Assembly Floor

The Assembly is now in session. Assemblymember Dixon notices the absence of a quorum. Sergeant, Arms will prepare the chamber and bring in the absent Members. Clerk will call the roll.

[Roll Call]

I don't need to get in. Members, a quorum is present. We ask our guests and visitors in the rear of the chamber and in the gallery to please stand for our daily prayer. Rabbi Nico Sokolovsky will offer today's prayer. Rabbi Sokolovsky.

Master of the Universe. On this day of yomashoa, we remember 6 million souls. Each one a name. A world. Light extinguished. We remember not only what happened, but what allowed it to happen. Silence. Indifference. A world that turned away. A Lee Wiselle of blessed memory reminded us the opposite of love is not hate.

It's indifference reminded us that the opposite of life is not death, but it is forgetfulness. And so we remember, not as a ritual of the past, but as a call to conscience in the present. Because hatred still walks our streets.

The home of Governor Joe Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Jewish leader and public servant, was targeted with violence in the night of Passover just two weeks ago. We remember so our children can live in truth and pray without fear. We remember because never again must mean something. Not just then, but now.

So today we pray for the strength to speak when it's easier to stay silent. For the courage to stand with the vulnerable. For a society that does not mistake apathy for peace. And for the souls of those we lost, may their memory be a blessing and a beacon for us. Dear God, Sohrenu lehaim. Remember us for life, for justice. Tzedek, For Hemla. Compassion. And for Gura. For courage. And let us say Amen.

We ask our guests and visitors to remain standing to join us in the flag salute. Assemblymember Pellerin will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance

In gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy and the sacrifices made to protect them. Please join me in our Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag states. Of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty. And justice for all.

May be seated. To our guests and visitors today, state law prohibits persons in the gallery from interfering with legislative proceedings or disrupting the orderly conduct of official business. Persons disrupting legislative proceedings are subject to removal, arrest or other appropriate legal remedies. Reading of the previous day's Journal Assembly.

Chamber Sacramento Monday, April 21, 2025 the Assembly met at 1pm Hon. Josh Lowenthal, Speaker Pro Tem of the Assembly, presiding. Chief Clerk Sue Parker at the desk, reading. Clerk David A. Bowman, reading. The role was called.

Majority Leader Aguiar Curry moves and Ms. Davies seconds that the reading of the previous day's journal be dispensed with presentations and petitions. There are none. Introduction and reference of bills will be deferred. Reports of committees will be deemed read and amendments deemed adopted. Messages from the Governor? There are none. Messages from the Senate? There are none.

Members, would you please join me in welcoming some very special guests that we have in the rear of the chamber. Our Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mr. Tony Thurman, has joined us today. Our former colleague in the Assembly. We also have two former Assembly Members here. Assembly Member Marty Block is here, original founder of the Jewish Caucus.

And former Assembly Member Michael Fuhrer is in the back. I think you're responsible for this, Mike. You hired me 28 years ago. Okay. We are moving on to motions and resolutions. The absences of the day for personal business. Assemblymember Flora for illness. Assemblymember Sanchez onto procedural motions. Madam and Majority Leader, you are recognized for your procedural motions.

Good afternoon. I request unanimous consent to suspend Assembly Rule 45.5 to allow Assembly Members Calderon, Mark Gonzalez and Pellerin to speak on adjourn in memory today.

Without objection. Such shall be the order.

I request unanimous consent to suspend Assembly rule 11.8A to allow Assembly Member Gabriel to have guests on the floor and to allow Assembly Members Nugyen, Ortega, Arambula and Pellerin to have guests in the rear of the chamber today.

Without objection. Such shall be the order.

I request unanimous consent to suspend joint rule 62A, the file notice requirement to allow Banking and Finance Committee to meet today upon adjournment of of session in Capitol Room 127, to hear AB 801, Bonta, AB 866, Ortega, AB 665, Chen and AB 743, Michelle Rodriguez.

They were previously noticed to meet upon adjournment of the Emergency Management Committee, but this will allow them to meet sooner.

I request unanimous consent to suspend joint rule 62A the file notice requirement to allow the following committees to set bills for hearings Government organization to set AB445 Aguiar Curry for their hearing on Wednesday, April 30 and Public Safety Committee to set AB63 Michelle Rodriguez and AB379 Krell for their hearing on Tuesday, April 29.

Without objection, such shall be the order.

Pursuant to Assembly Rule 96, I request unanimous consent to re refer AB557 Mckinnor from the local Government Committee to the. Appropriations Committee without objection, such shall be the order. At the request of the the author, please remove file item 119 AB898 Bryan from the Consent Calendar.

Without objection such shall be the order. One moment, Madam Majority Leader. You may proceed.

Pursuant to Assembly Rule 97 File Item 127 AB 786 Solache as referred to The Appropriations Committee

Without objection, such shall be the order.

Members, I ask for your respectful attention as we move to the Assembly's observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day. And I will take a moment of personal privilege and say how meaningful it is for me to preside over today as the granddaughter of survivors. Without objection, we will take up file item 58, ACR 59. The Clerk will read.

Assembly Concurrent Resolution. 59 by Assembly of Addis and others. Relative to the California Holocaust Memorial Day.

Assembly Member Addis, you are recognized on the resolution. Thank you.

Madam Speaker and Members, I rise today on behalf of the California Legislative Jewish caucus to present ACR 59, our annual resolution for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Known in Hebrew as Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the approximately 6 million Jews, including over 1 million Jewish children and countless others who were brutally murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.

As one Holocaust survivor has described, if you held your breath one minute for every Jewish person who died, you would hold your breath for 11 and a half years. Yahushua also honors Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and is observed annually on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Many in this Legislature who are in the Jewish Caucus grew up with those who resisted and persisted. The survivors of the Holocaust who survived every imaginable form of physical, mental and sexual abuse. These are grandparents, teachers, community Members who have numbers tattooed on their arms and who are fortunate to have survived the atrocities.

Their stories have been seared into our collective memory. Their intergenerational trauma has become our own. And the stories and lived experiences that inform our sense of security and community and have inspired our sense of purpose and commitment to justice.

Alarmingly, this experience is rapidly disappearing from the world of just 200,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust left in the world. A new report found just last week that 70% of them will pass away in the next 10 years.

We must ensure that while we lose many loved ones, we will not lose the memory of how this tragedy came to be. Because these are the voices who shared firsthand how the atrocity of the Holocaust did not start with the construction of the first death camp or gas chamber. The Holocaust did not happen overnight.

Little by little, hatred and bigotry grew. Intolerance became more tolerated until a modern society embraced the systematic erasure of the Jewish people. And so too, the resistance to fascism and hate, to the toxic evil we as humans may be vulnerable to, was not won overnight.

The effort to fight back is an everlasting process and one that cannot be done without allies. To stand strong against hate takes all of us. So many in our community feel physically unsafe today. Trapped by the hate we can feel emanating from too many corners of American society.

From Nazis or white supremacists and extremists who believe that that Jews are behind a plot to diminish the influence of white people, from extremists who paint Jewish people, from extremists who paint Jews as the worst example of white oppressors.

And from those who tokenize our struggles to target other vulnerable populations and fuel further bigotry, discrimination and censorship of truth and justice. We know today of so many other communities targeted and terrified for their future. We know it takes all of us to fight for them and to stand against the rising tide of hate.

As we come together to observe Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are reminded of our collective obligation to ensure the next generation joins the fight with us, to bring the lessons of the Holocaust to all corners of our state, to speak out clearly and unequivocally against hate, and to rededicate ourselves to combating antisemitism, racism and bigotry of all forms.

And so, in that spirit, colleagues and on behalf of the Jewish Caucus, I respectfully request your support for ACR 59.

Thank you, assemblymember Addis. Assemblymember Lowenthal, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Speaker and Members. You know, today is actually cathartic for me. Might sound a little crazy, but it is. It's a gift, actually, to have a vehicle to express this jumble of emotions. It's a gift to be surrounded by such historic Californians, individuals and families here to bear witness for the Holocaust. For all.

These families were irreparably devastated and for many, in many ways, forever tormented by the worst of humanity. They are only here for one reason. So that we may understand and act together, all of us, against the patterns and climate that lead to the perfect storm where bias becomes hate and hate becomes horror.

It's a time where I get to wear my heart on my sleeve without obsessing, as politicians do, how it is or isn't received. I just dig deep and express where I'm at. I feel exhaustion from the geopolitical events and specifically war in Gaza.

Exhaustion from how unfortunate and unreasonable it is for Jews to have to explain our generational trauma over and over and over. Exhaustion reflecting on how our population is still less than it was prior to World War II, despite every other major religion growing fourfold during that time.

Exhaustion explaining on how the Jewish homeland is fundamentally tied to our safety because there is no other government that's been able to stem the tide of anti Semitism in our beloved America. And even here in California, that phenomena is indeed the rule and not the exception this year. I'm confused and I'm activating.

I honestly feel somewhat incredulous by the lack of collective response to the anti Semitism all around us. And why are we allowing it to be politicized? I don't know any other way to say it. Why isn't antisemitism a bigger problem for non Jews? Are you paying attention to antisemitism? Do you understand it?

Do you know the patterns, the tropes, the blame, the conspiracies? Does it alarm you that anti Semitic acts are up 360% in the last 18 months? Does it create any sense of apprehension or unease that we live in a society where Jews make up 2.4% of the population and receive 60% of the religious based hate?

I'm going to ask you that again. Does it create any sense of apprehension or unease that we live in a society where Jews make up to 2.4% of the population and receive 60% of the religious based hate?

Are you worried about the roughly 7 in 10 Jewish adults that report experiencing anti Semitism online or in social media, including those who say they've been personally targeted? And if you need examples, please feel free to visit public comments to my Assembly Instagram. Some of us are paying very close attention to antisemitism.

We've been forced to for over a thousand years. It's never stopped. Never. But I'm specifically speaking of the roughly 1.3 million Jewish Californians, the Jewish Members that are here on this floor, and the legislators here representing Jewish districts. For us, the problem isn't 90 years ago. It isn't 80 years ago.

It's not even what this current spike of antisemitism means. The problem, my friends, is tomorrow, the next generation, the kids who are experiencing this climate now, the kids in school, our kids, they're passing this climate as normal. And I'm talking about April 2025.

The climate where a Governor with no authority over foreign policy, genocide, Josh Shapiro's home is firebombed on on Passover from an agitated leftist over foreign policy. And only a few days later a Hitler Nazi, infuriated, infatuated rightist commits a mass shooting at Florida State this month.

The climate where anti Semitism recklessly cites, excuse me, where the Administration recklessly cites anti Semitism as a shield for a war on our institutions of higher learning without regard to the actual impacts on the ground for Jews.

The climate where in California, vocal opponents publicly called Jewish legislators racist for attempting to put guardrails around anti Jewish bias in public schools.

The climate where my 10 year old daughter gets screamed obscenities at her while joining me at an event in Long Beach saying her dad, the other genocide Josh, is a right wing, sociopathic, apartheid and genocide supporter.

Those same kids of today that have only seen this and have nothing else to compare it to, they're going to be the legislators tomorrow, the decision makers. And so they need to hear about what can happen to a civilized society like Western Europe when we don't talk about it.

They need to understand that the attacks of this month are a precursor to collective punishment against Jews and that the slope is more than just slippery. It goes down to a depth that is unimaginable. Antisemitism is being normalized today here. The blaming of all Jews for the actions of some.

The notion that Jews are only loyal to themselves and not their country of birth or choice. The myth of the blood libel. The idea that because a complex and truly awful war is rampaging, that all Jews, despite their protestations, are complicit. This is the danger.

This is the persistent bigotry that has ended in pogrom, violence and organized genocide. And unless we nip this nascent father in the bud, we're only asking for a repeat of the past. So it is for the future and for our children, all of them, that we must stop the lie of collective guilt.

Because if we don't, my children will suffer from the violence and yours will have the guilt of perpetrating it. Which brings me all the way back to the atrocities of the Holocaust. I will always feel total exasperation on how something so imaginable could come to pass. The audacity of the Nazis. Self documented systematic extermination.

So I want to speak of the medical experiments conducted on Jews to underscore the unimaginable level of atrocity. Let's get uncomfortable and let's talk about those things. Let's talk about the bone, the muscle, the nerve transplantations without anesthesia. Let's discuss the experiments that were done on twins, the freezing and high altitude experiments.

The experiments on blood coagulation, on seawater, on homosexuality, on sterilization and on fertility. Let's talk about the lampshades that were made from our skin that happened at Buchenwald. And also when you went to Buchenwald, the photo album of the Director also bound in our skin, proudly displayed.

Let's talk about injecting blue dye into prisoners to see if it could create blue Eyes as we were the human guinea pigs requisite to design the master race. Let's acknowledge the gold forcibly extracted from Jewish teeth, melted down to make gold bars hidden in Swiss banks.

It's so awful to say, and I know that it's awful to hear, but please understand us when we say we cannot let this go. We're reminded of this every time. Antisemitism rises. And as it is rising now, we fear there is simply not enough alarm.

Because the actions of Hitler and the Nazis did not take place in a void. The crimes were committed were only possible because of widespread anti Semitism across Europe and much of the world, including here in the United States. So I'm asking you to do more.

I'm asking you for real solidarity, to stand up and prioritize turning the tide. Because it will take all of us or else it just won't work. That's what history shows us again and again and again. That's why we commemorate the Holocaust, to symbolize that it just didn't happen.

It took a period of evolution for it to happen and that want us to stand up against hatred clearly and early on. Members, respectfully ask your aye vote on ACR 59.

Thank you, Mr. Lowenthal. Mr. Ward, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Speaker and Members. I rise as the chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus and a Member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus in support of ACR 59 recognizing Yamashoa. And second, and thank the words from our colleague from Long Beach.

Today, of course, we again remember the victims and the survivors of the anti Semitic and discriminatory targeted abuses carried out by the Nazi government. Among those targeted, persecuted and harmed alongside the Jewish community, LGBTQ people also fell victim to the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Hitler and the Nazi party targeted gay men because they believed that they were, quote, unfit to defend the nation in combat and would diminish German reproductive potential. In concentration camps, queer victims were kept in separate facilities for fear that homosexuality would spread to other prisoners as if one's identity was a disease.

Other heinous government sponsored abuses included medical experimentation, disappearances, imprisonment, sexual abuse, torture and murder. Even after the war, the Allies, Germany and other surrounding countries refused to recognize that gay prisoners as victims of the Nazi government, a status essential to qualify for restitution. Even worse, many victims were forced to continue to serve their arbitrary prison sentences.

During the Holocaust, homosexuals were forced to wear the pink triangle or in cases of queer women, the black triangle, both being the equivalent of the yellow Jewish star. Since then, we have reclaimed the pink Triangle. And as a symbol of perseverance, which I, alongside Members of our caucus, are wearing proudly on the floor today.

Members, we must remember that the Holocaust did not begin with the concentration camps, the mass executions, or the death marches as referenced by our colleague from Morro Bay. As all atrocities do.

The Holocaust began with choices, policy changes and government sponsored actions that while seemingly small and disconnected from one another at first systemically built upon each other over time. The Holocaust first began with rhetoric spewing from a specific political faction.

Rhetoric that demonized a minority group of people, otherizing them, making them seem subhuman and undeserving of the same rights as the rest of society. Now this rhetoric seeped into the public consciousness, often under the guise of nationalism, security, or preserving traditional values. Deutschland.

The next steps were not the violence, but the politics that led to it, such as limiting the rights of Jews, stripping them of citizenship, forcing them into ghettos, removing them from their homes, families and livelihoods, seemingly incremental in the beginning, each step making the next one more conceivable, more acceptable to the public, to the point where the unimaginable and reprehensible became a reality.

Now more than ever, it's imperative that we spread awareness of the stories of all those who were persecuted in the Holocaust. Especially those whose names, faces and stories we will never know.

As we acknowledge the Holocaust as a time of history, we must also recognize that hate and targeting a specific communities, of course, is still sadly, too alive and present today. And thus we reaffirm our commitment to combating antisemitism, anti Islamophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia, racism and hate in all its forms.

Above all, we must continue to stand in solidarity with all communities, to fight against anyone who claims their identity as supreme. And we stand for a free, equitable and safe society for all Californians. Members, I ask that we all support acr59 today. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Assembly Member Ward. Assembly Member Patel, you are recognized.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, today I rise on behalf of the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus in solemn recognition of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today we remember the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazi regime. We honor the lost, bear witness to the survivors, and remind ourselves silence is complicity. Forgetting invites repetition.

Yom Hashoah also marks the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. A reminder that even in humanity's darkest hours, there was courage, resistance and hope. Today, also in our Chamber, we honor Mr. Chamaz and his family who are with us in this chamber. Their strength humbles us. And their presence reminds us that memory is not passive.

It is a call to action. Racism, antisemitism and fascism do not disappear on their own. It's our shared responsibility, as Californians, as Americans, and here today as legislators, to confront hate wherever it festers. The horrors of the Holocaust are often called unspeakable. But we must speak, since Never Again is not a slogan, it is a promise.

And we are duty bound to keep it. Let us honor those we lost by building a future where dignity and humanity prevail. For all of these reasons, and in support and solidarity with my colleagues who have spoken before me here today in the chamber, I respectfully request our house to support acr59. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember Patel. Assembly Member Ramos, you are recognized.

Well, thank you, Madam Speaker. Today I rise on behalf of the California Native American Legislative Caucus to urge an aye vote on ACR 59. We must never forget how easily the hate and bigotry that spawned the Holocaust can occur anywhere, at any time throughout our human history.

We have seen genocide infect different parts of the globe in different eras and poison different groups. We must teach respect and understanding to our children so that we eliminate these unbearable chapters in our human history. But we must also teach the power, the power of the resiliency of individuals and the human soul that continues to survive. I stand in solidarity and urge an aye vote on ACR 59.

Thank you, Assemblymember Ramos. Assemblymember Rubio, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Speaker and Members. I rise on behalf of the California Latino Caucus and as a proud Member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus in honor of Holocaust Memorial Day.

Today we pause to honor the 6 million Jews and millions of others, including Roma, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities and political dissidents who were murdered during the Holocaust. In 1939, before the start of World War II, there were 9.5 million Jews living in Europe.

In just a few horrifying years, the European population of Jews plummeted to a third of what it was with 3.2 million Jews. Today, we pay tribute to the survivors who, despite of unimaginable trauma, rebuilt their lives and have contributed greatly to our communities, including right here in California.

As legislators, we hold a unique responsibility to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust is preserved through education, public recognition and policy. Never again must be more than a phrase. It must be a promise we actively uphold through education, advocacy and community engagement.

Holocaust Memorial Day serves as a reminder of the dangers of silence and indifference in the face of hate. The youngest Holocaust survivor, Tova Freeman, was only a few months old when she and her family were sent to Auschwitz.

With the survivor population aging, it is critical that we support initiatives that preserve their stories for future generations through archives, museums and educational partnerships. With the rise of Holocaust denial and distortion, especially online, it is more critical than ever to preserve the truth and educate people, especially younger generations, about the dark chapter in history.

Our role as lawmakers goes beyond policymaking is a moral calling to stand up for truth, human dignity and justice. We must reaffirm our commitment to fighting anti Semitism and and all forms of hate, discrimination and violence in our communities and across the world.

By commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day in our chamber, in our chambers, and through our legislative actions, we send a clear message, hate has no home in California. Thank you, Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues in respectfully asking for an aye vote on ACR 59.

Thank you, Assembly Member Rubio. Assembly Member Bryan, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Speaker and colleagues. And thank you to my colleague from Long Beach who spoke as I was walking in and completely threw off the direction that I was going to take my talking points because it's something we do and it's okay. I've noticed it since I've been in the legislatures.

We all look for ourselves in big days and the stories of our communities and how those intersect so we can feel close. And I think that's very, very important. And I'm going to do that.

But before I do that, I just wanted to let my brothers and sisters in the Jewish Caucus and all of the folks here today and across our state to know that you are seen and loved and protected and that we will stand against anti Semitism.

And you do have a right to feel safe and to belong in the diaspora of California. And you have the right to self determination in a homeland that can be fought for and protected. And while the world is complex and all of our histories are complex, I think our strength is in our solidarity.

Black and Jewish communities have a deep history. A lot of folks think it's a contemporary thing and it's an American thing. It's not. It's actually a history that's shared through shared traumas. I have a date for you. June 51934. There was a meeting of German generals. Hitler was in that meeting.

And they were talking about how to deal with the Jewish problem in Germany. And the conversation came up about how excellent America had figured out how to deal with their black problem with the Jim Crow laws and the Nuremberg Laws were drafted after the Black Codes and the Jim Crow laws of the south here in the United States.

Strip you of citizenship, bar you from higher education, take away your right to vote, take away the ability to own businesses, even solve. One of the more complex problems is how do we determine who is of Jewish ancestry in Germany?

So let's criminalize interracial marriage between Jewish and Aryan people in the same way we ban interracial marriage here in this country. That's how deep that history goes. My colleague from Long Beach mentioned experimentation, Tuskegee. The lines are parallel, the struggles are parallel.

It's why the Black Caucus has always felt a deep kinship with the Jewish Caucus, because we know what it's like to feel that trauma and oppression. We also know that Hitler didn't rise in a vacuum.

It started as a populist movement or was described as a populist movement, took over the means of communication, the largest social means of communication. I'm not drawing parallels. I'm just saying challenged the courts to challenge him. These were the conditions that led to fascism and the rise of authoritarianism and the rise of the Nazis.

If we're really going to remember the Holocaust this yam hashoa, I think we need to be mindful that it's not just a reflection on the past, but it's a callback to the present and a call to action.

I feel very confident that hate, that anti Semitism, that discrimination, bigotry, that those things can't thrive if we all stand up against them together. And you have my commitment to stand up with you. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Bryan, Assemblymember Harabedian, you are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There's usually a saying on the floor that you never want to follow the Member from Los Angeles whenever you're speaking because you're not going to be as eloquent or as good. And I unfortunately have to follow him and I believe in everything he just said.

First, let me just say that the Members from San Luis Obispo and Long Beach. Outstanding. The pain is so real, and it's so real today because of the anti Semitism and the hate that is going on in your community. Just last week we talked about the Armenian genocide and recognizing that.

And like the African American community with the Jewish community, the Armenian community has a deep bond with the Jewish community. And we feel very tied to each other because that shared pain and because of the words that Hitler uttered during the Holocaust. And that was for who today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenian people. What if.

What if more leaders like us actually spoke of the annihilation and the genocide of the Armenian people? What if more people stood up and recognized how horrific the first genocide of the 20th century was? I'm a product of that genocide.

And today I firmly believe that we all must stand up and have a firm collective commitment against all ethnic cleansings, all genocides, and any hate that remains in this world related to those. So as an Armenian, as a representative of the Armenian community, I thank you for your strength.

I thank all the survivors and community Members that are here. We will never waver in our support for the Jewish community. We will always remember what happened and we will never forget.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Assemblymember Stefani, you are recognized.

Thank you. Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of someone who just cannot remain silent in this moment. I had the good fortune of traveling to Israel in March of 2019 with the JCRC. And on one day we visited Jerusalem. We went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum there. And I've studied the Holocaust.

But I saw images in that moment that have seared into my brain, ones that I will never forget. I became physically ill while touring Yad Vashem. One picture in particular with a father holding a child, about to be shot in the back of the head into the death pits where many people were discarded.

And I thought to myself, what would I do if I were holding my child? If I was being discriminated against because I was Italian or Catholic? What would I do if I had no way to save my child? At Yad Vashem? We also learned about how other museums were curated from different experiences.

Two months later, when I got home, I went to the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. I saw the images of the St Louis, the ship that left Germany in 1939 looking for refuge with 907 Jewish passengers on there, Rejected in Cuba, rejected in the United States, forced to go back to Europe.

Many of those perished in the Holocaust. Fast forward to February 2020. I was there with my 10 year old daughter and we went back to the Holocaust Museum and we went to Daniel's Story.

And Daniel's Story at the Holocaust Museum is the age appropriate way to start telling your children about the Holocaust as told from the perspective of a little boy growing up in Nazi Germany. I watched my daughter as she went through the museum and at the end they had a chance to write a letter.

And I actually looked at the picture today and what my daughter said at age 10 was this was crazy to hear about. It must have been so hard for Daniel and everyone else. I will always remember and I won't let it happen again. Love, Gigi. Fast forward three years later, December 2023. We were in D.C. again.

I asked my daughter, we had one morning to go to the many different museums and she. I said, where do you want to go? She says, mom, I want to go back to the Holocaust Museum. We went back, we went to the fourth floor and we went down as you do.

And I watched her and she was pensive and she had a look that I had never seen. And I let her take it all in. And when we got to the bottom, we went to the hall of Remembrance.

And at the hall of remembrance, where the flame is, it says, only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw. And lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and to your children's children.

And I looked at my daughter in that moment, and she had tears down her eyes. 14 years old. And I said, what are you thinking? And she said, mom, where were all the good people? Where were they? How did this happen? I don't understand a world where that could happen.

And we're in today's moment, as the Assembly Member from Long Beach just described. Horrific things that are happening to our Jewish brother and sisters. They're happening all over. My district is the home of many Jewish constituents. I have Temple Emanuel Beth Shalom, the JCC. I care deeply about this community. I care about all communities.

And so today, I rise with a heavy heart, knowing what our Jewish community is facing all across this country and all across this world, and knowing that I cannot remain silent. And we must teach our children of the horrors of the Holocaust so they will never be repeated again. I ask for your aye vote on ACR 59. Thank you.

Thank you. Assemblymember Stephanie Gallagher. You are recognized.

Yeah. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, I also want to rise on Yahmashoa, as we remember today. And it is important that we. That we always remember. I've told this story before on this floor.

I have a small polished stone on my desk that I did get from the Holocaust Museum when I, as a college student, went through and experienced that. And on that stone, it simply says, remember. And I keep that on my desk because it is always important that we do remember how those horrors can come.

And the, you know, the banality of evil, you know, as that has been termed. And I think of, you know, the story in the Scriptures of Esther, who, unfortunately, this isn't the first time that the Jewish people have been under attack.

And at that time, the admonition to Esther that maybe for such a time as this, you have been put in this place to speak out against evil. And I think that's something that we all in this room have the opportunity to do right.

And the roles that we play and the positions that we've been put in is to stand up and speak out against wrong, to speak out against injustice. And that work, we know that continues. Cause there's been countless other times where people have had to speak up, where they have had to stand when it was hard.

And we know even today, as we see that Jewish students getting stopped on campus, who would have thought that we would see that in our time, that we would have some of the hatred that we have seen in our own campuses, in our own city councils. It's a time that we need to stand up.

And we have been. And I'm proud of the Members of this body on both sides of the aisle that have been those voices. And so I'm proud to stand with my brothers and sisters in the Jewish Caucus as we remember today. Thank you, Members.

Thank you, Assemblymember Gallagher. Assemblymember Gabriel, you are recognized.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I also rise in support of ACR 59. And let me start by thanking our incredible Vice Chair of the Jewish Caucus for authoring the resolution. Also want to acknowledge our colleague from Sunnyvale who has done so much to make today possible. Thank you for standing up for your efforts.

And also to you, Mr. Speaker, for thinking, for speaking so authentically and with such vulnerability about your own personal experiences. I also want to thank all of our colleagues from the Diversity caucuses, from the Republican leader, other non Jewish cause who've stood to speak with us.

I've had the privilege to witness this six times, and I can tell you all that every time I have gone home after we have observed Yom Hashoah on the Assembly floor, all of the guests and the visitors and the honorees have always said the same thing to me, which is how profoundly they were moved by the non Jews who stood up and spoke and how much it meant to them as survivors to see people whose life experiences and personal stories and backgrounds are so different from their own, who have stood up to stand with them.

And so I just wanted to say a very sincere thank you to all of you who have stood and spoken so beautifully. And I cannot emphasize or underscore enough how much that means to our community.

And you heard from our Vice Chair, who spoke so beautifully in her opening words about how the Holocaust is not theoretical for those of us in this room who are Jewish.

And in fact, I know for probably many of the young people who work in the Assembly, it may feel something very distant in history that happened on another continent many years ago.

But I'm 43, and I grew up with a lot of people at Jewish holidays with tattoos on their arms, with numbers on their arms, people who I know, people who were part of our celebrations. And as much as the Holocaust was millions of individual traumas, it was also a profound collective trauma.

And I can tell you that the Holocaust is an uninvited guest at every Jewish celebration. It is there with us. We think about it.

I can tell you, as somebody who served in the leadership of Jewish organizations before I came to the Legislature, it would sit there in the boardroom with us as we made decisions about what we wanted to do to protect our community and to navigate turbulent times.

So this is something that is very deeply personal to all of us. And we find ourselves in a difficult moment. And I was thinking about it this morning. So many of you know I have. I'm incredibly blessed to have three beautiful little boys. And on Monday mornings, I take them to school before I go to Burbank Airport.

And I took the older two and dropped them off at their public elementary school. And then I took our little guy, Noah, to preschool, and he happens to go to preschool at our synagogue. And as I walked him into our synagogue, we walked past three security guards and through a metal detector.

And it's not lost on me that our dear friends who send their kid to preschool at the Presbyterian church down the street, there is no security because they don't need it. And we don't want the security. We don't enjoy the additional assessment we receive to pay for it.

It's there because law enforcement has told us we need it. And what we will do above all else is protect our children. And it is a profoundly strange experience that I refuse to allow to be normalized.

As a young Jewish kid growing up in the State of California, it would have never crossed my mind that we would have needed a metal detector outside a synagogue. It was simply inconceivable.

Maybe that's something that would happen in some other corner of the world, in some other moment in history, but not here in the United States, not here in the State of California. And I refuse to allow myself to become accustomed to that, because that is not the way the world should be, but it is.

And that's the reality that we live through. And so I was having this very complicated moment where I'm taking this beautiful, adorable little boy that has all of my hopes and dreams with me through this metal detector and thinking about the fact that I was going to come up and observe this day today.

And there were two things that made me feel better. And one is the first thing that I already referred to. The fact that I have, in my time in this Legislature, seeing non Jewish individuals who have stood up and talked about the importance of Holocaust education, who've stood with our community, who've spoken out about anti Semitism.

That is something that gives me hope because as many of the speakers have said beautifully, the way in which we will fight hate against any community is by all standing together.

And so I want to, as the chair of the Jewish Caucus, personally thank so many of you that have been there with us and stood up and been counted and used your voices as leaders of your communities, and particularly those of you that don't represent large Jewish populations, that have been willing to stand up and be our allies.

And the second is the inspiration that I draw from the folks who are here with us today, the survivors, the people who have gone through and personally witnessed the most unimaginable moments in history and yet continue to be strong and to proud and unapologetically stand up and lean into our history and our story and who they are.

And I can tell you one of the most amazing things for those of us that got to spend time with survivors is how so many of them are the most optimistic people you have ever met.

So many of them are people who have gone back and devoted their lives to helping other people, including non Jewish folks, people who are vulnerable because they understand that that is what is required in this moment. So I just wanted to share all of that with you.

I wanted to thank you, really, from not just as chair of the caucus, but as a colleague and as a human being, for all of you that stood and spoke today. It really is profoundly meaningful to me. And I also respectfully request an aye vote on ACR 59.

Thank you, Assemblymember Gallagher. Gallagher. Excuse me, Gabriel. And Assemblymember Gallagher. Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and Members. As I said when I started presiding, it's a privilege to be here today. As many of you know, but as some may not know, I was raised by strong, powerful women who counted themselves amongst the survivors of the Holocaust. And I grew up knowing their stories.

As Assemblymember Gabriel said, the Holocaust is always a guest at our family events, although I think sometimes my father invites it into our events. At my brother's wedding, his toast was that this was a testament to us defeating Hitler. So there's trauma that comes out at all moments in our lives.

But my grandmother, who died just a few years ago at 98 years old, she would talk about her life in Vienna, and often she talked about the good years. She had a wonderful childhood. She met my grandfather playing tennis. They went to dance lessons together. She had wonderful loved ones. Her grandmother lived right near her.

She had a dog that the hardest day of her life was the day she had to leave her dog. Mind you, she also left her parents and her grandmother. And she loved her childhood. And she was kicked out of school by the Nazis. She never graduated from High school.

And prior to that, she sat through the lessons in her school, the lessons where they taught them that Jews were the cause of many, if not all, of the problems they were facing in the wake of World War I.

And then she was kicked out of school, and her mother got her lessons to learn to be a cook and a cleaner because she knew she would have to send her away. They responded to an ad in England for someone looking for someone to help in their home.

And my grandmother was set off by herself as a teenager because, as the Assembly Member from Los Angeles said, what we will do above all else to save our children. And so she was sent off to England. My grandfather, whose father had already been taken to Dachau, he was sent to Switzerland to go to school.

They never knew if they'd ever see their parents ever again. But those amazing women, my great grandmothers who survived a very long time, found ways out. They were the lucky ones. And they made their way to New York. My grandfather made his way.

First, he got engaged to another woman because he didn't know if my grandmother had survived. But then he found out that she was there, that they both made it to Brooklyn. And he broke off the engagement and he proposed to my grandmother. And a few years later, my father was born in Brooklyn.

And it's a story of survival. And it was a story that I don't think I knew when I was growing up was miraculous.

I didn't understand until I was older and my family started to teach me about the horrors of the war, that 6 million didn't make it, that the boat that my grandma described, because when her family got to New York and they sent for her, she came on the boat from England by herself.

She described that as some of the best days of her life. Dancing in the hull of the boat, knowing she was on her way the United States. And yet, as the Assembly Member from San Francisco said, so many other boats were turned away.

And I tell this story because I want people to know this isn't a distant memory. This isn't someone else's story. This is my story. And I'm in this country because this country decided that some of us would get a chance. And I'm one of those people who got a chance. It wasn't easy.

When my grandmother died and my father and I were cleaning out her desk, we found the documents, the denials, the ones that said we weren't going to make it. But she wasn't somebody. My great grandmother was not somebody who would give up. So she found a way.

And just yesterday my father and I, with my brother and mom went to see a play about the Hawker album. And it wasn't something I knew about, but the Hawker album was an album of pictures from Auschwitz that was found just recently in the past decade and given to the Holocaust Museum.

And the remarkable thing, there are very few pictures from Auschwitz. The Nazis did not want people to know what was going on there. The first album that was found was of the prisoners, of the people who would be mass exterminated there.

But this album, this was the album of the assistant to the head of Auschwitz and it was his memory album. There isn't a single picture of a prisoner. There are pictures of people listening to music, having cocktails and sitting on a porch lounging with their families, eating blueberries while the Jews were exterminated by the tens of thousands right in their midst.

And it was so striking to watch this story play out because the pictures that you can see and that are at the museum are of everyday people, accountants, bank tellers, candy makers, who before the war were like you and me. And then they became the worst war criminals this world has ever known.

And that is what we need to remember, that it wasn't just Adolf Hitler. It was every single person who stood silently by, who participated, who sent the messages, the pictures of the women at Auschwitz, who took the messages and portrayed the messages of who would die and who would live callously.

That when we don't speak up, when we don't stand out, we become vulnerable to being an accomplice. An accomplice to hate, an accomplice to murder, an accomplice to ruining of lives. And that we must be better than that. And we, the 80 of us, we have the privilege of having the power of these seats and everything that comes with it. What are we doing with it?

We need to look ourselves in the mirror every single day and say, what have I done with the power that I possess as a result of the trust my constituents have put in me? And the answer has to be, I am standing up to hate in all of its forms. Every single one of us.

I know both sides of the aisle should look ourselves in the mirror and know that is the job that we have before us because it will make this country and this state a better place. And sometimes that's going to be hard. It's not always going to be the politically easy thing to do.

But what are we doing here if we aren't willing to stand up and be loud and stand up for fellow human beings to see their souls to see their stories, to not let their shoes pile up and know that each one of those was a life that was taken, that was forgotten.

And I loved what so many of you said today when you said never again has to be a promise. Because that's true. And now is the moment to live up to that promise. Our colleague from Long Beach did such an amazing job of articulating the hate that our community is experiencing right now.

And we're not the only community, and we know that. But when I hear from my friends who are fleeing the Oakland school district because their kids are going into school and their teachers are talking about Jews being oppressors, I know that this is the moment for us to stand up and stop that.

Because that's what happened in the school when my grandmother was sitting there in 1938. And so we have a job ahead of us to turn the arc of history back to where we see each other. Doesn't matter who you love. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what you believe. You're a human.

You're a soul. You matter. You're valuable. And we will all need to stand up for one another and see that and believe that and protect that day in and day out, for us to get to a better place, to come back together, to be less divided, and to ensure that every community is safe.

Because I will tell you that the trauma that was mentioned is real. When I had to watch someone Heil Hitler at the presidential inauguration, you can only imagine how triggering that was for me.

And so I believe that you will be my allies in ensuring that my children are safe and that every child in the State of California is safe as we move forward. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote on ACR 59.

Thank you, Assemblymember Bauer Kahan. Seeing and hearing no further debate. Assemblymember Addis, would you like to close?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank all my colleagues for speaking today. Today is a hard day. It's not a day that I look forward to.

I don't think it's a day that anyone who has a legacy of family Members or friends or Members who either lived and survived or died in the Holocaust, looks forward to. But it's also a day of beauty.

And as I look around at each of you, I think about the beauty that we hold in this room and the power that each of you has, and the words spoken by our colleagues as well as Members of our caucus and the efforts that have been put in over the last three years that I have been here, really to make sure that we are all rowing in the same direction when it comes to hate and when it comes to making sure that we're standing up for each and every one of our communities.

Because as we have a day like this, we remember all of the genocides that happen and how important it is that we are allies to one another. And so I want to deeply, deeply thank each and every one of you.

I especially want to thank our colleague from the Bay Area who put a lot of effort into the ceremony today and to everything that you have and let you know that you have a brochure on your desk with the biographies of the honorees that are here.

These are survivors, these are children, and these are grandchildren from the Holocaust. Some of them survived the Holocaust, some of them had parents who survived the Holocaust. Some of them had grandparents who lived through the Holocaust. And they're here to be honored today because it's the very least that we can do is to lift up their story.

I also want to say that as a teacher, we know that the only way through is through. And how we get through is to remember and to educate ourselves about everything that has happened. And so you also have a book that recounts the true story.

And I'm going to ask you to look around and notice the 80 Assembly Members on this floor floor. This is a book of the true story of eight times that number of children who were put on trains, who traveled as part of the Czech Kindertransport from Prague to Britain on the eve of World War II.

It was families who were trying to save their children from being murdered during World War II as Hitler's campaign of hatred towards the Jews and political dissidents took hold. And I urge you to read this book and tell these stories because what we know now is close to 70% of young people believe that the Holocaust didn't happen.

They don't know that it happened. It's an incredibly huge number. And so we have to tell these stories. And so as we remember the Holocaust and the importance of teaching the next generation, we hope that you will appreciate the book about courage, about heart, and about the necessity for caring for others. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote for ACR 59.

Thank you. Assemblymember Addis. Would you like the first roll to be open for co authors? Okay, Members, all debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll for co authors, all those vote who desire to vote. Members, this is for co authors, all those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote.

Clerk will close the roll. There are 76 co authors added without objection. We'll now take a voice vote on the measure. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed no. The ayes have it. The resolution is adopted.

Members to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Members of the Legislative Jewish Caucus have invited survivors and descendants of survivors to join us today. We honor these individuals for the work to teach the lessons of the Holocaust, uplift underserved communities and work towards social justice.

I am appointing an escort Committee to bring our honorees to the floor for our ceremony. Members should retire to the rear of the chamber as I call your name. Assembly Members Gabriel, Lowenthal, Pellerin, Ward, Furman, Zbohr, Addis, Ahrens, Bauer, Kehan, Haney, Irwin and Crell.

I also ask that Speaker Rivas and Republican Leader Gallagher move to the front center aisle to receive our honorees. Members, it is now time to introduce and welcome our 2025 Holocaust remembrance honorees. The Clerk will read.

Escorted by Assembly Member Gabriel, is Eva Perlman a survivor? Eva was born in Berlin, Germany, to escape Hitler's Nazi regime. Her parents emigrated to France, where she grew up with two sisters and miraculously survived the war by hiding in the mountains of southern France.

She now speaks of her survival during World War II at the museum of Tolerance, the Holocaust Museum, Los Angeles schools and other community spaces. In 2019, she published Eva's Uncommon Guided by Miracles, a book about her life. Please welcome Eva Perlman. Escorted by Assembly Member errands is Ilana Shay, a daughter of survivors.

Ilana's parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland. Her mother was the only survivor from a family with six children. Ilana was born and raised in Israel. She has lived in Sunnyvale since 1991. Ilana has shared to students and other community groups an inspirational presentation of her mother's survival story with original family pictures. Please welcome Ilana Shay.

Escorted by Assembly Member Addis is Rachel Tolkoff on behalf of her mother Allegra Zachariah Corman, a survivor. Allegra was born to a family of Ladino speaking Shepherdic Jews where the Italian army occupied their town.

At 16, Allegra refused to leave her mother and younger siblings when they arrived at Auschwitz, but her mother urged her to go with a group of other young girls ultimately liberated by the Russian army. She later forged a career in the fashion industry, becoming a sought after Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

Please welcome Rachel Tolkoff. Escorted by Assembly Member Bauer Kahan is Eva Lukacs, a survivor. At eight years old, Eva, her mother and her twin sister lived through the Nazi occupation by hiding in five locations over 10 months.

To avoid deportation, Eva and her mother escaped to a refugee camp in Vienna, Austria and made their way to Montreal, Canada and later to Boston, Massachusetts in 19 and in 1971, Eva went on to become the first female licensed professional engineer in the East Coast. Please welcome Eva Lukacs.

Escorted by Assemblymember Berman is Willow Herz, a granddaughter of survivors. Willow's grandparents both escaped Nazi Germany as children. Her grandfather, Irwin, fled to La Paz, Bolivia, with his family, while her grandmother, Ilsa, was sent to England on the Kindertransport.

After a four week boat ride to Buenos Aires, her grandparents met and moved to the United States where they grew their family at Stanford University. Willow is a fourth year American Studies major with a concentration in Post Holocaust Jewish American Culture and will be receiving a certificate in Jewish Studies. Please welcome Willow Herz.

Escorted by Assemblymember Haney is Eli Salomon, a grandchild of survivors. During World War II, Eli's maternal grandfather lost his parents to the Holocaust and was the sole survivor of 10 children. He met his wife in Soviet Russia after she fled her native Romania and lost her parents to the Nazis.

Eli's paternal grandfather also fled to Soviet Russia at the outset of the war. He was the youngest of 10 children, six of whom perished in the Holocaust, two of whom did not survive young age because of challenging conditions and only one brother who survived the war after being in two concentration camps.

Eli sits on the boards of numerous nonprofits including the world's oldest Yiddish bookstore and he is the past President of the Harvard Club of San Francisco. Please welcome Eli Salomon. Escorted by semi Member Irwin is Israel Bronstein, a son of survivors. Both of Israel's parents were born and raised in Poland.

His father Harry was part of the resistance who fought fearlessly against the Nazis. Israel's mother was sent to multiple work camps and rarely spoke of the horrors she witnessed there. Israel's parents met in a displaced persons camp in Germany. Shortly after Israel's birth.

A rabbi visited his parents and told them that they must name their son Israel as the Jewish homeland was had been established as a state just the day before. Please welcome Israel Bronstein. Escorted by a family Member Krell is Sonia Edwards, A daughter of a survivor.

Sonia has taken the mantle of shepherding the story of her mother Andra and her survival through the Holocaust. Being one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz camp, her mother wanted to tell her story and make sure that the realities of humanity's worst atrocity never happen again.

Through her tireless efforts, thousands of school age children heard a Holocaust story firsthand. Sonia helped ensure her mother's story was turned into a feature documentary titled Always remember your name. Please welcome Sonia Edwards. Escorted by a seminar Lowenthal is Edie Brodsky, a daughter of survivors.

Edie is the daughter of Jack and Anna Chinsky from Poland whose journey of resistance and survival would ultimately lead them to the United States. Jack joined the Polish resistance and eventually spent time in a forced labor camp. And Anna survived the bombings of Warsaw as a teenager.

Edie is currently the immediate past President of Jewish Long beach, the integrated agency that represents the Jewish Federation of Greater Long beach and West Orange County Alpert Jewish Community center and the Jewish Community foundation of Greater Long Beach. Please welcome Edie Brodsky. Escorted by Assembly Member Ward is Gerald Szames, a survivor.

Gerald lived in Trachenbrod, Poland, a small Jewish town. His memories of the Nazi occupation are all too vivid. He remembers the horrors of being herded into the ghetto by armed soldiers with lunging dogs.

His elderly neighbor who was holding his hand during this and even hiding in an oven with his mother and brother when the ghetto was most dangerous. His family spent two and a half years hiding underground in the forest in pits that they dug to conceal themselves.

Of the 10 family Members who survived the brutality, five of them were children under 8 years of age. Of the original 10 survivors, the family now numbers more than 130. Please welcome Gerald Szames. Escorted by Assembly Member Pellerin is Ruth Litwin, a daughter of survivors.

Ruth's father has was held in the Auschwitz concentration camp for years before he was freed. Once he was liberated, he built a hospital that was open for a handful of years after the Holocaust at the displaced persons camp he lived in. Ruth was one out of 5,000 babies born there.

She has sat on several boards and now speaks to students about The Holocaust, and how the third and fourth generations can make a difference. Please welcome Ruth Litwin. Escorted by Assemblymember Zbur is Lester Friedman, a son of survivors.

After the Nazis invaded Poland, Lester's parents were each sent to live in the ghetto with their extended families and eventually sent to various concentration camps, including Auschwitz. By the end of the war, the Soviet army liberated both of his parents. Lester's parents left Europe for the United States, met in New York, fell in love, and got married.

As a son of Holocaust survivors, Friedman has fought anti Semitism throughout his career. Lester was elected twice to the Beverly Hills City Council, served two terms as mayor, and continues to serve as a Council Member. Please welcome Lester Friedman.

On behalf of Jewish Caucus Chair Gabriel and the Members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, I want to thank all. The Members for helping us observe Holocaust Remembrance Day. I want to thank all the survivors and their descendants for being here with us. It makes it incredibly meaningful to have. You here and to be able to.

Honor you and to all of your families who are up here in the gallery. Thank you all for joining us. That concludes today's ceremony.

Members, I'm going to ask you to return to your desk, please. We have a business on the daily file that we need to take care of. We have more guest introductions to do, and we have committees that are meeting today. So please ask you to return to your desk. Members, we're going to start with guest introductions.

Thank you, Members. Assemblymember Patterson, you are recognized for your guest introduction.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, I wanted to offer a warm welcome to my intern, Alex Sanchez, out of my district office, and. And his parents, Cecilia and Salvador. Alex always wears a suit to work to the district office. And so I had to remind him the other day to.

On Fridays, Joe Patterson doesn't wear suits, so you can go ahead and not dress better than me. That'd be great. But he's done an amazing job and very lucky to have him. Thank you for your service. Alex in my district office, and Members, please welcome him.

Okay, everybody, we are going to come back. In the interest of time, we're going to come back to guest introductions. A little bit later. We are going to move on to business. On the daily file, the second reading.

[Second Reading]

Be deemed read and all amendments will be deemed adopted. We're going to go through concurrence file item 30. We're going to pass and retain, which brings us to Assembly third reading. We're going to pass and retain on file items number 31 through 44, which brings us to file item number 45. AB 390 by Assemblymember Wilson. The Clerk will read

Assembly Bill 390 by Assembly Wilson and others an act relating to vehicles.

Assembly Member Wilson, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning. Members. I'm pleased to present. Well, I should say good afternoon. It is afternoon. It is. I'm pleased to present AB390, a highway safety Bill that strengthens our slowdown move over law ensuring that our highways remain a safe place for all who use them.

AB390 aims to prevent hundreds of injuries and fatalities by requiring drivers to approach with caution and change lanes or if unsafe or impractical, impractical slow to a reasonable speed when passing any stationary vehicle with emergency or amber lights or any other warning signal.

Over the past decade, California has seen a significant and concerning rise in fatalities involving individuals outside of a disabled vehicle. From 2013 to 2023, the state experienced a nearly 60% increase in deaths.

During this period, California ranked first in the nation for the highest number of such fatalities in four different years and held the second highest overall total across the entire decade. Members, we like to be the leaders, but this is not a statistic we want to lead in.

In 2020 alone, 2021 alone, 72 individuals, including truck drivers, delivery workers, motorists and passengers lost their lives while standing outside disabled vehicles on California roadways. These statistics underscore an urgent need for enhanced road safety safety measures. Excuse me, roadside safety measures targeting public awareness campaigns and stronger infrastructure to protect vulnerable individuals in these high risk situations.

I will tell you, just this past year as a dear friend of mine son was celebrating his first birthday, they live in Texas. His grandmother actually got into a fender bidder and got on the side of the road and you know what?

Someone was speeding right next to it, hit her with the hit her with the side mirror and it was. They were going so fast that they threw her and she instantly died. So this child for the rest of his life will remember that his grandmother died on his birthday.

All because someone did not slow down or move over. So strengthening our slowdown, move over law would expand protections to all who may find themselves operating or stranded on the side of the road. We must protect all those who use California's highways daily.

An individual changing a flat tire or dealing with mechanical problems should not have to also worry about life threatening experience. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Wilson. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 64, no 0. The measure passes. Moving on to measure 46.

AB439 by Assembly Member Rogers. The Clerk will read

Assignment Bill 14 to 39 by Assembly Rogers enact relating to coastal resources.

Assemblymember Rogers, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. AB439 makes two small changes to the California Coastal Act. One is it removes an unnecessary and arbitrary 10 day waiting period on De minimis changes. The second is it better aligns reporting requirements to best practices as noted in the floor analysis. At worst, this would have minor and absorbable costs, but most likely would save the state money. With that, I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Rogers. Assemblymember Patterson, you're recognized.

Mr. Speaker, Members, regrettably I rise in opposition to this measure. As you may recall, last year the Coastal Commission hired more internal staff and lobbyists to lobby us. Why?

They need to expand their powers and prevent us from doing the good work we need to do to develop more housing in California, especially for people who live on the coast. This Bill basically takes away Coastal Commission annual reports that they ever do on assessments and penalties that they do.

And I don't think we should let them off the hook for anything. And they should continue to read send the reports to us so we know how much they're penalizing people and the size and the scope of their. Their ginormous bureaucracy doesn't continue to get expanded.

We need to rein them in, actually not let them off the hook. And so with that, I ask for a no vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Patterson. Seeing and hearing no further debate, Assemblymember Rogers, would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Bill actually forces the Coastal Commission to be more efficient and more streamlined in their approach. As noted, that reporting requirement does not go away. It just better aligns it with best practices. That information is still there. It just makes this group more efficient. With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member Rogers. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 44, nos. 11. The measure passes.

Members, we're going to take a break from business on the Daily File and go back and do our guests and introductions. Assemblymember Nguyen, you are recognized for your guest introduction.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, it is an honor for me to introduce some very special guests. As you know, we are approaching the 50th commemoration of the fall of Saigon.

And I know that I would not be here today had it not been for these individuals, myself and the Assembly Member from Westminster who spoke about this House Resolution just a few weeks ago. Black April. Here with me today are five American soldiers who served during the Vietnam War.

And it is because of them that myself and the Assembly Member from Westminster are here today. It is because of them that my community found hope and the courage to escape our country and come here where we are free and there is freedom and there is justice and there is liberty for all, which there isn't right now.

Back Vietnam. Please join me in welcoming from American Legion Post 55, Larry Sahota, Mike Redslaff, Paul Cosplay, Mark Hite, David Scott and Earl Evans, American soldiers who served during the Vietnam War.

Welcome to the California Assembly. Members, while this photography is taking place in the back of the chamber, can I please ask you to direct your attention to the gallery? You may see a familiar face up in the corner. Our former colleague Phil Ting is here. Mr. Ting.

Mr. Ting is now a visiting Professor at UC Berkeley and he brought two classes with him today. The Ethnic Studies 180 and Public Policy 190, the Politics of California Finance. Please welcome him and his students to the Capitol. We miss you, Phil.

Okay, Members, a little decorum, please. Assembly Member Ortega, you are recognized for your guest introductions.

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Speaker, Members, I rise today in recognition of Lori Alvarez, the Secretary of our Assembly labor and Employment Committee, who is retiring after 29 years with the Assembly. Lori started with the Assembly in 1995 as a scheduler for Assembly Member Joe Baca.

She moved onto the Committee secretary for the Labor Committee in 2000 and for the span of 25 years has worked with eight chairs including myself and Assemblymember Karlra. Lori is known for her can do attitude and how she inspired the staff around her to approach their work in the same way.

Lori has been a source of tremendous institutional knowledge. I have seen firsthand how she is able to point to rules and procedures with her eyes closed. She is truly an encyclopedia of Committee rules. It goes without saying that the Committee will not be the same without her.

While she expertly facilitated Committee hearings, Lori saw the passage of landmark labor legislation such as legislation for farm worker overtime, paid sick leave for all Californians and protections from heat illness for outdoor workers and her well deserved retirement. Lori is looking forward to traveling, horseback riding and gardening full time.

Lori, we congratulate you on your retirement and also thank your family for allowing 29 years of your dedicated service and sharing you with with the State of California Members. Please join me in congratulating her and her family and her well deserved retirement.

Members. We also want to hear from Assemblymember Ash Kalra would like to speak to this. Before we send you off. Laurie, we need to hear from Assemblymember Kalra.

Thank you so much Mr. Speaker. I want to also congratulate Laurie on such an incredible career. And just to make note of the fact not only do we have our wonderful Labor Chair presenting this recognition, I of course was the prior chair, but not too long ago we had the chair before that, Tony Thurman, our Superintendent of Public Instruction, also on the floor. So it's definitely a Labor Committee day in your honor.

And I want to, as Chair Ortega indicated, not only are you a wealth of knowledge, but let's keep in mind that the Labor Committee only has three staff Members and only one secretary. That's an extraordinary amount of work that passes through that Committee.

Some of the most significant legislation we've done over the last couple decades have come through that Committee and Lori has shepherded each and every one of those bills and she does it with joy and a smile on her face. Even when the rest of us aren't smiling.

She finds a way to stay upbeat, stay on task and make sure everybody else can focus on their task at hand. I just want to really congratulate you on an extraordinary career. I know that you are going to do great things in the years to come. Whatever it is that your heart desires, you deserve it. You've earned it. And thank you.

Congratulations, Laurie.

Members, before we go back to business on the daily file, we are going to recognize the Majority leader back on motions and resolutions.

Mr. Speaker, there is a Rules Committee resolution at the desk to suspend Joint Rule 61 the Committee deadline for AB 1468. Zbur I ask that we take that rule waiver now.

Resolve that General Rule 61A be suspended to permit the Committee on education to meet, consider and report Assembly Bill 1468 for further action.

Members, this rule suspension is not debatable. It takes 54 votes. The Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes56 knows one the rules are suspended.

Moving back to business on the daily file, we're going to pass and retain on file items 47 through 57. We are dispensing with file item 58. Since we have already taken care of that business, we're going to pass and retain on file items 59 through 72. That gets us to file item number 73. AB50 by Assembly Member Bonta.

Assembly Bill 50 by Assembly An act relating to healing arts and declaring the urgency thereof to take effect immediately.

Assembly Member Bonta, you are recognized.

Good afternoon Mr. Speaker and Members. Today I rise to present AB50, the equity in birth Control Act which simply ensures that medi Cal enrollees can access the over the counter contraceptives without a prescription. Requiring a prescription for an over the counter contraceptive creates a unnecessary delays and administrative burdens.

It may also deter individuals who lack access to a primary care provider from accessing medications. AB50 levels the playing field by giving medical enrollees the same access to over the counter prescriptions and contraceptives without a prescription as those with private insurance. AB50 has received bipartisan support and no no votes.

This is an urgency clause to ensure it goes into effect upon signature of the Governor. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you Assembly Member Bonta. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 67 no 0 on the urgency, Ayes 67 no 0 on the measure on the Bill.

The measure passes. Continuing on to File item number 74. AB55 by Assembly Member Bonta. The Clerk will read

Assembly Bill 55 by Assembly Member Bonta an act relating to alternative birth centers.

Assembly Member Bonta, you are recognized.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Alternative birth centers, or ABCs, provide maternity care for birthing people specializing in childbirth gear to care for low risk patients, patients in an environment that is less restrictive and medicalized and more homelike than a hospital.

AB55 streamlines licensing requirements for ABCs by removing the redundant requirement that they become comprehensive perinatal service providers, or CSPs, which is an outdated requirement for medical enrollment. Midwife standards of care are already higher than CSP requirements, which the Bill makes clear.

The Bill also removes the hard limit that an alternative birthing center must be 30 minutes from a hospital. I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member Bonta. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Aye 68 no 0. The measure passes. Moving on to file item number 75.

AB 263 by Assemblymember Rogers. Excuse me. We're going to pass and retain temporarily on file item 75 through file item 83 where it gets us to file item number 84. Assembly Bill 596 by Assemblymember Mckinnor.

Assembly Bill 596 by Senator Mckinnor. An acrylic to Occupational Safety

Assembly Member McKinnor. You may open,

Mr. Speaker and Members. AB 596 will protect a worker's right to wear a face covering or respirator at work unless it creates a direct safety hazard. During the COVID 19 pandemic, Cal OSHA implemented standards to protect workers from airborne illnesses, including the right to wear a mask even when it was not required by their employer.

These protections expired earlier this year, leaving workers vulnerable to employer imposed mask bans, which we are already seeing happening in many parts of this state and states around the country.

For many workers, especially those who are immune compromised, caring for vulnerable family Members are or working in higher risk environments, the ability to wear a mask is a simple but critical tool to protect their health.

AB596 ensures that workers retain the right to wear a mask or respirator at work unless it poses a direct safety risk and helps maintain California's leadership in worker health and safety protections. Look, I have a mother who is extremely, extremely allergic to everything and she worked for the television industry.

She worked for KCET and she was a receptionist. Used to wear her mask all the time. Can't smell flowers, can't smell perfume, she would get really sick. And so we want to make sure that people like that, like my mother, could wear their mask.

We also want to make sure people can wear their mask when they're sick so they won't spread their colds. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember McKinner. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 53, Nos 8. The measure passes. We're going to pass and retain on file Item 85 gets us to file item 86, AB631 by Assembly Member Lee.

Assembly Bill 631 by Assemblymember Lee an act relating to animals.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Bill requires animal shelters to post data on their websites. A number of animals taken in the source of intake and outcomes for all animals. This data is important to get an accurate picture of animals entering exit shelters and their outcomes. Respectfully, as I vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Lee. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. The Clerk will close the roll and Tally the votes. Ayes 60, no 0. The measure passes. We're going to pass and retain on file items. 878889. That gets us to file item number 90 AB792 by Assemblymember Lee.

Assembly Bill 792 by Assemblymember Lee. An act relating to courts.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. This Bill Bill simply says that when more than one of these regions are in contract negotiations with court court interpreter negotiations then negotiates can be consolidated.

This will be more efficient and lead to faster resolutions so that both the courts and the union Members can be back to meeting the real challenges of recruiting and building capacity to ensure that everyone has access to the courts. Respectfully, ask for an aye vote.

Thank you Assemblymember Lee. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 52, noes one. The measure passes. Moving on to file item 91.

AB 867 by Assemblymember Lee.

The Clerk will read Assembly Bill 867 by Assemblymember Lee and others. An acre link to healing Arts.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I have great pride in bringing forth this Bill. This is a similar Bill that passed with bipartisan support three years ago with 60 aye votes. This Bill simply bans the barbaric practice of cat declawing in California.

Cat declawing, if you're not aware, is the same equivalent of basically cutting off the first digit of your fingers. It is a brutal and mutilating surgery that serves no real health benefit. This Bill will ban the barbaric practice. And so on behalf of all the cat lovers and cat parents, including myself, I really am proud to have this Bill.

One note that I do want to emphasize too is that on my office door in the swing space we had a poster supporting this Bill and many of our staff have organically gone to posting pictures of their cats on my door. And that is continually growing. So invite folks to come check that out. I respectfully ask for an aye vote for all the cats out there.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Lee. Assemblymember DeMaio, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of Assembly Bill 867. It is not often that I am found in alignment with my colleague from the Bay Area. But this is a no brainer. This should not be a Democrat or Republican question. This is about preventing animal cruelty.

As the Assemblymember pointed out, the the procedure is the equivalent in a human being of cutting off the finger at the first knuckle deformities. Pain results in these cats. I was surprised, shocked, dismayed to hear a Republican tell me recently that Carl, this is an issue of personal freedom. Personal freedom.

I don't want to vote to have government banning things. It's an issue of personal freedom. I don't know about you, but I've never had a cat request a decline procedure. It just has never happened. And I'm still waiting to find the one cat that enjoys this barbaric procedure. So no, it is not an issue of personal freedom.

Our Legislature bans barbaric practices all the time. We raise concerns about whether something is unethical or proper procedure all the time. Our furry friends do not have a voice. So I ask that this body act and send a message nationwide that this is something that needs to be addressed in every single state capitol.

Please join me in supporting with an aye vote on Assembly Bill 867 to end the barbaric cruel practice of mutilating cats.

Thank you Assemblymember DeMaio. Seeing and hearing no further debate, Assemblymember Lee would you like to close?

Yes. I'd like to thank the strong support from my colleague from San Diego. As you can tell, this is a wide reaching animal welfare anti cruelty measure that is supported by across the spectrum and I highly encourage folks to still support the Bill, especially on my side. Thank you all.

Debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. The Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 68. No 0. The measure passes. Moving on to file item number 92 AB 1089 by Assemblymember Carrillo.

Assembly Bill 1089 by Assembly Member Carrillo, an act relating to Western Joshua Tree.

Members, if I could have some decorum please. Senator Carrillo, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and Members. The Western Joshua Tree is an iconic species in California that is both ecologically and culturally important. Western Joshua Tree is span across a large portion of California's desert. I believe it is critical that we conserve such a unique and beautiful part of my district.

In 2023, this body passed landmark legislation to balance conservation of the species with pressures from the development of green infrastructure as well as commercial and residential development in the high desert.

The Western Joshua Tree Conservation act allows the Department to enter into an agreement with a county or a city to delegate limited authority to permit the taking of a Western Joshua Tree associated with single family residences, multifamily residences and renewable energy projects.

This Bill simply adds commercial and industrial projects to the list of projects that can be permitted locally. This should be a win win for everyone involved. The Department, which has been chronically understaffed for decades, can pass on the permanent responsibilities to local governments.

The developer can use a City hall as a one stop shop and will need to deal with the state for the Joshua Tree permits. And local governments will have more control over the timing and efficiency of delivering these badly needed economic development projects.

Colleagues, this is a relatively minor change that we hope will unlock real opportunities while maintaining the Hartford balance that was struck in 2023. My office has been working with the opposition and the Department on this issue and we will continue to do so. Members, respectfully, as for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Carrillo. Assemblymember Lackey, you are recognized.

Yes, I would like to thank my. Colleague from my neighboring district for this particular approach. We have a very diverse perspective on the Joshua Tree and last year's related bills posed a huge threat to affordable growth in our region. But I want to acknowledge my Colleagues improved position on such a delicate regional issue. And I would ask for your support on this laudable policy proposal. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember Lackey seeing and hearing no further debate. Assemblymember Carrillo, do you wish to close?

I respectfully ask for an aye vote Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Aye 60, no 0 the measure passes which gets us to file item 93, AB 1154 also by Assemblymember Carrillo.

Assembly Bill 1154 by Assemblymember Carrillo. An act relating to land use.

Assemblymember Carrillo, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon, Members. Thank you for allowing me to present Assembly Bill 1154. AB 1154 brings clarity and consistency to our ADU laws by line of regulations for small ADUs with those for ADUs. AB 1154 builds on progress and ensures that homeowners have the clarity, flexibility and incentive to create much needed housing. Respectfully, ask for an aye vote.

All debate. Thank you, Assemblymember Carrillo. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 63 Nosone. The measure passes.

We are going to pass and retain on file items 94, 95, 96. Okay. We are going to pass on file items number 97 and 98. That gets us to the Senate third reading bills of the day. We're going to pass and retain on File item number 99 which gets us to file item number 100, SCR 57 by Assemblymember Carrillo.

Senate Concurrent Resolutions 57 by Senator Reyes and others relative to Dolores Huerta day.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Colleagues, SCR 57 proclaims April 102025 as the Lord's word. Today, just earlier this month, we recognize the Lords for her numerous contributions to our state and celebrated her 95th birthday on this floor. Members, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assemblymember Carrillo. All debate having ceased, the Clerk will open the roll. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. All those vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Aye. 66, no zero. The resolution is adopted.

We're now moving on to the second day consent calendar. Moving to a vote on the Consent Calendar file items 127 through 129. File item 127 has been dispensed with. Does any Member wish to remove an item from the Consent Calendar? Seeing and hearing none. The Clerk will read the second day consent calendar.

[Consent Calendar]

Clerk will open the roll on the Consent Calendar. All Members vote who desire to vote. This is a Consent Calendar folks. All Members vote who desire to vote. All Members vote who desire to vote. Clerk will close the roll and tally the votes. Ayes 71 no zero consent calendar is adopted. Clerk will read the remaining items on the Consent calendar.

[Consent Calendar]

Members, we are moving on to Adjournments in Memory. Quorum call is still in place. Please give your respectful attention to those who were granted prior permission to speak on their adjournment in memory. Please take your conversations off the floor. Thank you Members, Please take your conversations off the floor. Assemblymember Pellerin, you are recognized for your adjournment and memory.

Thank you Mr. Speaker and Members. I am truly blessed and one of the lucky ones to have known and loved the extraordinary Mary Hammer from San Lorenzo Valley. She passed away at the age of 87 on November 62024. Mary Hammer was a perfect name for this beautiful soul who lived life with joy and positivity.

The name Mary is synonymous with beloved and she was beloved by everyone who knew her. She was a great influence on the San Lorenzo Valley and in the many ways she showed her love for her community, a place where people know their neighbors and are always willing to help out someone in need.

Now, her last name, Hammer, was also very fitting because she was relentless in convincing people to serve on a board, sponsor an event, join a club or run for office. Mary, like a hammer, could always get the job done and always with her contagious smile.

Mary spent memorable summers from infancy at her grandparents Brookdale Cabin where she developed a love for the redwoods, the river and the San Lorenzo Valley. She graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1960 and journeyed to Germany to teach. While teaching, she fell in love with a fellow teacher, Joe. They married and moved to California in 1965.

As a young mother to their adopted children, Eric and Lisa, Mary left teaching to focus on her family and to lead efforts to protect San Lorenzo Valley, founding Save the San Lorenzo river and Valley Citizens for Clean Water. This led to her involvement in local elections, campaigning for local environmental candidates, and serving on the Planning Commission.

In 1978 idealistic women met in Mary's home and founded the Valley Women's Club, which grew to more than 400 Members representing the entire community. For 47 years, the Valley Women's Club has worked to protect the watershed, enhance education, empower individuals and demand good governance.

She spearheaded initiatives to create a nuclear free zone, stopped logging in the Lompico headwaters and developed a $1 million recycling program. Mary strengthened collaboration with local agencies during the 1982 storms and the 1989 earthquake, providing vital support for the valley.

She established a disaster response center in Boulder Creek and worked with local community Members to bring in urgently needed supplies and guide folks seeking assistance. This became the volunteer led Valley Resource center, now the Mountain Community Resource Center. And soon Mary became Executive Director of that federally recognized nonprofit.

Mary's dedicated advocacy pushed local leaders to prioritize emergency preparedness, supporting her system of neighborhood readiness that FEMA featured as a national model, which paved the way for today's community emergency response teams many of us have in our communities.

Mary's heart and soul was dedicated to the resource center, which expanded to offer family and individual support, a welcoming hub for community Members to learn and engage with others, and a place to obtain training and supplies in each undertaking.

People from all walks of life, young and old, were drawn to work with Mary because of her positive approach to any challenge and her unfaltering ability to find strength and goodness in every single person she encountered.

In Mary's honor, Mountain Resources center annually presents the Mary Hammer Green Heart Award to recognize exceptional volunteer service celebrating the legacy she established. Her 55 years of tireless public service and her memory will forever be cherished by those who knew her. And her legacy of activism and dedication will continue to inspire future generations.

While we are adjourning in memory of what I think she is the greatest of all time, Mary Hammer. We know she is still with us because her values, her dedication and her love of life is reflected in our community organizations, our local leaders, and her dear family and friends, some of whom are with us today in the rear of the chambers.

So, Members, please join me in welcoming Mary's daughter, Lisa Hammer, and her husband Bill Manus, granddaughter Ruby Hammer, grandson Charles Hammer, and longtime friend Judy Sherman. Thank you so much for adjourning in memory of Mary Hammer.

Thank you, Assemblymember Pellerin. Members, let us observe a moment of silence to honor the life of this historic Californian, Mary Hammer. Assembly Member Calderon, you are recognized for your adjournment and memory.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, I rise to adjourn in memory of Private from First Class Matthew Andreas Perez, a courageous and dedicated soldier from Whittier and La Habra who tragically lost his life in the line of duty on September 132024. Matthew was born on December 112003 the eldest child of Jose and Vanessa Perez.

He was a beloved older brother to Baltazar, Lino and Sophia. A graduate of La Habra High School, Matthew Dreamed of serving in the military and of one day joining law enforcement. He answered the call of duty in March 2023, enlisting in the United States army as an infantryman.

After completing the One Station unit training and graduating from Airborne School, Matthew was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in October 2023. His accolades included the Army Service Ribbon and Marksmanship Qualification badge, a testament to his skills.

On May 42024 Matthew married the love of his life, Jessica Pitino, and he embraced fatherhood as a devoted stepfather to their daughter, Sophia. In August 2024, Matthew and Jessica announced that they were expecting a child together. His life was defined by love for his family, his community and his country.

He made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. He is survived by his wife Jessica, his stepdaughter Sophia, his parents, Jose and Vanessa, his siblings Balthazar, Lino and Sophia, and many extended family Members and friends who cherished him deeply. I respectfully request that we adjourn in memory of Private First Class Matthew Andres Perez.

Thank you, Assemblymember Calderon. Assembly Member Mark Gonzalez, you are recognized for your adjournment and memory.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Arise today to request that we adjourn in the memory of Father Richard Estrada. A lifelong advocate for youth, for immigrants and for social justice. A Boyle Heights and East LA icon, Father Estrada passed away on March 31, 2025 and was only 83.

Father Estrada was the founder of Holiness in 1989, a nonprofit dedicated to providing housing, resources and support for homeless and at risk youth. One of the most significant achievements of his work with Jovennes was the creation of the Learning to Live campus in Boyle Heights, which provides housing, counseling, skill development for youth experiencing homelessness.

To this day, Jovanis houses more than 700 youth and college students all across LA County and is continuing to expand. In addition to his work with Jovani, Father Estrada took a steadfast role in fighting for social justice and for social justice immigrants and for their rights.

He was a significant part of the Chicano and farm workers rights movements alongside Cesa Chavez and Dolores Huerta and fought for labor rights for farm workers. He Was a longtime Catholic priest and served as the associate pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church at LA Prasita from 1977 to 2014.

But he transitioned to Episcopal church because he saw and felt the pain of gay and Lesbian parishioners who were ashamed simply for their sexuality and because he felt that women were being treated as second class citizens. He was a visionary who was motivated by his unconditional commitment to ensuring the most vulnerable of our community could be uplifted.

And he will be sorely missed. A respectful request that we adjourn in his memory today.

Thank you, Assemblymember Gonzalez. Assemblymember Caloza, you are recognized for your adjournment in memory.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. I rise to join my colleague from Los Angeles in the adjournment and recognition of the Reverend Richard Estrada. Today we honor the life and legacy of Father Estrada, a son of East Los Angeles, which I'm proud to represent. A priest and a fearless advocate for the voiceless.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Father Estrada dedicated his life to serving those who are often overlooked. In times when immigrants face heightened uncertainty and fear, Father Estrada stood as a beacon of hope. In 1989, he founded Juvenas, Inc. Providing housing and support for homeless and at risk youth, particularly unaccompanied Central American immigrants.

His commitment to social justice extended to advocating for farm workers, the undocumented and the LGBTQ community. He truly fought for and believed in upholding the dignity of all Californians. Father Estrada's ministry was always marked by action. He opened his own home to those in need, marched alongside civil rights leaders and.

And transformed his church into a sanctuary for the vulnerable. His legacy is a testament to the power of compassion and the impact one individual can have on the countless lives of many. So today, I join my colleague in a journey in the memory of Father Estrada.

I hope we all carry forward his unwavering commitment to justice and love for all communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember Caloza. Members, please bring the names to the desk to be printed in the Journal. All requests to adjourn a memory will be deemed read and printed in the Journal. Moving on to announcements, the following committees meet today, right now, upon adjournment. Budget Subcommitee 6, Public Safety on Public Safety in Capital Room 447.

Natural Resources and Capital, Room 437. Revin Tax in Capital Room 126. Transportation and Swing Space, Room 1100. Emergency Management in Capital Room 444. Banking and Finance and Capital Room 127. Session schedules as follows. Tuesday, April 29. Check in session. Wednesday, April 30. Check in session. Thursday, May 1.

Floor session at 9 Am Seeing and hearing no further business, I'm ready to entertain a motion to adjourn. Assistant majority leader Garcia moves and Mr. Patterson seconds that this House stands adjourned till Thursday, May 1st. At 9am Quorum call is lifted and we are adjourned.