, because that's where everybody's going to be.

And I don't know if people remember this from back before when the fires up here happened. You couldn't get anything done at your house because it drew all of our labor force up here and nobody wanted to take a smaller job that was $50,000 or less.

So in our rush to do this, I think there's a lot of things that we can be considering on how to really help the people down there. And that's what my concern is.

We're going to designate 2 1/2 billion dollars, but it can already be done, and we are not going to know really what happened to it. Are they really going to get the help they need? Are they going to help with want we think they need?

So, the money for this fire budget, from a budget perspective, this was stuff that four years ago or five years ago we should have been working on. That's when the budget for this should be happening.

Last year we cut $5 million from a program that trains inmate crews 10 miles away from where the Palisades fire started, 10 miles up the road. You know what they do when they train them? They take them up to areas like the one that just burned and they teach them how to do fire breaks.

They teach them how to do brush thinning. They teach them all of those things. The Budget Committee turned down the Governor's proposal to cut that program. We said no. Bipartisan, unanimous no. That goes back in. We need that money. It got cut.

So now we're seeing some of the effects of us not having the budget priority to put this in place where it's needed. This is our report card for our work in the last 10 years. And folks, we get an F minus and some people will say, no, no, we have more aircraft.

We put more money into the fire service. We did all these things. You know what, Just because you get three or four questions right on a 50 question exam doesn't mean you get an A. In our case, we get an F. Because that mess down there, part of our responsibility, we didn't do well.

Now there's all sorts of issues going on down there, and that's not part of this discussion today. This discussion today is making sure that those people know we care.

So we are going to make this gesture to them and say, hey, even though the Governor can spend this money and get it to you right away, we back that. So I say, yes, let's support them by supporting this. But knowing that whatever we do today and from here on forward, we're going to need to do better.

And the way we do better, by the way, is we include, you know, remember in fourth grade subsets and supersets. Yeah. This legislative body, all of it is a superset. The Democrats and Republicans are subsets. This is an all hands-on deck issue.

And you need all of the collective energies from people who know insurance, from people who know businesses, people who know. But you know what? This also requires people who know fire. For Pete's sake folks, I've been in the fire service 35 years. I was an IC. I was an operations chief on some fires.

I got to play those roles. I took strike teams out in that area in Malibu. Not one person has called. Not one. I'm sorry, I take that back. I had a side consultation with the Senator from Calabasas and I also had some telephone conversation with the Senator from Santa Clarita. But in developing this plan, nobody called.

We are not using our resources right. We are not thinking right. This is a legislative issue that we should all be working together to do. I stand by ready to work with all of you to make sure that does not happen ever again.

But like I said today, going forward, we're working to make sure in six years this doesn't happen again. So I implore you, no more caucus meetings to come up with a Democrat Senate Democrat plan, or Assembly Democrat plan, for Pete's sake. We need a plan from all of us to make sure this doesn't happen again.

So thank you for allowing me to expand a little bit beyond just the budget. But I think it's important that we know what our role is as a Legislature and how we should work going forward together, truly bipartisan, instead of working in our little silos so that groups can get credit for the solutions. Thank you.

Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, colleagues. And thank you to our friends on the other side of the aisle for their commitment to making Los Angeles whole after this devastating tragedy. When you drive through the community and you see the carnage, you know this can happen to any community anywhere.

And we are going to need to be in this together, because fire does not discriminate. But what can discriminate is how we rebuild. And so I'm here to rise in support of this legislation to provide critical funding that will help Los Angeles recovery from these devastating wildfires.

And I had the opportunity to join my great colleague, the Senator from Pasadena, for a listening session with nearly over 200 impacted residents of Altadena. And this historic black community just represented so much hope, as we heard, of course, their pain, but also their desire to rebuild and continue to live out their California dream.

We know that this is a community that overcame discriminatory housing practices of the past to create wealth to sustain their families for generations.

And during the civil rights era, Altadena was one of the few neighborhoods in Los Angeles that was a haven for black home buyers after the Fair Housing Act turned this once redline area into a place, place for emerging black communities to thrive.

And my community stands in deep support because as the representative from South Los Angeles, I hold the other historic black community in the State of California.

And as we take action to recover and repair and to rebuild Altadena, all communities, in fact, that have been impacted by this fire, it is crucial that we do so ethically and equitably in our redevelopment priorities.

We must make sure that those who fought the fires, who are vulnerable, have an opportunity to build the certification they need to be able to join the Leagues of Firefighters to protect all of our communities across the state.

We must remain committed to the difficult work of rebuilding and restoring and ensuring that we preserve our historic, culturally significant communities. If we don't, they will be erased. And we only need to look at Katrina. We only need to look at Maui to understand how that happens. We cannot redline the rebuild.

We must do all in our power to support those who have been most impacted by the fires across across Los Angeles.

The elderly homeowners, those on fixed or low incomes, those who could not afford insurance, those who were underinsured, especially those who will work tirelessly to rebuild and protect Los Angeles and the Pasadena, Altadena area from further catastrophe.

That means providing our firefighters, those who fought while incarcerated, all of the resources and dignity they deserve, reinstating those funds which we know they have been for those fire training camps for incarcerated workers, but expanding that into pathways, pathways into career opportunities.

It means that the laborers who will be responsible for the cleanup and reconstruction of these communities are protected and valued and safe. And it also means that contractors, women owned contractors, minority owned businesses, are able to equitably participate in the rebuild. You can stay in your community when you have the opportunity to rebuild your community.

This is a down payment today, not only the beginning, but we know it will take many years to come. And as you said, my good colleague, we have to build back better and stronger. And with that I respectfully ask for your aye vote and I know that we can build fast and do this right.

Senator Perez.

Thank you Madam President and colleagues. I rise in strong support of SB3 by the good Senator from San Francisco. I appreciate the entirety and complimentary work undertaken during this special session.

In a time where there is much turmoil and uncertainty about what the future looks like on many fronts. These efforts reflect our values and commitment to protecting all Californians during most difficult times. My district, including the City of Altadena and Pasadena, were devastated by the Eaton fire.

This is a wildfire that has already claimed 17 lives and they're still counting destroyed over 9,000 structures, making it the second most destructive fire in state history. Thousands of families have been impacted, displaced, lost their homes and lost their livelihoods and generations of ties to the community. The devastation is heartbreaking.

I can share so many stories shared by community members with whom I share their pain. Community stories include that of a little boy who amidst the disaster, is looking for some sense of normalcy by going back to school and seeing his best friends again.

As an education advocate, my stomach turns to hear about how these events are especially impacting our youngest and the additional struggles that they are facing now with this disaster.

This package includes funding to rebuild and recover damaged school facilities so that this little boy does not have to wait to see his friends and he's able to go back to school and have some normalcy.

Many may not know, but we have a proud and historic black community in Altadena where many have lost their generational wealth when they lost their homes. And so much of their family history and meaning for their families and their communities tied directly into these homes.

And while we cannot bring back that same home, we must do everything we can to support and uplift these families in their most trying time to make them as whole as we can.

I'm incredibly grateful and thankful to the first responders, firefighters and police who have put their lives at risk to save our communities and to prevent more devastation, as well as for the hard work and bravery shown by so many community members who have answered the call and are helping to take care of their neighbors and are organizing every day to do food drives and cleanup throughout the entire community of Altadena and Pasadena.

The past two weeks have been incredibly challenging for Southern California, including my district, and while we've made progress, there's still a significant journey ahead as we transition from containment to recovery. As we begin that process, I'm also appreciative that this bill is supporting the cleanup efforts regarding air quality, water and other environmental testing.

There was a period of time when it was not even safe to drink water throughout parts of Altadena and Pasadena because our water systems were so badly damaged. My community members are looking to get back and evaluate their homes and start their healing and recovery journeys.

And we need that assurance that those efforts are done with the backing of the state to ensure the community is provided safeguards and support to do this work in a safe manner.

The California Legislature and Governor are dedicated to aiding our communities in the recovery and are swiftly taking action to provide the necessary help and resources to those affected by the fire.

This aid and assistance, when we are thinking about how it serves the entire fabric and diversity of those communities impacted and doing everything we can comprehensively to uplift everyone in our relief efforts.

The bills we are passing here today are integral to that recovery, with much work left to be done to ensure that the whole community impacted by these wildfires are made whole.

As a representative of the impacted communities of Altadena and Pasadena, I am committed to exploring and implementing measures to improve California's fire safety in the coming weeks and months for all of my community. We need to ensure that we're not leaving anyone behind.

Through our ongoing legislative, policy and budget processes, I will continue working tirelessly with the Governor and other stakeholders to safeguard our state and help residents recover and rebuild. I respectfully ask you all for your aye vote. Thank you.

Senator Weber Pearson.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Senators. I rise today in support of this and subsequent budget bills. These budget bills will be used to fund the elimination of hazards caused by the fires to the health and wellness of the surrounding communities. Air quality and water quality restoration are critical to ensure communities will be able to thrive.

It will also allocate funding for housing and education, specifically towards rebuilding schools and expediting approvals for new buildings and housing developments in LA County. Our Los Angeles community is facing unprecedented devastation, and my deepest condolences go out to everyone that has been impacted by these fires. The scale of suffering and trauma is truly unimaginable.

We are committed to investing deeply in recovery efforts to rebuild neighborhoods and communities. And as we collaborate to address this crisis, we must ensure that all cities are included in discussions and solutions. We all know that California has a very troubling history of state mandated redlining.

As highlighted in the California Legislative Black Caucus Reparation Task Force report, these policies systematically barred black Californians from buying homes in predominantly white neighborhoods that were enriched with ample resources and support. This left black communities with fewer investments in housing, education and health care, hindering much needed and deserved progress.

However, despite numerous obstacles placed in their way, cities and communities like Altadena cultivated a vibrant community marked by black excellence and generational wealth. Against all odds, this city built thriving neighborhoods with small businesses, schools, safe spaces and hospitals that serve black and brown Angelenos.

Altadena's history, current struggles and aspirations for future deserve to have an equal voice in our conversations, not in the shadow of other communities. Our allocations of funds for recovery, housing, education and health care must be equitable, recognizing the cultural and social significance of investing in neighborhoods like Altadena on par with others.

As Chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, I ask for your support of these bills and the subsequent ones in this special session and to continue to keep Altadena and other minority communities at the forefront of our efforts and conversations. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam President. I too rise in support of SB3 in this first extraordinary session. But I do have some questions and comments that I would like answered by the good Senator from San Francisco, if he's able to. First my comments.

Let me check and make sure that you will accept a question, Senator. He will.

First my comments, colleagues. I had a friend that went down on the ground down there and was actually brought in by the National Guard and he got a really good bird's eye view. A tour of what was happening down in Los Angeles after the destruction of these fires.

And being a military veteran, he responded back to me and said the blast from Nagasaki and Hiroshima was a 35 square mile of death and destruction when we dropped that bomb. This is a very familiar territory, but it only it covers 54 square miles instead of 35 square miles.

He said it was like being on a different plane planet because of the destruction these fires created. I have to agree with my colleague from Murrieta. Balanced government serves our people the best from both sides.

I know we're in the minority party here, but I can tell you that I've had many people reach out to me regarding their families that have been affected by these wildfires and their Democrats, Republicans and Independents. I agree with my colleague from South Los Angeles. This fire was nondiscriminatory. It didn't matter what color your skin was.

It didn't matter what your socioeconomic privilege or not privilege was. This fire affected everybody and it was not discriminatory. Los Angeles fire was devastating. Again, one of the worst ones we've had in the history of California. And I do have questions and I hope that the author can share.

The language wasn't readily available to all of us and I know you're still working on language, but I want to make sure that we address the issues of insurance, those that were not insured or insured. Like we're going to allocate $2 billion. Where's the source of the income coming from, if that's available?

Is money going to be dedicated to CalRecycle? Because remediation is where that CalRecycle oversees remediation. And you can't go rebuild until you remediate the land, get rid of all the toxins and everything that the fire caused. So you have to remediate the ground first. And that means that CalRecycle has to authorize those contracts.

And so I want to know if there's resources going to CalRecycle and I want to know if they are, how much? If we know, I know this is a process and it's going to go back to the other house. I want to know if we're going to reinstate cattle grazing for mitigation and grazing. Cattle grazing.

So when you.

Cattle grazing. Sorry.

Yeah, we stopped cattle grazing, goat grazing and sheep grazing, which was a natural way to eliminate the fuel on the ground for the environment. And it was a precautionary measure to stop the fuel from fires being expanded.

I also want to know, again, like the cow recycle issues, I want to know if we are going to do if any of these resources are to go to reimburse the Los Angeles City County for a suspension of property tax. Right now you have a home that's valued at what, $10 million or $1 million?

And that home is totally destroyed, it's not worth that anymore. So can is there resources that are going to the county for a reassessment of those property values so that our constituents in Los Angeles can get immediate, immediate relief? Say they're living in a hotel and they're paying $6,000 a month for a house payment.

If we immediately reduce their taxes and eliminated or suspended their taxes and they reassess the value of their property, that would be immediate relief. They'd be living in their hotel and their payment for their mortgage would drop drastically. So those are a few questions that I have.

I really want to know specifically as well as if there's any money in this, in this allocation for budget moving forward for not just the rebuild, but to make sure that this doesn't happen again. And we do mitigation and we take responsibility for the things that we didn't do to prevent some of these fires.

Could what are some of the policies that went through the building the last two years, stop these fires? Absolutely not. I'm not saying that, but it could have definitely mitigated our risk. And so if you could answer those questions, I'd really appreciate it. You can answer them offline as well. You please reach out to me.

I just am looking for some answers that bring immediate relief to our Californian, all Californians that have suffered from this devastating loss. And those are some questions I had. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Through the chair.

Yes, you may proceed.

And we're happy to have further conversations. The Senator from Bakersfield. In terms of the phase one and phase two remediation, clearing of toxics, et cetera, et cetera. It's, and this is, all of this money is reimbursable from the Federal Government.

We're basically fronting the money and we will be reimbursed at 100%. And US CPA and Army Corps of Engineer will be leading on this initial phase one and phase two remediation. And that's already in process in terms of property taxes. I want to make very clear this is step one. Right.

We are moving this very, very quickly to try to, like I said, to front that money that will be reimbursed by the Federal Government but get the cash to LA for the remediation and initial steps of recovery, debris removal, et cetera now.

In the regular budget process, there can always be early action or in June or in the coming months. There will be significant work done about how we need to support LA. We know that LA is losing a lot of property taxes. That will be a topic of discussion.

This is just step one. Same with insurance. We had a preexisting insurance problem, it's now worse. That is going to be obviously a focus this year. So I'm happy to continue that conversation with you.

I think we're all on the same team when it comes to supporting LA, when it comes to helping people recover in not only in wealthy communities, but in all communities. And I'm really happy that we're going to be able to be united in supporting this bill.

Senator Limon.

Members, I rise today in support of SB3. Since 2017, California has endured several of the most catastrophic wildfires in our state history. And year by year, as we contend with ever more extreme conditions, we have taken action to help communities respond, recover and rebuild.

Over the past seven years, we have doubled CAL FIRE's budget and nearly doubled our wildland firefighting ranks. We stepped up with hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 10 years for hazardous fuel reduction projects, vegetation management, defensible space programs, and cutting-edge technology to prevent devastating wildfires.

We provided CAL FIRE with the world's largest civil aerial firefighting fleet, most recently adding 16 new helicopters and seven C130s air tankers. We have invested in critical firefighting equipment, workforce protection and development, and new training facilities. We have invested critical in critical aspects of this.

We've also invested billions in California's emergency relief fund to support emergency response and relief for departments across our state. In addition to preventing and response, we have helped communities rebuild every single time, including wildfire survival settlements from income taxes, keeping counties and school districts afloat and whole.

With property tax and school attendance backfill, we've provided resources to build vital infrastructure in impacted communities after the 2015, 2017, 2018, and more recent fires. This legislature has done more than any other state in our country to prepare for wildfires, to respond and to support recovery when the last embers are finally extinguished.

And even with all of this, just yesterday we had to send alerts to 105,000 constituents about evacuation warnings in my district due to the huge fire. And just now I received a text message that Cal State Channel Islands is being evacuated for the Laguna fire.

Even with all we have done, we must and will continue to do more. We will do everything we can to protect and assist Californians pre, during and post disasters. These measures are a critical first step to start the recovery process.

But we will be here with our colleagues who have experienced devastating fires every single step of the way. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Laird.

Thank you, Madam President. You know, for those of us that were around here during COVID the Governor took decisive action by executive order, and he was criticized. It was, "You should have come to us." Even though he had the power, should have come to us. So, what happens here?

He comes to us and the criticism is, "Oh, he should have used his power by executive order." So, it just shows he's going to get criticized either way and I want to thank him for coming to us on this one. Additionally, it was said that it was sort of downplayed what we had done in recent years.

And I think to add to the Senator from Santa Barbara, those seven converted planes that came from the federal government added in a way that they weren't even in our fleet.

The complete replacement of Vietnam-era helicopters and Vietnam-era aircraft was done in a way that it could drop at night, and the helicopters never dropped at night before. It really expanded our capability, both in numbers and, and operational capability.

And if you were watching the news reports last night of the Hughes fire, you saw those aircraft coming in heavily and strongly to deal with that fire.

And if four years ago, we did not in our statutes have goals, we did not have adaptive management for fuels reduction or what to do, I think everybody that that's on this floor that was in the Legislature in 2021, regardless of party, voted for that.

And as a result, for the first time, we had goals of the hundreds of thousands of acres we were gonna work every year on. We had adaptively managed to be able to move to where it wasn't happening or see what we learned in what we did.

And $2 billion has gone to that, no insignificant amount in those years. But I think the major issue here is that we are facing strong headwinds, literally and figuratively. And we can do as much home hardening, and we can do as much in fuels reduction and defensible space.

But if you have 80 to 100 mile an hour winds in a dry climate, there's only so much that you can do to defend to that. Because the real issue here is that our climate is changing. Our climate is turbocharging these situations. And this isn't an ideological thing, this is a fact.

And if you just look at our history with fire in the last 10 years, the Tubs Fire 2017, it started outside of Calistoga. Within six or seven hours, it burned all the way into another county and burned down a residential neighborhood in Santa Rosa. There was a fire on exactly the same footprint in 1964.

It took two and a half days. And it really is the extreme drought, the winds that are higher, everything that was different made the difference. And if you look at Paradise, an unbelievable tragedy. It's not as if the people of Paradise didn't anticipate.

So, in the years before the fire, they actually had a disaster drill because they knew there were limited ways out. They knew they were really subject. And they did a staged evacuation by zones. Well, nobody, nobody anticipated that that fire in 2018 would go at 60 yards a minute and cross the entire city in an hour.

And that is exactly what is happening. In the pro tems district, in my district, we have the wettest places, arguably in a so-called normal winter in Big Sur and up in Humboldt County. And in each place, there were January fires. January in the middle of the time that it usually douses.

And in Big Sur, the fire chief, who was at the time the queen of defensible space and adequate fire resources, lost her own house. And who could have anticipated in January that that would happen?

When I was resources secretary, the fire chief said, "You know, when I started out my career, we thought if we had one 50,000-acre fire a year, we'd had the big fire. We were really done for the season." In one year when he was saying this, we had five 50,000-acre fires before summer hit.

And even the fire season in the fall, it is changing. We have to accept that. And the thing that is presented by this bill is the fact that we are trying to learn from all those experiences.

It takes a lot to come back and it takes a lot to come back for the dimension of the disasters that just happened in Los Angeles County.

And so, we have learned that you've got to kick start it right away and you've got to remove the debris, and you've got to really start it so that people aren't behind the eight ball. That's what we learned. That's what this bill does.

It really takes the lessons and accelerates the response in a way that we know that we are meeting the needs of the people that have drastically been affected by this fire. So yes, we will have plenty of other bills. We will have a lot to learn from this.

We will have to turbocharge our efforts as strong as they have been in the last few years. But this is a great first step and I strongly urge an aye vote.

Senator Allen.

Members, I want to thank everybody for the concern expressed on the floor today, for the concern that I've heard from each and every one of you over the past couple of weeks. It's been an incredibly difficult time for my community. I live just down from where the fire was. I saw it from our window.

Our house smelled like smoke. We had to evacuate my mother. We were about a block and a half outside of the evacuation warning zone ourselves. And so many, so many of my friends have lost their homes. This is a community that I know well. It's literally right next to mine.

Our synagogue is in the heart of that community. My mom goes to a Bible study group on Friday mornings. I think about 15 people typically go. I think 13 of them, 12 or 13 lost their homes. So this has really hit my community very hard. The heartbreak, the loss is hard to take.

This is a beautiful Los Angeles neighborhood that nobody expected to go up in flames. And to walk those streets has been flabbergasting to see how much it looks like those photographs from World War II of decimated cities.

And this is a community that I was in just a couple weeks ago with trees and leaves, visiting people, people's homes. So many cultural losses in both communities, both Altadena, Pasadena, and in the Palisades in Malibu, the beautiful, wonderful Will Rogers State Historic park, one of our facilities within our state park system.

That gorgeous ranch house of Will Rogers burned his beautiful stables, burned the theater there, the women's club, number of the schools. So in the end of the day, this is about getting support for the cleanup efforts. It's reimbursable by the Federal Government. I want to thank the comments from my friends in both sides of the aisle.

This is truly a bipartisan effort. I know that our Assembly Minority Leader went down to visit the site. I think the President's likely going to be there tomorrow. He mentioned the fires, of course, in his inaugural address.

This is something we're incredibly grateful to the Previous Administration for stepping up and providing us with quick support, both on the rebuilding side, the FEMA side, and the recovery side. So it's my strong hope that this is going to be a seamless transition between the two administrations.

This is funding that we know is reimbursable by the Federal Government. And everything we're hearing is that there's going to be support for us and, you know, our fellow Americans in this time of incredible need, because I know that our community is really hurting right now and really needs help.

I want to thank the pro tem who unfortunately has experienced this type of disaster in his district. Many times we have. We've benefited from his incredible knowledge on this topic. He was able to come down to my district. He's already been down twice, including hosting a town hall. I know he did it in Altadena as well.

Whereas he was able to field very complicated questions about the rebuilding effort with great alacrity and knowledge. And I know that his knowledge is helping to drive a lot of our response in the Senate. As we work with the governor's office and the Assembly and others to ensure a speedy recovery for this community.

We're going to be having now a very difficult process of cleanup. The toxins are extraordinary. This is a dangerous place because of how many homes were burned. Homes now are filled with appliances and batteries and household hazardous waste that when it's just sitting on your shelf, it's perfectly safe.

But when it goes up in flames, ends up in the air, all that particulate matter really can impact human health. In fact, two days after the fire, the lead levels in Los Angeles were about 100 times over the normal levels. The chlorine levels were 60 times over the normal levels.

So we've got a lot to reckon with in terms of the damage that that may have caused to young people's lungs. I worry about this myself as a father of two little ones. And this is something that impacted the entire Southland, not just the burn zone.

And I know, as was mentioned by the Senator from Altadena, that there's going to be funding in here that will relate to environmental testing both for air quality and water.

There's funding in here to help our local governments get the process moving, to do a thoughtful but expedited approach to permitting reform in their communities to get the rebuilding process moving again. And we want them to rebuild.

We also want them to learn from the mistakes of the past and incorporate best practices in terms of fire science and home hardening and those kinds of things so that this truly doesn't ever happen again. There's funding in here to help similarly with our schools.

Something like a dozen schools were burned and those school districts in both communities, LAUSD and Pasadena Unified, really need the help now from the, from the, the State Architect and others, General Services and Office of Public School Construction to ensure an expedited rebuild for those schools. And those communities deserve that.

And so we're, we're putting some focus there to ensure that those schools can get back off, back on the ground, back up and running. So thank you for your support. Thank you for the comments that have been made. Thank you for all those who've reached out to me and to people, people in my district.

I know I speak for Sasha as well. How difficult a time this has been for us to just see our neighbors in so much pain and see these beautiful communities reduced to ashes. We know we're going to rebuild, we're going to come back stronger.

But we need the help of the state right now and that's what this effort today is all about. It's about getting that cash in place to get these, these cleanup efforts underway so that we can reconstruct the path toward normalcy.

So I appreciate this support for our communities just as we've always stood together through fires, whether they've been in the Sierras, on the north coast and elsewhere. Unfortunately, as was mentioned, there's some new fires popping up today.

We know this is our new normal and we have so much work ahead to ensure that we're going to be more resilient and better prepared for these kinds of fires in the future. So thank you and I urge a strong. I vote for SB3.

Senator Richardson. Good morning colleagues. I actually didn't plan on speaking today, but when I heard some of the comments I thought it was important to hit just a couple points. I rise in support of SBX 13.

Specifically I want to speak to the Bill before us, item number one, which appropriates $4 million a one time General funds to the Department of Housing and Community Development for grant programs for local governments. And it says it's for planning and inspection resources. And so it was asked why would we do that? People can't rebuild.

They don't need that money right now. Let me share a few statistics. Eaton as of 117 which is a week old. Eaton Homes destroyed 7,193. Palisades 3,501. So sir, you're correct that to completely rebuild a home is going to take a little time. But I want to give you another statistic. In Eaton structures damaged 805. Palisades 603.

So what could be a structural home that's damaged that could use this $4 million right now? Let me give you an example. Roofs. How many roofs in these homes have been damaged? And do you know? I know because I work in construction.

I know I might be a nice lady but you know, I like to do a little home reconstruction. Do you know you can get a roof permit in a week, in two weeks? Did you know that you can get your roof repaired in about two weeks?

So there is a sense of urgency of now Some people, their homes are damaged and because of a roof, because firemen had to come in and, you know, hit the wall and damage the drywall. And so now there's water issues. You can replace drywall in a week.

You can have an inspector come up, hang the drywall, they inspect the nails that were put in and the drywall is done and paint in two weeks. So there is a sense of urgency now. And I want to applaud my colleagues, first of all, Senator Perez and Allen, our budget chair, Mr.

Wiener, and our pro tem leader, Mr. Mcguire. We have a sense of urgency now. And I want to answer the final question that was said. Why us and why not the Governor? Why not us? This is why we're here. Only us can drive into every district in the State of California. Only us.

Do we represent 1 million people each that we can speak to about what's happening, that expect us to work and do our job. That's why it's us, because there's three levels of government. It's not just the Governor, it's us, too. So I rise in strong support of this Bill. I applaud the sense of urgency.

And I want to say from a real person, they can use this $4 million right now, and some of the individuals of 805 people in Eaton and 603 families in Palisades can go back home in about two weeks and repair their lives. I urge an aye vote. Thank you.

Want to remind Senators to use the appropriate cities for the Senators. And now we're moving on to Senator Rubio.

Thank you, Madam President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, today I stand in strong support of SB X13. But before I move forward, I want to just take a moment to acknowledge all. All those that lost their lives, all the families that are still devastated by the loss of a loved one.

And to those that lost their home, I want to take a moment specifically right now to acknowledge my colleague from Santa Monica, whose mother, I know personal, whose mother was devastated by the loss as well, of her structure. And, you know, to both of my colleagues from Altadena and Palisades, I know the work that they've been putting.

We all have seen the work that they've been putting. And as the chair of the Sangro Valley Caucus, I've also toured some of the devastated areas. And it's just beyond comprehension. Unless you're standing in front of the structures that are gone, you still feel the ashes in the air. And there's so much to be done.

And so at this moment, I'm so proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle because we're united in this effort of putting politics aside to ensure that we take care of Californians. I think that sends a really strong message that we put people first. And so I think that's important.

It's important for the victims and those that are trying to recover to know that we stand united in these efforts. And I just want to share that. As I went to visit some of the shelters and spoke to some of the children at, it really did break my heart. You see a sense of confusion.

They're unsure of what their future will mean. They're unsure if they're going to go back to school. And as a teacher, I can share with you that sometimes for some of our children, school community is the only place where they find safety, comfort, a sense of belonging. And right now that has been taken away from them.

And so rebuilding the schools with urgency is what some of our children are going to need. When I went to one of the shelters, I remember a little girl just saying, this is my graduation year.

It's just reminiscent of the pandemic where so many of our children didn't get to experience a graduation or walking down with their cap and gown.

But anyhow, I really just want to say that this is not just about rebuilding and making sure that we do what's right for families and making them, these families are going to need and deserve, and that's important. And so I urge all of us to continue to support these efforts. The recovery is going to be long.

It's going to be painful. But to these families, they look to us for leadership and to make sure that we are doing what's right by them.

And I just want to say to all the families, you know, as we all have shared, really my opinion, wonderful words up here, is that we stand behind you, we're going to take care of you, and we're going to put whatever resources are necessary to make you whole and ensure that some of these bad actors, as we already have seen, they're taking advantage of families.

They're already price gouging. And so that's another aspect of what we as legislators have to make sure we do is to protect victims they can't protect themselves. I already heard from a family who went to get help and someone had used their name in order to get resources. And so that only delays their efforts to recovery.

And so again, I just want to make sure that we stand together, that this is a, you know, that we become one people, one person here in this floor and that it doesn't matter what side of the aisle that you're from. We all support, support the efforts.

We support our firefighters, we support our public safety officers and everyone that was out there. Because when it happened and I was on the ground floor and touring and talking to people, it was all hands on deck. Everyone was concerned. And I think that we have to commend those that were out there, including those that are incarcerated.

There were hundreds just walking in an aisle fighting alongside with the firefighters. And that deserves also attention and praise. So with that, I also urge and I vote.

Thank you, Senator Valladares.

Thank you, Madam President. President, I do rise in support of SB3. I've had three fires hit my district, touch my district in the last 14 days. The Hearst fire, the Lydia fire. Two weeks ago, I was here in Sacramento when my own home in Acton was under evacuation warning.

Yesterday, when the Hughes fire broke out, I had to have someone go pick my daughter up early from school. Thankfully, that fire had amazing response from our firefighters, from our first responders. It's my understanding that a lot of people that were evacuated just the evacuation order was lifted just about a half an hour ago.

When I landed two weeks ago in Burbank to drive, the freeways were a mess. That's typical la, but they were a mess more than normal.

And had to drive through the valley and to see all of the stoplights that were out to have smoke and ash in the air and feeling like you needed a mask, we just got over wearing masks. I don't want to wear masks again. But to have that feeling of wow, you can smell it in the air.

Tens and 20 miles away from some of these fires was devastating. And you have tens of thousands of people that have been displaced. The housing market in LA was already a million units short. Now you have tens of thousands of people that have no home to go back to. You ask where are they now?

Hotels are booked in Los Angeles. Airbnbs are booked. Hotels and Indian Wells are booked. Cabins and Big Bears are booked. Where are people going to make their permanent homes? It is imperative that we make it easier for them to build and to find their new homes. So I do have a question for the author.

Will you take a question, Senator Wiener? Yes, he will.

So, Senator, I appreciate that this Bill will also reduce the amount of time it takes to review and approve building projects for clarification.

Will that, will that expedited process only happen in Los Angeles or across California so that people that decide that they want to move to Indian Wells because they don't want to come back to a fire prone area. Will that be expanded or is it just L A through the chair?

Yes, clarification. Are you referring to the $4 million?

Correct.

So that $4 million is designed to support local communities ability to do planning permitting because there are, there's a range of capacity among cities in terms of their ability to, you know, some cities have huge planning departments, some cities have tiny planning departments.

We want to make sure there's support so that all communities can have that planning capacity. So that's what that, that's supporting local government in terms of additional permit and we've done a lot of permit streamlining work in recent years there.

I as, I will just say as a former chair of the Housing Committee, that there is certainly, I think a lot of room to make sure that people are able to rebuild expeditiously. And there will be the question of building the same building, different home hardening, all that kind of stuff.

And in terms of if someone decides to go elsewhere, I think there's a lot of work that this Legislature needs to continue to do to make it easier for people to get permits in all parts of the state.

That is a conversation that overlaps with what we're dealing with with the fires and it's broader than that as well. And I'm, and I'm confident that that will be a conversation this year. It's not in this Bill. This is just immediate infusion of resources. But that will, I'm confident will be a topic of conversation.

Thank you. Members, I do rise in support and ask that you support AB or SB3. Thank you, Senator.

CA.

Thank you, madam President. I want to rise just on the question of the schools. As I was listening to the Senator from Pasadena describe the experience of the young man and it reminded me of the experience of the young men and women of Sonoma and Napa then paradise who never returned to their schools.

Their schools weren't rebuilt until they were had left elementary school, maybe high school and maybe now they're enrolled in Santa Rosa Junior College or at Chico State.

And as has been said, this is the most fundamental thing for a young person to be able to return to a place that's normal, where their friends are, where they know who they are, who they can become. We have to do better.

And so I applaud the $1.0 million that's in this, in this legislation in order to provide some assistance.

But we cannot simply give money to the state Allocation board in OPSC and the Division of State Architect for the purpose of helping these schools and these districts get a five month Head Start on a seven year process that's unacceptable.

This is an opportunity here for us to re engineer the way that we do school construction and particularly school repairs to make sure that this young man can go back to his school.

And so I hope as we proceed that the Governor takes the opportunity to re engineer and our colleagues on the State Allocation Board as well, we, the City of La, the City of Pasadena, the Altadena Town Planning Council, thanks to our efforts here, they're all required when they get an application or a building permit for an entitled project to turn that around in 90 days.

Now, when we passed that, we didn't know how they were going to do it. We just said, you must do it. Because it's so imperative that we meet the moment of the housing crisis. This is a moment for those young people.

And so I hope the Governor will take the opportunity with this, with these resources and with this imperative to declare that OPSC and State Architect and CDE will turn around these permits in 90 days for schools that were already there.

And that we will guarantee that young people will be able to return to their schools while they're still this, this coming academic year and rejoin the communities that they're so proud to be a part of. I vote Senator Stern.

Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the words of everyone here today, especially for those who have lost. I think of Betty up the street from me in the house I had my two babies in. She was 92 and blind and is no longer with us.

That was at the top of Big Rock, or Randall, called him Crawdaddy, a guy I bust tables with at a sushi bar growing up. And he's, he's gone and just too much of this, you know, just keeps happening. This is the second house, you know, that I've been in.

That then goes, I'm now the Senator from Sherman Oaks. It's been surreal to watch these places just burn. I can't help but feel a sense of complicity and guilt about it all.

But what lifts me up is seeing the bipartisanship, frankly, on this floor today and the conversations that I've been able to have over the last several weeks of this crisis to try to, in the most political of moments, try to just get it out of our minds.

It is out of people's minds, but it is not out of ours. The Internet, half the wildfires are out there just fighting lies during the, the emergency itself, spending time just dealing with accusations and demonization. And cheap shots every which way.

And it's not going to help us rebuild and it's not going to help our state be stronger.

There are signs of hope though, seeing already in the new federal administration's nominees coming before Congress talking about no conditions, no strings attached, no intent to play politics with this, even hearing from our Republican minority leader who's not here today, but I appreciate the Senator from San Diego talking about no conditions and no strings and us heeding that call and proceeding as we are today in this order of business to give space to those step up and cast these votes together.

Bipartisanship, I pray, continues at the federal level where fix our Forest act may move through the House and who knows, may actually not just worry about forests, but worry about the suburbs that are burning down too.

And that the Senate effort from Senator California and Senator from Louisiana are currently working on hardening and resilience efforts of the U.S. Senate.

There are signs of hope out there and I hope that these catastrophic fires that burn so many people and places down burn down also some of those old vestiges, those old divisions, let those lines also be burned down too with it and let us rebuild in a different way.

But the point I guess I wanted to leave you with is the rebuilding is so costly. This is $2.5 billion for two incidents. Meanwhile, we're in evac mode and Simi and Piru and out in Laguna now and you know, runs right up to our kids preschools and evacs us and it's knocking on our doors and who's next.

And this isn't just about rebuilding la, and this isn't just a vote about la. I hope when you make this vote, we commit ourselves to preventing and to getting ahead of these next fires.

Over 80% of state funds that have been spent on fire prevention thus far have been focused on deep forestry projects that are important, yes, but that don't put public safety and populations first.

The metric driving our fire prevention money, the bulk of it over the last five years has been weighted based on how much forest carbon you're going to prevent from going into the atmosphere. I work on climate change. I'm the last person you might think to say don't put carbon dioxide emissions first right now.

It's putting people first and populations first. And so when we go through the next round of funding that I hope we pursue expeditiously and don't wait for, for the full budget cycle to begin, but that we pursue early action on emergency prevention, that we focus on the Mariettas, the Santa Barbaras, the Santa Rosas, the San Diegos.

Who's next? Start with the most vulnerable people and let's find that space and invite experts to the table like our fire chief from Murrieta, and lend their expertise and put. And show this nation and show the folks back in D.C. how it can be done. And maybe they'll take our lead and do it the same way.

Because two and a half $1.0 billion to the Senator from Santa Cruz's point. Two and a half billion right here today on these. Then two and a half on the next. Then two and a half on the next. We can't afford to keep doing this.

I watch my parents just spend like $50,000 on a pump, on a water pump to make them feel good because everything just burned down the mountain fire on both sides of their house. But you go up and you look at their eaves and they're open. They got Wood under there.

And you look at the vents on their house, and I'm sorry to call them out on the Senate Floor, but you look at the vents on their house and they're open vents. They don't have the fine grain mesh that can keep an ember from going in there.

And all it needs to happen is that one ember into your attic. Right? It's not the flame that's burning down that house. It's those embers Traveling miles at 100 miles an hour, getting there and slipping in to your attic or right between your roof and the insulation and burning that whole house down.

Once it gets in there, there's nothing a firefighter can do. They got to just let it go. That's $100 at Home Depot. That's not $2.5 billion to rebuild an entire way of life. Let's put our dollars smart. We have that money at our disposal. That should be our next order of business.

I invite us all to be part of that effort. And if we don't? Look, the insurance market doesn't care about what we do here unless we get after prevention.

So that crisis is going to hit every single person in California's pocketbook, whether or not you think you live in a fire zone and whether even you're at risk of fire, because right now Compton is subsidizing Calabasas Fire Department, right? Right now the cities are right.

Your pocketbooks are all going to feel this unless we get ahead of it. So I'm getting tired of these debates, but I'm so grateful that we're pushing this money through that our pro tem is on the ground that our Governor is stepping up. And I welcome the President to the State of California whenever he may come.

Let this fire. Let this fire be the last.

Senator Arreguin.

Good morning, colleagues. I rise also in support of SB1X3. I want to thank my colleagues for the thoughtful discussion. I actually wasn't going to speak. I want to defer to my colleagues from Southern California. I certainly can't make up for the incredibly moving comments that they have made about the impact of these devastating fires in their communities.

And our hearts are with them and their. Their constituents. Much has been said about the work this Legislature has done these past few years to prepare our state from the growing impact of wildfire risk. It's an issue that impacts all of our state, including in my district in the East Bay hills.

And it's an issue we're going to have to put a lot of energy into in the coming months to not just respond and rebuild, but to prepare our state for what's to come given the climate catastrophe which is exacerbating these fires.

But I just want to respond to a comment that Senator Sierra made, if I may, and Senator Laird touched upon this, that the Governor, during the pandemic, issued a number of Executive orders. And there was a lot of criticism about the Governor taking those actions without engaging the Legislature and having proper legislative oversight.

What this Bill does is ensure that the Legislature takes action to allocate these funds to have proper oversight and accountability to do the job that we were elected to do. Our constituents are expecting us to do this work. We need to act now. So I call on all my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to stand together.

Let's make this a bipartisan unanimous vote to pass this Bill today to get the relief on the ground. Right now, we know that this is the beginning. There's a lot more work that we're gonna have to do, not just in terms of budget allocation, but also in terms of bills.

But it's critical that we take immediate action now. And I ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Want to remind Senators we refer to Senators by their city as opposed opposed to their name. Just a reminder, Senator Seyarto.

Well, since my name was brought up and I had comments directed at me from a couple of my colleagues, I wanted to make sure I clarify the intent of my message. And it was this. This is a high impact event and it takes quick mobility to respond to the initial needs of the people that are out there.

And the quickest way to do that is already in statute. It is the governor's State of emergency and his ability to send money, including money to go help people with their roof projects immediately.

Our job is to thoughtfully go through and make sure that whatever we're doing now or in two weeks covers everything else so that we don't leave any holes out because there are some things that the Governor can't do. And so the difference between this and Covid Covid was a long process. This is a high impact process.

That's the difference. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be directing money. There's saying that the quickest, fastest way to do that is already in place and that we need to be more thoughtful and come up with the longer term solutions and the other solutions that will be coming forward in the next three or four months.

Because guess what, we don't know what all of those impacts are yet. So that's all I was saying. I wasn't saying that they don't, we shouldn't be sending money to them. I'm just saying we have to respond the way the incident requires us to.

So just wanted to make that clarification so my colleagues understand what my intent was. And so I hope that helps bring some sense of relief to their concerns.

Thank you, Senator Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam President.

I just want to say the comments that I've been hearing all day today have been really, really impactful and I want to give my of course my best to the good Senators from the Pacific Palisades, Calabasas as well as Altadena and even San Fernando Valley who have been rock stars on the ground with their communities.

We cannot say this enough, how incredible they've been and how present they've been while even dealing with their own tragedies, how present they've been for their communities. So big thank you to them.

As been mentioned, this $1 billion, I think we've talked about it yesterday in special session budget hearing how impactful this is for not just the community at large, but you know, dozens and thousands of children have been displaced from their schools and this money has been mentioned goes to LAUSD and Pasadena Unified to be able to get those kids back to school, which we often don't think about.

Nearly a dozen schools in both areas had been completely or partially devastated and this will provide of course in addition has been mentioned the much needed funding for the cities of Los Angeles and Malibu as well as Los Angeles County.

I'm thankful also for as a lifelong Angeleno myself, I'm really thankful for my cities for coming in and being a support systems to the cities, cities as been mentioned, cities of Long Beach and southeast LA who've come through.

I think Long beach sent eight engines directly to Altadena and ensured that there was a nice warm home for them, whether that was the Queen Mary or many of our hospitals. I'm sorry, excuse me, many of our hotels in the southeast LA region as well. But the friends on the other side of the aisle, you're exactly right.

Accountability is key. This side of the aisle will ensure that that accountability is made and done. And we're committed to that. In fact, we've talked about it at length, ensuring that these dollars are reaching the folks that actually need the help. And we absolutely must be proactive. You're exactly right.

I think all of us agree that the proactivity is going to be so important and we're going to make sure of that. In fact, we have prepared for the proactivity for some time.

In fact, just last year, I know many of us had invested in wildfire safety by adding more than 500 firefighters to CAL FIRE to strengthen firefighting capacity and provide relief to firefighters, the valiant ones already working to reduce fire risk. We've also invested, as been mentioned, tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.

In fact, this House, Senate Democrats increased the CAL FIRE annual budget by 68%. And staffing has nearly doubled from 6,700 firefighters to 12,000 firefighters who are now bravely fighting fires in Los Angeles County. And we'll continue to do more and I look forward to working proactively.

Again, as been mentioned by the Senator from Calabasas, ensuring that we're diffusing the political rhetoric because this is a historic and tragic and catastrophic event. With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote Mr.

Pro Tem.

Thank you so much, Madam President, to all the colleagues, no matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, thank you for the words today. And I know we are centered in focusing on Southern California.

Special recognition goes to Senator Perez and Senator Allen for their work each and every day on behalf of the residents who are struggling right now. And I know that so many of us in this chamber have been impacted by wildfires. And so many of you have been leaders and want to say thank you.

Tens of thousands of our neighbors, our families and friends. They need help. They need help to be able to rebuild their homes, homes that they've loved many for generations, rebuild their businesses and rebuild their lives.

And I think that we can all agree, especially right now in this moment, what Californians don't need from both parties, they don't need partisanship. They don't need political bs.

This means that we need to be able to move with urgency, put aside our differences and be laser focused on delivering the financial resources, delivering the boots on the ground that are needed and the policy relief that is needed to get neighborhoods cleaned up and communities rebuilt.

The bills in front of us right now, we should consider it a down payment. I can't stress this enough, the gravity of the situation.

It's going to be one of the largest disasters that we've seen as Americans, and we will most likely be back in front of this body, in front of the Legislature, looking at supplemental emergency relief in the coming weeks.

But what these dollars will do, it's going to fast track the 2.5 billion to kick off the cleanup and to be able to start the rebuild. No red tape, no politics, no delays embedded in these dollars.

The relief dollars, as we had heard, comes from the General Fund and we fully anticipate will be reimbursed by the Federal Government. And speaking of the Federal Government, I think it's critically important to note these wildfires, they do not discriminate. These wildfires have hit all income levels. Race and gender doesn't discriminate based off of your party affiliation.

So I think we need to be clear when we take a look back in modern American history, there is no Federal Administration that had put strings attached for disaster aid. And it can't start now. Here's the truth.

No matter if you lose your home to a hurricane in Florida, if you lose your business to a flood in Louisiana, or if you lose your ranch to a fire in Texas, we're all Americans first. And as Americans, we go through tough times. And there are moments in our lives where the need is greater.

Greater than one, Greater than what any community can deliver, greater than any county can deliver, and candidly, greater than any state can deliver. And right now, California is going through tough times. And yes, we need help. I'm going to end it right here with this.

LA County residents contributed $20 billion to the Federal Government in 2021 through their. Taxes. More than all but four states. The biggest fire in the United States of America last year was in the great State of Texas. We need to say thank you to Governor Abbott for sending reinforcements our way to be able to fight these fires.

It was called the smokehouse creek fire. $1.2 billion in losses and 1.2 million acres burned. Texas had multiple lawsuits against the Biden Administration. But guess what? As Americans, we didn't miss a beat. We stood together in the greatest times of need. And that's what we need to do right now.

Grateful to the leadership of the Senate, to the Assembly, to the Governor, to Republicans and Democrats, this is just the start. Louisiana, we've got your back. Respectfully asked for an I vote, Senator Wiener.

Seeing no further discussion or debate, Senator Wiener, you may conclude.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Please call the roll.

[Roll call]

[Roll call]

Please call the absent Members.

Archuleta, Jones, Reyes.

Ayes.36. No 0s. Measure passes. Members. Members, if I could, I've got a couple of introductions to do. But first, so that we don't forget, I want to make sure that we wish a happy birthday to Senator Padilla, who is 39 years old. And so, congratulations, Senator.

And I'd like to introduce retired Senator Debra Bowen, if she is still here. Former Secretary of State. Thank you for joining us here today, we're honored you would spend the morning with us. And I also like to make some introductions from Wasco, Gilberto Reyna, who is a Wasco City Council Member. This is on behalf of Senator Hurtado.

Miguel Raya, who is a Wasco City Council Member. Valentin Medina, the Mayor of the City of Wasco. And Scott Hurlbet, who is Wasco City Manager. Thank you so much for joining us here today, spending your morning. And we're going to take a short minute.

So there is a an Assembly message at the desk. Secretary, please read the Assembly message.

Assembly Chamber January 23, 2025. Madam President, I am directed to inform your honorable body that the Assembly on the state passed Assembly Bill 4. Sue Parker, Chief Clerk of the Assembly ordered held at desk.

Very good, Mr. Secretary. Please read ABX1-4 for the first time.

Assembly Bill 4, introduced by Assemblymember Gabriel. An act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation, therefore to take effect immediately Budget Bill.

We will now recognize Senator Gonzalez under motions and resolutions for a procedural motion. Senator Gonzalez, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam President. Members, I move to suspend the Senate rules as they relate to ABX1-4. Ask for an aye vote.

Members, this is not a debatable item. Senator. Senator Niello. Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There we go again. But the real issue that I have with this is the suspension of the rules are unnecessary. As the Senator from Murrieta pointed out, the Governor has the ability to provide relief.

And if there's any particular delay by us not waiving this rule and taking this Bill up a couple days later, if there is need right now, today, the Governor can provide that.

Senator, this is a non debatable motion. So if you. If you'd like to just indicate what you recommend the vote be, that's acceptable.

I recommend we abstain on this.

Very good. Mr. Secretary, this is a motion and the Majority Leader recommends a an aye vote. And Senator Niello recommends abstaining. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members of Router.

[Roll Call]

Ayes. 32. No. 0. The motion passes.

Senator Gonzalez, you're recognized for another motion.

Thank you, Madam President. Members, there is a resolution at the desk requesting to dispense with Article 4, Section 8b of the Constitution as it relates to ABX1-4. This request has been approved by the Rules Committee.

Discussion or debate on this item, Mr. Secretary, please read.

Resolve that Assembly Bill X1-4 presents a case of urgency, as that term is used in Article 4, Section 8b of the Constitution, and the provision of that section requiring that the Bill be read on three several days and each House is hereby dispensed with and it is ordered that said Bill be read the second time and third times, considered engrossed and placed upon its passage.

Very good. Is there any discussion or debate on this item? Any discussion or debate? Seeing none. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Motion is adopted. Ayes. Whoops. Sorry. You erased it. I spoke too quickly. Ayes, 32. No, zero. The motion is adopted. Members, we're going to take a pause for one minute so we can get the paperwork in order. It is. And then we'll. We'll move on. So your patience, please.

Members, as we wait for the supplemental file, we're going to move to Senate third reading. To take up file item number one, SBX1-1. Mr.

Secretary, please read.

Senate Bill 1 by Senator Wiener. An act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation, therefore, to take effect immediately. Budget Bill.

Senator Wiener, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, SB 1 is a Budget Bill Junior associated with the Budget Act of 2024, provides up to $25 million for the Department of Justice and other state agencies to defend California against federal actions. The Bill also requires Department of Justice to report on the use of these funds to the Legislature.

Members, is there any discussion or debate on this item? Senator Seyarto.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The DOJ currently has $500 million in the unfair Compensation Law Fund, which was previously a $1 billion fund that was undesignated and was at the discretional use of the AG. 400 million was recently transferred to the General Fund two years ago.

Another 100 million was put into the General Fund last year, which leaves the 500 million that they put into this Unfair Competition Law Fund. If they need additional dollars from the General Fund, they should just take it from here so we can use our General Fund money to help the aforementioned fire victims in the previous discussion.

The other point I want to make on this is we already have a tenuous relationship with the Federal Government. What this is doing is sticking them with a, we're poking a stick in their eye with one hand and asking them for money with the other.

Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you, Madam President and colleagues. This is about protecting our treasure, our people. And I rise in support of this very necessary legislation to help protect our state, our vulnerable communities, our vital programs from this new Administration that has told us who they are and we have to believe them. Throughout the campaign trail and in the first four days of this Administration, Trump and his allies have aligned themselves with the priorities of Project 2025.

Thank you, Madam President and colleagues. This is about protecting our treasure, our people. And I rise in support of this very necessary legislation to help protect our state, our vulnerable communities, our vital programs from this new Administration that has told us who they are and we have to believe them.

They have promised to target our most vulnerable communities, weaken and upend our equal employment opportunity commissions, deport and terrorize our residents, halt DEI initiatives nationwide, hamper the state's ability to enforce our hard fought blood heavy civil rights protections.

We just celebrated Dr. King's birthday, and this Administration is destroying all of the work of our ancestors who gave so much so that we could live free and have free real opportunity.

This Wednesday, Trump issued an Executive order to undo decades of programs and actions by the Federal Government to promote equal employment opportunity, some of which date back, of course, to the movements of 1965.

He has moved to eliminate the Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Programs within the Department of Labor, an office responsible for combating unlawful employment discrimination. He is dismantling our NLRB that protects workers' rights and the rights to organize.

He has rescinded Executive Order 11246 by President Nixon, a successful initiative to promote anti-discrimination in this nation and to ensure equity requirements for federal contractors. Hurting our businesses that have tried to create and have a level playing field through these policies for women owned and minority owned businesses.

He has instructed the Department of Labor to immediately cease promoting diversity and punish contractors who prioritize equitable hiring. This will impact thousands of black women and minority contractors. Rather than support our nation's workers, this Administration has moved that all government staff working on DEI be put on immediate leave and others be put on noticed.

These punitive and senseless actions do nothing more than erode the political and economic power of people of color and hurt our most vulnerable communities. And we are a State of a majority people of color.

These punitive and senseless actions do nothing more than erode the political and economic power of people and hurt our most vulnerable communities, our most vulnerable workers, our most essential workers. And when workers hurt, all of our communities will suffer. In California, diversity, equity and inclusion are not a weakness. It is our strength.

It is the foundation of the future of this state. And it has helped make California the fifth largest economy with the most productive workforce documented and undocumented in the world. It has helped marginalized communities access meaningful work and pathways to the middle class. And these attacks on our vulnerable communities are another vain attempt to divide us.

The impact of his rhetoric and actions reverberate throughout California. And we must protect our treasure. This past year in LA County, we saw the highest number of hate crimes reported in our county ever. Hate has no place in our communities. It has no place in our White House. So what say you, California and colleagues?

How do we hold the line? How do we ensure California is in a position of having to defend itself once and again and to protect the programs and the people and the services that Californians rely on and have depended on from, from our Federal Government?

This funding will be instrumental in providing the Department of Justice and legal aid organizations with the necessary resources to mitigate the impacts and actions taken by the Federal Government.

And I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Budget Committee to ensure that we properly fund our community organizations as well as our public agencies, both state and local, to ensure that we are able to meet the responsibility of protecting the civil rights of our residents.

This protection that we need to uplift and prioritize here in California now more than ever. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, I rise in opposition of SB1 in this particular, particular subject matter regarding $25 million being sent to the Attorney General with unwavering conditions, with no conditions whatsoever. To my colleague from South Los Angeles Point, I have a difference of opinion.

I agree that the President is issuing orders on certain things with DEI to just make everything merit based. It shouldn't matter what color your skin is. It shouldn't matter who you are as an individual as long as you are accomplishing the goals that your company has said they will accomplish or you accomplish the goals in education.

The other stuff is all disparagingly truly discrimination. You can't elevate companies that don't do a good job. Everything should be merit based, and it doesn't matter. Whatever else is going on in the world, if it's merit based, it will all be equal. I have concerns. I have concerns and comments about the emergency declaration on energy.

Obviously producing 70% of the state's oil and gas in my district, we produced energy here. And are we going to sue the Trump Administration for making domestic energy something that is vital to our communities, especially mine and also yours, even though sometimes you don't recognize it?

I mean, we're sending billions of dollars overseas to countries like Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, and those countries don't share our values. They have a horrible distaste in their mouth for the LGBTQ community. They're invading other countries.

Our policy on energy here in this state, by not allowing drilling in our Central Valley, where we have the largest oil reserves ever, is an impact on negatively impacting the world. Because these countries invade other countries. We're not doing that in Kern County.

And we also impact the environment because it takes 126 million metric tons to bring oil from Saudi Arabia to us, and we only measure four miles off our coastline when we calculate carbon emissions.

So if you're a true believer on the reduction of carbon emissions, then you would produce energy here, put it in a pipeline down to PBF, and reduce the supply line cost of our fuel. I have concerns about education.

The Trump Administration is going to pursue education opportunities for parents to make the choice of what education best suits their student for learning capacity and elevating them to be more productive members of society. Are we going to sue the Trump Administration for that? This Administration is only a week old.

They have been very beneficial in changing the course of the United States to benefit all states. Why would we not want our constituents to be able to take part in that? The Trump Administration is coming here in California to personally review the wildfire situation that we have going on in Los Angeles. We want him here.

We want him to see the devastation. We want the leadership of the Federal Government to come here and help us get through this process. Because like the pro tem said, we're all Americans first. We're all Americans first. So I think that doing this sends a negative message. I hope you know it sends a very negative message.

But I am deeply concerned about the free reign that we give the AG to be able to file lawsuits against Administration that would definitely benefit a lot of our constituents, specifically us in the Central Valley with rural healthcare, with energy policy, with education policy, and frankly, to make California's reduction of cost of living would benefit as well with some of the policies that are coming forth.

And to take action against the Administration for this is completely unacceptable. Respectfully ask for a no vote.

Seeing no further discussion or debate, Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, we can work collaboratively with the Administration while also defending Californians and California values, whether immigrants, Trans folks who are under attack, or our climate policies. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

So noted. Please call the absent members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes 27. Nos 9. The measure is adopted.

Members, we're going to go back to the supplemental file and take up the Assembly second reading. File item 5, ABX1-4. Mr. Secretary, please read the bill a second time.

Assembly Bill 4 by Assembly Member Gabriel, an act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation therefore to take effect immediately. Budget Bill.

Please read a third time.

Assembly Bill 4 by Assembly Member Gabriel, an act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation therefore to take effect immediately. Budget Bill.

Senator Wiener, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, AB 4 by Assembly Member Gabriel is a Budget Bill Junior associated with the Budget Act of 2024. Together with SB 3, this is part of the $2.5 billion package to support the immediate response for the Los Angeles fires. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Members, is there a discussion or debate on this item? Discussion or debate? Seeing none, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes 36. Noes zero. The measure is adopted. Members, we're going to go back to the second third reading and take up file item number two, SBX1-2, please. Mr. Secretary, please read.

Senate Bill 2 by Senator Wiener, an act relating to the state budget and making an appropriation therefore to take effect immediately. Budget Bill.

Senator Wiener, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President and colleagues. SB 2 is a Budget Bill Junior associated with the Budget Act of 2024. It provides $25 million for civil legal aid distributed through the Equal Access Fund 1 California and the Access to Justice Commission.

The funding will provide legal and immigration services to vulnerable Californians whose safety and civil rights are being threatened by federal actions. The bill also requires the administering entities to report on use of the funds to the Legislature. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Seyarto, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This effort is a slap in the face to every hard working, taxpaying citizen that is having their taxpayer dollars used to pay for legal expenses related to illegal immigration and federal enforcement of our laws. I urge a no vote.

Senator Arreguín, you're recognized.

I rise in strong support of SB1X2. Colleagues, this is critical to protect our communities. And in the last several days, we have seen this administration take actions that threaten the safety and security of families, of children. Just a few days ago, the administration rescinded the directive that prevented ICE agents from arresting families at hospitals, schools, and churches.

We are a nation of immigrants. Our diversity makes our state strong. Our immigrants are the backbone of our state's economy. They pay $8.5 billion in state and local taxes. We need to stop the mass deportation agenda that is threatening not just our state's economic prosperity, but the well being of so many people in our communities.

This money to provide on the ground resources that legal providers and nonprofit organizations can provide education, counseling, and defense for people that are facing deportation is absolutely critical. This is standing up for our state, standing up for California's values. I strongly urge an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Durazo, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam President. I rise in support of SBX12. I ask us all to come together as a community to reaffirm California's role on the front line of freedom. In the Central Valley, we heard reports of federal agents indiscriminately stopping residents, detaining people, including documented. Immigrants are being unjustly targeted.

And we know that these violent and aggressive tactics violate civil rights. These tactics instill fear in our children. Family separations affect children for the rest of their lives. We must protect them from this trauma and instability. In catastrophic disasters like the fires in Los Angeles, immigrant communities are at the forefront of the cleanup and the recovery that we have all dedicated ourselves to work on. We depend on domestic workers to help raise the children of so many people. We depend on laborers to remove the debris and repair our infrastructure.

Who is going to do that work? Or are we just using this as tactics to terrorize our communities? They are neighbors. They pay taxes. We go to places of worship together. Do you know who is documented or undocumented among them? California must remain a hopeful and a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees. They pay taxes. They are part of our communities in every way possible. We must stand together strong and never abandon our values. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Caballero, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam President. Look, folks, we can look at this issue from the moralistic and the humanistic aspect, which I suggest you do. My children played baseball, they played soccer, they did plays. And while they were doing all that activity, they were with other kids. And we talked about the kids and the impact of the fire on kids. So it's important, I think, that we also understand the social net of care that is in many of our communities.

In rural California, nothing happens economically unless you have people that are willing to do the hard, brutal labor of showing up every morning at 3:00 to take a bus to go to work and leaving their children behind. And in many communities, the school districts had to figure out, how do we get the kids of those parents who are working to produce the fresh fruit, vegetables, and nuts that we all love so much, that are so healthy for us.

How do we get the kids to school because their parents are getting up so early and leaving them at home? Well, they created a safety net so the kids could cross a busy street in order to get to school, so that they could get there on time, so that neighbors could look in on each other.

How many of you in your communities know who is documented and who isn't? You go to parent teacher conferences, and people are there because they're looking out for the best interest of their children. You go to the grocery store and you see people that you know and that have been an integral part of picking up your kid and making sure they get back to your house after a baseball game or after baseball practice.

These are the people that take care of our kids, that work in the fields, that do the landscaping, that work in a number of different industries, whether it's construction or the hospitality. How are we going to get things done? I mean, take a look at LA, for example.

LA has three big, huge events coming up that are going to bring tens of thousands of people. Who's going to change the sheets? Who's going to feed those people? They pay taxes, they buy homes, they raise children. And if it doesn't touch your heart that families are going to be split up...

And, oh, by the way, right now it's the middle of the citrus season. The citrus farmers have already seen a huge reduction in the number of employees that are showing up to work because they've been terrorized. Last week, immigration was in the Central Valley and it was the Border Patrol.

And if they tell you, if they tell you that they picked up murders, rapists, and people who were trafficking drugs, I don't believe it personally. Why? Because when you come into a community, and you're gonna try to pick up people that have a criminal record, you do it in a way that ensures that everybody's safe.

You do it as a task force. None of that happened. They went to grocery stores, they went to lunch counters. They went to places were people that are working buy their goods for the day. The people that were picked up were just average working folks. And did they pick up maybe a criminal or two? Maybe.

But that created a ripple effect in my community that has left hundreds looking for resources, looking for answers to the questions, what do I do? Where do I go? What are my rights? And we have an obligation, I believe, to let people know, here are what your rights are. Here's what you can do.

Here's how you can protect your family. So if you're going to get deported, you better leave a letter saying who can raise your children while you're gone. Because guess what will happen? Those kids will be swept up by the Department of Social Services because they're left without any adult in the community that can take care of them.

And if you're an adult that steps up and says, I'll take care of these kids, you don't have any paperwork saying that you have the right to. And the family needs to know where people are getting deported to. So there are so many ramifications to this. I heard a speculation that the California economy won't be hurt, that you're not going to pay more for food if the farm workers are deported. If you believe that, I've got a bridge I can sell you.

You know very well that the only reason that we had food available during the pandemic was because farm workers were declared to be essential workers. If they're that essential, if they're that essential, and they were, because we had no reduction in the amount of food that we had available.

You couldn't get a face mask, you couldn't get any hand sanitizer. You couldn't get a whole bunch of the paper towels. Right. There was a run on paper towels and toilet paper because, oh, my goodness, far be it from us to not have enough toilet paper, you know, but we had enough food.

And so what this resource does, and I urge your aye vote here today, is provide the resources so that people can know what their legal rights are. We're not talking about setting up a blockade. We're talking about people knowing what their legal rights are and the ability to defend themselves if in fact they're picked up and there is an error in terms of the data and the information that the authorities have. It provides resources.

So people who have been our neighbors, who have been our friends, who have gone to church with us, who have looked after our family, and who do you think is taking care of seniors right now? All of that is important to the fabric of our state. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Senator Hurtado, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam President. Today, I rise cautiously in support of SBX2. I'm cautious because I fear it risks creating collateral damage that our communities cannot afford. Don't take my word for it. Recently, Tom Homan, the Director of ICE, warned sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don't want.

More agents in their neighborhood and more collateral arrests. Folks, this isn't a hypothetical. It's a promise. It's a promise. And I know firsthand the terror this has created. I urge us to tone down the rhetoric and collaborate, because every word we say, every action we take carries real consequences for real people.

And today, we are being asked to fund for immigration defense lawsuits, some of which are already underway. But what was made clear to me in recent raids in Bakersfield is that legal services will not stop deportations. We have to... It didn't in Bakersfield. There's straight to the border.

Our outdated immigration system is at the heart of this issue. It forces millions of hardworking individuals into the shadows, living in fear of deportation despite their vital contributions to our economy and communities. These people who raise families, fill critical roles in our workforce, and call America home.

And I feel personally that Trump-proofing is a missed opportunity to urge the president for meaningful change. We should be working with the president to ensure public safety deportations are targeted, protecting communities from genuine threats while safeguarding the dignity and rights of hardworking immigrants. Working with the federal government on an amnesty deal would offer the systemic change we need. It would allow us to modernize this broken system and ensure it reflects the best of who we are as a nation.

California cannot continue to be the punching bag for federal overreach used to show the rest of the country the power of enforcement because it is immigrant families who end up paying the price. I ask that we be cautious in our approach. Let us not settle for temporary fixes or symbolic gestures. Instead, let's push to pursuing meaningful reform. Let's work towards getting an amnesty deal that reflects the best of who we are as a state and as a nation. Thank you.

Senator Becker.

Thank you, colleagues. I'll keep this short. I just wanted to add my voice here quickly to say that I don't know the next moves of our federal government. I do know two things. One is that this state and this country was built on immigrants, Irish Immigrants, Mexican, Jewish, Chinese. This country was built by immigrants.

And secondly, we have to learn the lessons from the past. We've tried this before in times of economic hardship. We've done mass deportations like the Mexican repatriation of the 30s, and there's been no due process. People are rounded up, citizens, non-citizens alike. And what this bill will do will help. I agree it's not the be all, end all, but it'll help to deliver the legal services to help stem that tide and provide some due process for the hard working people of this state. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Senator Perez.

Thank you, Madam President and colleagues. I rise in strong support of SB2 by the good Senator from San Francisco. I just want to take a second to speak to this issue really quick because I know just about everybody in this room has expressed very strong support for relief from the wildfires.

And I want to make very clear that, that there is a connection between immigration and the wildfires. As I have been working and helping to coordinate resources, we have seen Latino residents come in to receive assistance from FEMA and freak out and run out of the room because they are fearful of deportation either for themselves or for their families.

You know, we talk a lot about the fact that it's immigrants that are going to be the ones to clean up our communities. It is immigrants that are going to be the ones to rebuild our communities. And that is all incredibly true. But what is also true is that this fire did not discriminate.

It was also immigrants that lost everything. They lost their homes. They lost all of their personal and most prized possessions and they lost their livelihoods. And there is no federal aid or federal relief available to them. And so I want to remind us all of the reason why we signed up to do this work.

When somebody knocks on our door to ask us for assistance, we don't then ask them if they have documentation status. When they say that their home has burnt down and they live in our district, we do everything that we can to serve them and to get them assistance.

These folks are scared for their lives, and it is so hurtful to me that they feel so terrified to ask for help that they do not even want to get aid. We have people living in their cars scared to get aid. After they've lost their homes and their fires, they feel like they have nowhere to turn.

And so I want to remind folks that it was not just folks that were American citizens that lost their homes and their livelihoods in these fires. It was our undocumented community too. And we need to do everything that we can to try to assist them with navigating this disaster if we're really serious about providing aid to those who lost their homes and lost their livelihoods in this fire. So I thank you all and I urge you all to vote aye on this motion. Thank you.

Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Thank you, Madam President. It's very interesting to hear the discussion that has been on the floor as well as in committee. I have great empathy and compassion for our immigrant communities in our state from all over the world. And it's interesting to note that when we address the issue of immigration, quite frankly, it always comes in as band aids. Because the root of the problem in immigration is the immigration system itself, which is broken. And I think we all in this room agree with that fact.

When it comes to immigration, when we talk about the workforce that helps the economy in California, that brings the food to our tables, you're absolutely right. Many of those folks are undocumented. But the root of the problem should be fixed with ensuring that we advocate for permits for work permits for these individuals to work in our communities and not work in the shadows. We should be advocating for immigration reform.

We should be advocating that we have those work permits so that they don't work in the shadows and not be exploited in the system. That's where we should be working. That is the root of the problem that we should be addressing, not band aids, with this allocation of funding. This is not fixing the problem.

And when it comes to the federal government at this point in time, in which I've been listening very carefully to every single word that comes out of that department, the number one goal for them, and one which we as a Legislature should be advocating for and supporting, is the fact that they're going after folks that are considered a public safety threat.

That is the number one priority for this federal government at this point in time. Now, if we had the work permits, our families that help bring the food to our tables would not be working in fear and in the shadows. Second, as they... Because they're going after people that are a public safety threat.

Here's where the pickle lies in this jar here is the fact that California is a sanctuary state. What does that mean? It means that the federal government is not actively communicating with their public safety law enforcement agencies to ensure that they know where these public safety threats are. So what happened?

It compels ICE to go into our communities and pose a threat to those folks that are here trying to make a living and create an American dream for them. So yes, it is very upsetting. It is upsetting that the system that we think is going to save guard our immigrant population in this state is actually creating a component where they become collateral damage.

So perhaps the approach should be one, to advocate for work permits for all those are undocumented that make our California work and creates the benefits that we get to reap. And number two, reconsider whether or not this state should be a sanctuary state or reaffirm that our law enforcement agencies can work directly with ICE so they can identify the public safety threats in our state.

Which, by the way, California spoke very clearly this past year with wanting and desiring a safety, safe communities, safe families, safe state overall in California. So I hope we listen very carefully to what Californians want, because quite frankly, I don't want folks that are peddling fentanyl from other countries in our state. I want them out. I don't want cartel members in our state. I don't want people that are funneling and human sex trafficking our children.

So, folks, when it comes to law enforcement in our state, let's ensure that we are collaborating with the federal government to get these people out and advocate to ensure that we have the work permits for those who want to work and create the American dream in California while their work to get their paperwork in place.

Because for those that don't know, we do have undocumented folks that are paying taxes. They have identification numbers where they do pay into our system, but they're in the process of getting their work. And unfortunately, because of the immigration system that we have, it doesn't work efficiently. And decades come and go before they are made citizens.

So through no fault of their own, they're trying to get into the system, get their paperwork done. But once again, that system is broken. Should they be penalized? I don't think so. Because it takes a lot to leave your home country where there's no economic opportunity or safety for your children. And you don't have the time.

You don't have the time to afford to stay in those countries and lose your children or lose your life. So, yes, our system is broken, but we have to be fair about how we approach and address and talk about the issue of immigration in California. It's not black and white. I wish it were, but it's not.

So let's not vilify a system that right now is trying to create safety for our families and our communities. Let's reevaluate what the sanctuary state status means for us as a state and for those that help us bring the food to our tables, help care for our kids or clean our homes or change sheets. And many of those working in the shadows, folks, working in the shadows because the policies that you're implementing. Think that. And with that, I respectfully ask for a no vote.

Senator Valladares.

Thank you. I also rise in opposition to this because it is actually going to create more victims and more harm. It's not going to do what it intends to do. Folks, we have a public safety problem in California and a big component of that is international gangs and cartels.

Human trafficking has exploded in San Diego, in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, and it knows no bounds either. Our undocumented children and girls are victims. I have a seven year old daughter. I have nieces that are 17, 18, 20 years old. They're brown. Some of them have become victims.

It is our responsibility, it's government's most basic responsibility to protect their citizens, both foreign and domestic. And let me tell you, if you're in this country illegally and you are a criminal that continues to create more victims of all Californians, I don't want you here. This is going to contradict some of the very important work that this body has done to try and make California more safe over the past couple of years. If you care about victims, you'll vote no.

Senator Pro Tem McGuire.

Thank you so much. I will appreciate the conversation here today. I'll close this out and I'll turn it over to our budget chair for closing comments. Two quick items before I get into my brief remarks. Months ago, there was a bipartisan deal on the table in Washington, D.C. on border security and immigration. Months ago. Could have passed both houses.

And we all know what happened and how politics got in the way. I think we need to mention that second state law right now allows for communication. State law enforcement, local law enforcement allows for communication with the federal government for criminals who are the most serious and violent among us. Full stop. It's in our state law.

Look, over the past many months, we've heard chants of mass deportations. But once the yelling stops, the reality sets in. And that reality is deafening. I want to talk about economics and then I want to talk about humans. Undocumented residents in the State of California paid nearly $8.5 billion in taxes.

Nationally, undocumented residents pay $96.7 billion across America. Undocumented immigrants are the source of a half trillion dollars of products in the State of California. That equals 5% of our GDP. Nearly half half of all California's agricultural workforce, 46% of California's agricultural workforce.

They are the heart of the number one agricultural economy in America, right here in the Golden State. They're undocumented. LA County. 28%. 28% of all construction workers in the County of Los Angeles are undocumented. And we're about to embark on the largest rebuild in over a century. California is proud of our diversity.

It is one of our biggest strengths. It is who we are, who we've always been. And candidly, we're going to go to the mat to fight to ensure our state's diversity thrives into the future. Threats about mass deportations may make headlines, may get great clicks on social media, but the fact is this.

California has more immigrants than any other state in the United States of America. And we're proud of it. 10.6 million. Most of those immigrants have legal status. Right now, today, there are about 1.8 million undocumented Californians. By the way, that is down from 2.8 million just a decade ago. And as impactful as the numbers may be that I was just talking about, there's a person behind every one of them.

My wife is an elementary school principal and never in her career would she think that there were going to be families who are now making plans to make sure that their kids are taken care of or safe if mom, dad, or both are deported. Law abiding citizens, paying taxes, making our community stronger.

We can throw out a lot of hyperbole about criminals, today's action about real people keeping families together, making sure that our diversity thrives in the years to come. And as a parent, I cannot imagine the fear, the anxiety millions feel across the state today that they may not see their kid again.

So of course we need to pass this. And as we've all said, we are going to work with the new president to improve the lives of Californians and Americans, just as we did in the first term. When he delivers for our families and communities, California is going to stand with them. But let's be clear. If this administration goes after our rights, our freedoms, our democracy, our people, the Golden State will never back down. Mark my word. Would respectfully asked for an aye vote.

Seeing no further questions or comments, Senator Wiener, you may conclude.

Thank you very much, Madam President. I just want to very briefly say there's discussion about public safety. You know, our new president of the United States, in addition to pardoning a group of thugs who tried to overturn an election through violence, also pardoned the founder of Silk Road, which was an online illegal drug marketplace who was sentenced to life in prison, who is now free. So if we want to talk about public safety, happy to talk about it.

I agree. There should be a pathway to citizenship. Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress have been blocking that for decades. So let's just be very, very honest about what we're talking about here. You know, to say that sanctuary is what is making people, immigrants, less safe, it's truly opposite day.

Sanctuary isn't the issue in terms of what's creating fear and making people less safe. It's when the president of the United States threatens to deport, not people committing crimes, but over 10 million undocumented immigrants. That is what is causing fear. It's causing people to live in the shadows. It's causing people not to report crimes. Talk about making us less safe. It's causing people not to go to work or to school. Also making us less safe and less prosperous. This bill is important. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes 28. Noes 8. No 8. The measure is adopted. If there's no further business, the first extraordinary session will stand in recess, and we're going to reconvene in regular session. And I want to ask everybody to hang tight. We just have a little bit more business to do.

I know that there are other things going on, but we'll get through this. We're reconvening in regular session. Privileges of the floor, Senator Umberg.

Thank you, Madam President and colleagues, I rise today to present SCR 12, which recognizes certified registered nurse anesthesiologists for their immense contributions.

Actually, Senator Umberg, you have an introduction to do, and then we'll move on to the.

I do have an introduction. In fact, the introduction is of the President of the California Association of Nurse.

No, sorry. Of the floor. This is the. Introducing Rosa Espinoza, the mayor of La Habra, if you still. I.

Yes, I do.

So, see, it's not me Senator Umberg.

The old TV show, right? I've got a secret. All right. So, colleagues, I'd like to say a few words, first about the City of La Habra and then about the mayor of the City of La Habra. La Habra has a special place in the Umberg family heart. We just moved there in 1975.

And here today to celebrate La Habra's 100th anniversary is the mayor of La Habra, Rosa Espinosa, the Assistant City Manager Gabriela Yap, and also the Community Services Director, Kelly Fujio. La Habra is in my district. It's been a City since 1925. I was not there at the founding by the way, somebody asked me that question.

It's a full service city that employs more than 250 people full time to take care of public safety, sanitation, street maintenance and animal control. There are three outstanding school districts within the City of La Habra.

It offers a distinctive and well rounded program of Civic services, including 20 parks, a children's museum, a community theater and a tennis center. We're lucky today to be joined by the mayor of the City of La Habra. She just joined the City Council in the year 2000, so she's only been there for 24 plus years.

And she, before becoming the mayor, was the founder of Rosie's Garage out of concern for the growing gang activity and low education educational attainment of children in her neighborhood.

Her lifetime of volunteerism has been recognized by the National Caring Award, the Points of Light Presidential Service Award for President Clinton, the 72nd Assembly District woman of the Year Award, among many other honors. She is an icon in the City of La Habra.

Colleagues, please join me in congratulating and commending the City of La Habra upon the 100th anniversary of their incorporation. Thank you.

Congratulations to La Habra and thank you for joining us here today. All righty, now we're going to move on to. Without objection, we'll move to Senate Third Reading to take up file item number 11. Senate Concurrent Resolution number 12 by Senator Umberg. Please read

Senate concurrent Resolution 12 by Senator Umberg relative to certified registered nurse anesthesiologist.

Thank you, Madam President. This is the matter that I teased just a moment ago. I rise today to present SCR 12 which recognizes certified registered nurse anesthesiologists for their contributions to California's healthcare system.

The California nurses and anesthesiologists have completed rigorous academic and clinical training, including advanced education in pharmacology, physiology, Anesthesia practice, making them leaders in the field of anesthesiology and vital contributors to California's healthcare system.

They offer safe, cost effective and accessible anesthesia in urban centers, rural hospitals, military settings and underserved communities.

They're at the forefront of addressing California's opioid epidemic and educating Californians on the safe use and the important use of opioids and pain management, but also opioid free and opioid sparing Anesthesia techniques.

I ask that the California State Senate commends the certified registered nurse anesthesiologist for their expertise, dedication and service to the people of California. And most importantly, we have the President of the California Association of Nurse Anesthesiologists here, and I'd like to present her with SCR 12.

Senator, if we could just take a minute. We need to take a vote before.

Okay. All right. Yeah. I apologize. Right. Okay.

So, nothing personal. We just need to vote first. Absolutely. Seeing no discussion or debate on this really critical issue, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent Members.

[Roll Call]

Ayes 35. No zero. The resolution is adopted. Now, Senator Ember.

Now for the big moment thank you, Madam President. I wanted to recognize the President of the California Association of Nurse Anesthesiologists, Emily Frank, who's with us here today, as well as a number of her colleagues who are in the galleries. Thank you for being here.

So, on behalf of the California State Senate, I want to commend them and recognize them with this presentation of the resolution. Thank you very much. Madam President, let me present.

Thank you.

Thank you for. Thank you for joining us here on the Senate Floor. And thank you for all your hard work as well. We're moving on to messages from the Governor will be deemed read. Messages from the Assembly will be deemed read. Reports of Committee will be deemed read. Motions, resolutions, and notices, seeing none.

Introduction and first reading of bills will be deemed read. And um we, for those of you that were waiting for the governor's appointments, consideration of the daily file. We'll move that to next week. So if there is no other business. Senator Grove, the desk is clear.

Thank you, Madam President. Colleagues, thank you for the very thoughtful debate today. Please continue to pray for all of those affected by wildfires down in Los Angeles and the Members of our body that represent them they have a tough road ahead.

I also want to tell you that the floor will be in recess until 3:00, which an adjournment moment will be made and the next floor session is scheduled for Monday, January 27th. Have a wonderful weekend, 2:00pm, ma'am. Apologize. 2:00pm.

Yes, the Senate will be in recess until 3:30, at which time the adjournment motion will be made, and we will reconvene Monday, January 27th, 2025 at 2:00pm Have a good weekend everybody.