Assembly Standing Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, and Tourism

We're in room 2100. And this is a joint informational hearing on the State of the arts, how current federal policies are impacting arts, culture and humanities here in California.

It's a joint convening of our Joint Committee on the Arts, which is a Joint Legislative Committee of both houses, along with our Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism.

And I'm just so pleased to be here with several of my colleagues, including our Chair of the Assembly Committee, Vice Chair of the Joint Committee, Assembly Member Ward. And just a little side note, to share our mutual love of the arts. Last time we saw each other out of the country was literally at a musical in London.

We happened to run into each other there. With no planning involved. So even on our spare time, we're spending time focused on the arts. So I just want to thank all of our speakers today. We've got some great people coming from all over the country to talk shop. I know that a number of you, this required a lot of travel, and this actually came together relatively quickly.

So I just appreciate everyone having made their schedules available for this important hearing. And, you know, we've, this committee, I've been involved with this committee ever since I first started in the legislature 11 years ago. I can't say, we've dealt with so many different issues. Lots of challenging questions relating to arts policy. Lots of great bills have come out of the work of this committee.

I got to say, the current moment is extremely difficult, and I really hope that this will be an opportunity for us to share with the broader capital community the challenges that our arts organizations are facing as a result of some of the changes happening in Washington. You know, we know that arts, culture, and humanities are not luxuries.

They speak to the soul of our society, of who we are as human beings. They challenge us to think critically and empathize deeply, to connect across lines of difference. They're the mirror through which we understand who we are and the window through which we imagine who we can become individually and collectively.

We're going to see the governor's May revise come out this morning. We're certainly all anxious to see what will happen on so many different things in that budget proposal.

But certainly in the wake of some of the federal policies that have been targeting arts, humanities, state libraries, museums, our national archives and more, it really underscores how important and urgent and timely this hearing is. So just to point out a few of the major concerns that are out there.

The National Endowment for the Arts, you know, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institutes of Museums and Library Sciences, massive cuts proposed to, some of which have been just unilaterally attempted toward implementation by the current administration in spite of congressionally approved allocations. We all know, of course, our Attorney General has been pushing back along with others and so far have been, you know, successful in court.

But, you know, we're also seeing not just cutbacks in budgets, but also the elimination of, the firing of various directors, leaders, non partisan boards, some of the people that have been advocates and sometimes people have been targeted simply for standing up for their agencies and their work. It's pretty extraordinary.

So we've also had stories now of organizations here in the state that have been receiving letters informing them that their grants are being terminated immediately because they weren't aligned with, you know, the agenda of the president and new priorities. You know, new guidelines and grant review processes that are effectively eliminating important storytelling, research, creative programming that serves communities across our country and throughout our state, and projects that were, you know, in the process of being funded that have been left stranded.

And, you know, it's my strong feeling that when we limit public investment in the arts and humanities, we limit access to cultural participation, we reduce exposure to important narratives and silence stories that deserve to be heard. So it certainly, it's our strong hope, and we have seen in the wake of the unpopularity of many of the proposals from the president, a pushback in Congress.

And I'm heartened to see that in the healthcare space where Republican, Democratic Members of Congress alike have stepped up to push back on cuts. I think, you think about how beloved so many of the projects and programs that are on the chopping block are. I mean, everything from PBS to NPR to NEH museum funding, et cetera, these are things that so many Americans rely upon and really and truly love.

And so it's my hope that Congress steps in to protect funding for these agencies. So we're actually going to have a perspective directly from the hothouse in Washington, D.C. My high school friend, Erin Harkey, who's gone from growing up in Santa Monica to leadership roles in the arts in Chicago, and now the CEO of Americans for the Arts.

She's traveled all the way across the country back to her home state, it'll always be her home state, to share a national overview and shed some light on the conversations in Washington. And I'm really interested in Erin's perspective that she'll bring here today. You know, I've always been so proud of the bipartisan nature of our efforts here.

Jim Nielsen, our great former colleague from the Senate was always such a great champion for the arts. Great to see my colleague and friend here. You think about First Lady Laura Bush and what a champion she was. She had a Master of Science in Library Science and she was one of IMLS's greatest champions, the Institute of Museums and Library Sciences.

So we're really hopeful that we'll be able to flesh out a lot of these issues, figure out a strategy going forward, a way to engage with all of our friends and partners in Congress on both sides of the aisle, many of whom have served with us over the years, so that we can do everything we can to ensure that vitally important arts, culture, and humanities, libraries, museums, programs, continue to get the support that the American people want them to get.

And with that, I'd love to turn it over to my good friend and Vice Chair, Assembly Member Ward.

Well, thank you, Chair Allen. I appreciate the memories. It's true. Just like how often would you think that you would be, what is it, 7,000 miles away in a theater, out on a date night and in the middle of an intermission, hear Senator Allen say, Chris Ward, what's going on? But it's true.

And I'm grateful to be here with you all here today because I know we're all appreciating that we are at a very severe crisis and critical moment here for our creative community. We know that we've got a lot of impact here for California's arts, cultures, and creative industries.

We appreciate that we've been witnessing together and feeling the pain, shared pain that the Federal Government has taken just over the last couple months dramatic steps to eliminate or curtail some of the funding for all of our vital institutions, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, Services.

And I appreciate that there are so many advocates and community members here at this hearing. It doesn't surprise me because from my days at local government on City Council, the arts community shows up.

We know the impacts that we have back in our home communities for our youth, for our senior communities, and for everybody that appreciates the contributions of arts to our well being and to our identity and to our economy. You know, these agencies that are supporting a lot of our local institutions, they've served as keystones for public investment.

They've supported our public libraries in rural communities. They have helped to fund historical preservation, documentary films, arts education, museum exhibitions, and more. The institutions that are going to be impacted by these cuts, if they're not already impacted, do touch the lives of millions of our constituents as well as play a significant role in state tourism. For people to come here and appreciate the Golden State and all the grandeur that we have here to show.

California has not been, we of course have been a leading recipient of a lot of this funding, not just because the size of our state, because of the vibrancy and the diversity and the culture and the establishment that we have here, that we appreciate the arts and we've integrated it into our daily lives. These funds that we have catalyze jobs.

They help support our schools, they elevate voices, they memorialize generations and their impacts to our society for history, for storytelling, for art. We know that indiscriminately canceling grants, forcing a lot of resignations, and dismantling these agencies is already having real world impacts.

We've heard the stories of programs being halted midstream, nonprofits being being left in limbo, some of the jobs in public access to the arts and humanities being put at risk, hours being reduced, access being reduced.

So we're eager this morning to really learn more about what is happening on the ground from you, from a lot of our cultural leaders, from our community advocates who are going to help us better understand what these impacts are having on individual institutions as well as California's broader creative economy and on the millions of people who rely on these work, these work under which the grants will support.

But we're not just here to listen. We're really here to inspire action. How do we as Californians step up to take action to support our cultural and creative institutions which make the state so special?

How do we make sure that we are going to do this in the face of federal policies that don't always seem to align with California's values? So I'm really looking forward to your testimony here and the public comment as well at the end of this hearing.

And I want to really invite all of our panelists to be very transparent and frank about the work that you're doing, the great work that you're doing, the impact that you're having, and the real world consequences that you're already witnessing and that you expect would come if we do not change course and right this ship.

We are going to work with our colleagues here in the legislature to ensure that all Californians have a state where culture, learning, and community can thrive. And I really want to thank the Chair and our committee staff as well from both committees for helping to organize this hearing this morning.

Thank you. Senator Richardson.

Yes, I'll be brief. As a new member, I feel like I should introduce myself to you. First of all, I'm happy to hear that 7,000 miles away, both Senator Allen and Assembly Member Ward are having date nights. That's very encouraging, being a new member on this committee. All kidding aside, I represent the 35th Senate District.

I reside in San Pedro. And so Angel's Gate, for some of you who might be familiar with it, took over some Fort MacArthur property. And we have many artists that reside and thrive in my community. Misty Copeland, our very famous ballerina, came from the San Pedro area, and we have the San Pedro Ballet.

And then going up towards my district to Watts in the Willowbrook area, I have the Watts Towers that many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with. And then swing over towards Inglewood. I'm going to be the home of the FIFA World Cup, the Super Bowl, and the Olympics all in about the next two years.

So we'll certainly be doing our share of sports and tourism. So I have a long history of supporting arts, which I think is the bottom line of what the Assembly Member said.

When I was on the Long Beach City Council, I directed my personal discretionary funds towards supporting the arts when we were cutting back in very tough times. And then subsequently, in other assignments, I've done the same. So consider me a supporter, one here to learn more of how we can work with you and be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we'll get started with. Assembly Member Lackey, do you want to comment too, or?

I'm kind of the odd guy out here, so I'm going to say something because I am the Republican that's sitting up here, and I think I'm the only one. Well, maybe the staff member might be, but I want everybody to know that I am a strong advocate for the arts. .

And I think something that needs to be worked on and even considered is we talk a lot about diversity, but what about ideological diversity? It doesn't exist in the arts, folks. I happen to be a season ticket holder at Pantages, and I enjoy what I see there. But ideologically, the more right side of our society is not represented. It's not.

And I think it's something we need to work on because this is the kind of outcome you get when you don't have balance. You get people in charge that feel like they're not being included, and that leads to decision making that can be regrettable.

So I'm hoping that we can be ideologically diverse and respect all forms of thought. We all have different life experiences, and that's how we define ourselves, is through our life experience. And some people have different, have rural life experiences that are more likely to be more right leaning. And why do they get shunned?

I don't think that that's healthy and I don't think it's what makes America strong. And so arts is known to be not really respectful of that background. And I hope we can change that. And so we look forward to having the commonality of understanding the value of arts.

And it is very, very critical that we do everything we can to make sure it's promoted, especially at the beginning levels. When I went to high school, I went to a very, very small school and we had a very, very productive band. The majority of the school played in the band.

But I will tell you this, that school no longer has any kind of music program. And it's regrettable. It's regrettable and it's a disservice to all those students who go there. So we need to pull together and we can have different political perspectives, folks, that's fine. But let's be balanced and let's be fair. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And you know, we're going to hear next from Erin and Joely Fisher who maybe can make their way up. They're going to talk about the status of the arts in the U.S.

One of the things, you know, we've all been focused on a lot, there's obviously the cultural aspects, there's the economic impacts too, that Christopher spoke about something like 2 million workers statewide, almost 8% of our state GDP.

And I know a lot of Democrats and Republicans together are working on the State of Hollywood, including President Trump's Ambassador Voight. Right. Who's working on some policies to make sure that we keep production here in California.

So there's a lot of shared work to be done and a lot of work to be done to include many, many more voices. One of the great shames of the current round of cuts is that look at a group like California Humanities. It's done some incredible work telling documentary stories about.

They recently did one on a Republican, a former elected official in the mid 20th century. And they've done such good work trying to expand, listen to your call, and engage more voices and stories. And so that's a really important effort and one that I'm sure we'll talk about today.

So anyhow, I'm so happy to have these two fearless, incredible women, arts advocates here who I've gotten to know through various capacities for some time. So I'm really pleased to invite Erin who's the CEO, Erin Harkey, CEO of Americans for the Arts, followed by Joely Fisher, who's the National Secretary Treasurer for the Screen Actors Guild. So let's start with you, Ms. Harkey.

Is this on? Okay. Yeah. Hi, everybody. Good afternoon, Chair Allen, Vice Chair Ward and members of the committee, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. It's truly a privilege to be join you and so many inspiring advocates to talk about the arts. As mentioned, I'm Erin Harkey.

I am a daughter of this great state. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and went to school in Santa Monica where Senator Allen and I, surprise, surprise, were in student government together.

Go Vikings.

It's also where I developed a lifelong passion and enthusiasm for the arts. As a child, I was a cellist and I was able to take advantage of the extraordinary music education program that our school district offered. My work in the arts has taken me all over the country. I'm very familiar with some of your districts.

I worked in Long Beach for some period of time and also in the Antelope Valley when I was working at the LA County Arts Commission. But then I've been in Chicago for the past nine years where I oversaw the city's Cultural Affairs Department.

And now most recently in D.C. where I am the CEO of Americans for the Art Arts, which is one of the nation's leading and largest advocacy organizations. My work has taught me something simple but powerful. The arts reflect who we are, but they also shape who we have the potential to become.

I stepped into this role as CEO of Americans for the Arts just two months ago. It's been an eventful two months. And while I'm excited about the opportunity, I'm also clear eyed about the challenges. The cultural sector is under immense pressure, and our collective response will shape what's possible for artists, for communities, and for our country.

Since January, over 100 executive orders have been issued that threaten the arts and humanities, targeting DEI, eliminating the president's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, canceling grants and removing staff at key institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, the National Endowment for Humanities, NEH, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLs.

Also, uncertainty at the Department of Education means critical arts education grants are also on the chopping block. And changes at our natural cultural institutions, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, challenged our access to free creative expression that represents the breadth of human experiences and stories that artists from around the country are compelled to tell.

The administration's proposed FY 2026 budget goes even further, calling for the entire zeroing out of NEA, NEH, and IMLS and the loss of public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It's not just about the loss of funding.

These institutions underpin the entire apparatus for arts and culture in the country, which is a $1.2 trillion industry contributing 4% to our GDP. It is significant, and when it isn't healthy, we need to understand that there are human, social, and economic costs.

At Americans for the Arts, we are committed to measuring and telling the story of the impact of these senseless cuts. We recently launched a pulse survey of arts organizations across the country and here's a little bit about what we've learned. Federal grants are being rescinded midstream, creating immediate financial crises for organizations to make budget cuts and pay staff.

Pass through dollars are at risk, threatening the stability of local and state agencies. Federal dollars are often leveraged by state and local agencies to increase funding, and a loss of federal funding can become multiplied at state and local levels. Organizations are being told to strip DEI language or risk losing funding.

And programs serving Title I schools, rural communities, LGBTQ audiences are being cancelled. These aren't just abstract headlines, they're impacting people, jobs and communities nationwide and right here in California. In California alone, over 2,000 grants totaling more than $70 million were awarded by the NEA since 2020, including over $8 million to the California Arts Council.

These funds support everything from arts education in schools to sensory friendly performances for neurodiverse audiences. Their sudden rescission has triggered emergency fundraising, hiring freezes, and program shutdowns. Small community based organization, especially those serving rural communities, immigrant communities, and elder populations, are bearing the burnt of, brunt of these losses.

As you know, California is home to largest and most diverse creative economy in the nation. An ecosystem that generates about $289 billion and supports over 800,000 jobs and arts and culture contributes about 7.5% to the state's GDP, surpassing other major industries such as construction, agriculture and transportation. But even in a state like California, there is room to be better. California ranks 35th in per capita state arts funding, just 53 cents per resident.

And as questions about the stability of federal funding for the arts grow, it becomes even more imperative for our state and local governments to show up for their creative communities which contribute so much to our quality of life. They inspire, connect, and heal us. They are the heartbeat of our communities.

Whether in a rural town or a large city, the arts are vital to California's strength. I believe that California is a position to show real leadership in this moment. And Americans of the Arts is here to support you and the collective national effort that is growing and will be required to combat this assault on the arts in this country. Here's just a little bit of what we're doing specifically. We're building coalitions.

We're connecting with the partners in philanthropy, education, and the private sector to strengthen a united voice for culture. We know that advocacy doesn't happen in silos. It happens when networks align and they speak up.

We're working with Congress, we're working with your colleagues to make sure that they understand the real consequences of these cuts and that we're prepared to advocate for the full restoration of cultural agencies in the FY 2026 federal budget. We're keeping our message strong and simple. The arts are essential. These institutions NEA, NEH, IMLS are essential.

They support everything from veterans healing programs to local festivals to school residencies. The arts are in every zip code, every congressional district. The arts transcend party lines. We're investing in data and storytelling. We're working with states and local governments like you to gather the data that drives policy.

We're also amplifying your stories to help the public and policymakers connect the dots. We're equipping the field. We're building tools, templates, and messaging strategies for local leaders. Again, we're here to support you not just to survive this moment, but to transcend it and to shape what comes next.

We're also advocating for pro arts policy at the federal level. There are a number of federal proposals that would increase support for the arts and artists across this country that should be on your radar, including the Charitable Act to make charitable giving more accessible to everyday Americans.

The Performing Arts Tax Parity Act which supports tax fairness for lower and mid income artists. The Creative Workforce Investment Act to fund jobs for artists through public art programs.

And we're asking you to meet this moment by supporting poor arts legislation in your state, including restoring $5 million to the California Arts Council, restoring $27.9 million to the Museum Grant Program, support for SB 456 to remove unnecessary licensing barriers from Muralists, support for AB 1349 to ensure fairness in live event ticketing, and continued investment in cultural districts and small community based organizations who are delivering impact, often with fewer resources.

This is about community health, education, safety and economic resilience. Arts rich communities have stronger schools, healthier residents, and more vibrant downtowns and deeper civic pride. In rural areas, a handful of arts organizations can transform and sustain a community. In schools, arts education improves student outcomes. In hospitals, art improves our healing.

In neighborhoods, the arts bring us together. At a time of growing division and economic uncertainty, we need the arts more than ever. Not just to entertain us, but to connect us, to ground us and to move us forward. This is not a moment for retreat. It is a moment for resolve. California has always set a high standard for creativity.

We should rise to the challenge. We should protect what we built. Let us lift the organizations and individuals who make our communities vibrant. And let us ensure that the arts remain not only accessible, but essentially to every Californian and every American. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your commitment. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Ms. Fisher.

Thank you, Senator Allen, Assembly Member Ward, for inviting me to speak today and making this opportunity possible. That's right, I'm Joely Fisher, National Secretary Treasurer of SAG-AFTRA and Co Chair of SAG-AFTRA's National Government Affairs and Public Policy Committee. What we forgot was butcher, baker and candlestick maker. And I'm an actor.

I'm here on behalf of those I represent, performers in entertainment and media. People who have been greatly impacted by the current mass exodus of their industry from not only this state, but from the nation. My father, Eddie Fisher, the son of Jewish immigrants, grew up in the midst of the Great Depression.

My mother, Connie Stevens, raised in Brooklyn by her Sicilian grandmother, was born in the Depression's final year. Thanks to Roosevelt's New Deal, America didn't lose its burgeoning entertainment industry during a time of economic crisis. Instead, Hollywood entered its golden age and my parents, along with countless others who made their living in entertainment, were able to thrive.

That's the type of good that can happen for Californians and and for artists when federal policies support individuals and industries. Over 90 years later, the situation is very different. Instead of bustling small businesses near studio lots, we're seeing abandoned car washes, shuttered restaurants, and countless for rent signs. Why?

Other countries have created their own government backed incentives and successfully lured Hollywood production overseas. Lack of federal action to address this has not only forced legions of professionals to apply for unemployment, but has also given the business that serve those professionals no other choice but to close up shop.

On Monday, SAG-AFTRA, along with a coalition of entertainment industry unions and studios, signed on to a letter to the president outlining much needed steps to bolster film and television production in the United States. We also support a federal production labor tax credit to complement state incentives and reward productions for hiring American workers.

But that's not the only issue. Currently, the federal tax code doesn't adequately address workers performing, skyrocketing business costs. Entertainment is a difficult enough business to survive in. An outdated tax code is making it even harder. Solutions are available. For instance, the SAG-AFTRA Supported Performing Artists Tax Parity Act. Say that 10 times fast.

PATPA has been reintroduced in both the US House and the US Senate, and it passed. It will update the qualified performing artist deduction originally signed into law by President Reagan in 86 to reflect the rising costs of labor living performers face while doing business. Will the current administration get this done? That remains an unanswered question.

Because the creative economy is the backbone of California's economy, preserving intellectual property rights and fighting exploitation at a federal level strengthens our state's existing laws. Two SAG-AFTRA supported federal bills have the potential to do just that. While our TAKE IT DOWN Act is awaiting the President's signature, the fate of our NO FAKES Act still remains uncertain.

The need, though, is clear. Without a federal intellectual property right to our own voices, likeness, and likenesses, anyone can use another person's digital replica in whatever way they want. Whether it's stopping runaway production, updating the tax code, or addressing new technology. When it comes to saving Hollywood, there's a lot of work to do.

And achieving our goal is about keeping our eye on the prize. A beautiful state sustaining generations who make their livelihoods as part of a prosperous media industry. And because I'm a glass all the way full gal, I believe we can have that again.

I mean, just look at the wonderful art form we've cultivated here on big screens and small screens alike. Motion pictures. Culture Changing motion pictures. World changing motion pictures. Life changing motion pictures. Motion pictures created with California mountains, California beaches, the deserts, California backlots, California artistry. Next year we'll be hosting the World Cup and after that, the Olympics.

Do we want a world to see block after block of boarded up businesses? Or do we want them to see the state that's responsible for magic? Something as spectacular and meaningful and magical as this can't disappear in an instant.

Now, whether or not federal policies will be enacted to save entertainment industry jobs is not something we can afford to wait on. Everyone in this room has the power to be part of our state's next showbiz renaissance. And here's our to do list. We're approving the tax incentives and we're passing the right bills.

Let's be the heroes that the state needs. Crazier things have happened. Last week, a guy named Bob from Chicago became the Pope. Keep the faith. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. It's true. Well, let me start by just letting folks know. I know we have a lot of arts advocates here and we all love the film industry and trying everything we can to do to help it.

There's going to be actually an event this evening at the IMAX Esquire Theater with Edward James Olmos and others. They're screening several short films by young, by students, student films. So if you're interested, let us know. We're happy to have you included, but it'll be a wonderful celebration of the creativity that you just described.

Let me go to you, Ms. Harkey. I'd love to just kind of follow up a little bit on Assembly Member Lackey's comments. Give us a sense of what the conversations are with, particularly on the Republican side.

You know, it's always, you know, in general, having literally 11 years in this, in this, on this committee, I've always been happy about how bipartisan an effort this has been. And, you know, there's been great arts champions on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

We just spoke about it. And yet now things seem to be getting really intense on a partisan side. Some of it is perhaps because of your perceptions, real or not, but a sense of conservative voices not being adequately included and some concerns over that. What is the state of bipartisan support for the arts from your perspective?

And how are the conversations going with Republican leadership on this topic? And also, how should we, how should the arts community be thinking about some of the criticism we just heard about making sure that the community really does include lots of different voices?

Well, I appreciate that question, and we'll just say that, yes, this is, in fact, been always a bipartisan of folks that have made sure that support for the arts was still there. In fact, the zeroing out of the NEA and the NEH and IMLS is actually not a surprise.

It also happened in the FY 2025 budget when the president made his proposal the last time. And it was a bipartisan coalition of folks that indeed restored funding for the NEA and the NEH and in fact, increased funding for those agencies. So that bipartisan support has been historically strong.

I think things are very, very different in this climate, as you've mentioned. And so we're trying to understand and make sure that that coalition still holds. We've had several conversations with Republican leaders on the Hill, and they are still very supportive.

They understand, I think, especially in communities where there is significant sort of rural constituencies that public funding has an ability to reach these organizations in a way that private funding is not able to.

And so when you start to remove public funding for the arts, then you start to see these small community based organizations really struggling to find how they're going to support and sustain themselves. So this has real implications for their constituents and their district specifically. What we're trying to do is really elevate that data.

The NEA actually has done some really good research in documenting where their funding is actually going, and they're in some 700 more districts than the top 100 private philanthropic foundations. So uplifting those messages about where public funding for the arts actually goes is an important part of the strategy.

And then also thinking very strategically, about how we not only connect with members on the Hill, but how we connect with them in their districts so that they're connected to the work that's happening and can see the impacts that federal dollars have on sort of the day to day lives of their constituents.

I mean, do you see the kind of the battle over Medicaid as almost a corollary where all these wild claims of cutbacks came out from the White House and then they got all this feedback from, you know, all sorts of Members of Congress, including Republican Members of Congress, saying, wait a minute, this is not what we want.

Yes.

Is there, is there an opportunity for something similar to happen here?

Yeah, I think so.

Do you sense it happening? Is it?

Yeah, anecdotally so. You know, so for example, the National Endowment for the Arts, when they sent out their cancellation notices two weeks ago, gave organizations the opportunity to appeal. And we know that several Republican Senators actually sent appeals through those appeal processes when programs in their districts were canceled.

So I do see that there is a, somewhat of a backlash when folks are sort of recognizing and actually seeing firsthand how this is affecting people in their communities.

Yeah, yeah. You know, can I ask you specifically about the NEH cuts? I don't know how, I'm sure you're up to speed on them, but, you know, we're going to hear later from the head of our California Humanities, Mr. Noguchi, on the next panel.

But effectively this is a longstanding federally funded program that's just sent the entire national system in a disarray because they're just, they just unilaterally decided to cut everybody. And you know, in our case, this is a program that's received a little bit of state funding over the years, but it's basically been just federally funded.

And they're now facing this really incredibly difficult decision, whether to shut down or not. I mean, are there, are there similar kinds of conversations happening around the country? And what do you, what do you, what do you reckon? What is, what is being done to push back and to try to restore?

Is some of this a game where they're trying to see how much pushback they get and then hopefully it'll be restored through negotiations, or—is that your impression?

That is my impression. I think we're hoping that Congress will step up to the moment and sort of do their job. I mean, but the thing that you're mentioning, I think is sort of what I alluded to—was that sort of federal dollars get leveraged by states and local governments.

And in particular, both the NEA and the NEH have programs where just, sort of, essentially off the top, 40% of their budgets go directly to state—state agencies.

The National Endowment for the Arts, for now, was able to sort of protect those state level partnerships, but the NEH, their dismantling of their grant program was handled with less care. And so, the sort of state level agencies, who are reliant on that funding and sometimes leverage that funding, sort of to double the impact.

So, I'm a state level agency, I get a million dollars from the NEA. I use that to trigger a match in my state. So, it doubles the impact of those federal dollars. All of that has sort of gone away.

So, then it becomes a sort of trickle-down because those local state level agencies are also regranting those dollars, right, to their, sort of, local nonprofits. So, there's a trickle-down, sort of multiplying effect, to the fact that the Federal Government has, yeah, has initiated these cuts. Goes without saying, obviously this is not without legal challenge.

So, there are several, you know, things in the works that are looking at both the sort of impounding aspect of this, right? The fact that these are approved as, sort of, dollars by Congress, as well as just other sort of legal challenges around these particular cuts that folks are working on.

Yeah, I think we all need to be working both on the advocacy side and the legal side, and, you know, I think I speak for most of us. Count us in. Just want to ask Ms. Fisher a question. First of all, thank you for all your leadership.

We were just at an event last week in LA talking about TV film production.

I never stop.

You never stop. Yeah. Well, neither do we. We're very committed to revitalizing production here because we also know there's so many follow on impacts.

I mean, you know, I went to an event, not too long ago, for the LA Chamber Orchestra.

And all those, all those guys who perform, all the guys and gals who perform in the orchestra, are people who make their money scoring and working on Hollywood music projects, but they're also able to enhance the broader cultural life of the region because they've got their anchor career in Hollywood music.

But they also are out there teaching and tutoring and performing and all the rest out there.

You know, just to, again, follow on Assemblymember Lackey's conversations, you know, yes, there, there are lots of progressive voices in Hollywood and labor movement, but there's also, you know, you have some pretty prominent members that are, you know, very close to the President and, you know, he's got some ambassadors and they're all, you know, dues-paying SAG members.

Tell us a bit about the conversations on, you know, in terms of engaging more conservative voices within the union, how those conversations go, especially with regards to reaching out to, to folks in the White House and also to Congress.

Well, I've seen some TikToks of people that are not happy about it, just this morning, but I think that out of that meeting, that Mr. Voight had, came some interesting ideas. The idea of a federal tax incentive—tax credit—compounded with our state could be really wonderful for the business.

Also, what came out of it was a very illegal taxing of digital intellectual property. That's a law, that you can't tariff a movie. But of course, we're always listening to everybody's voices. We represent a multitude of multifaceted people. I think it's Orwellian that we're talking about, like, retaliatory behavior, in terms of the arts.

It just, it just breaks my heart. But if we can see some of our agenda advance, then we have to listen to what the President has in store.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right, let me open up the floor to questions. Thoughts for these two incredible leaders? Yes.

Yeah. While I had to step out briefly to present a Bill, I was kind of curious if you've had a chance, you know, coming from a national perspective, to sort of think over the last couple of months about ways that other states have been approaching this.

I remember, again, my time on City Council and here again in the Assembly, you know, we've got bipartisan support for the impact that arts and cultural and music and other institutions support in our communities. And I think it was that sort of, you know, kind of common interest that helped us be successful during some very difficult times.

So, are you seeing that advocacy in sort of, you know, for Midwestern states or other communities, that can provide helpful guidance on how we can approach advocacy here in California?

Well, you actually have one of the strongest states, I think, in terms of the sort of coalition of advocacy groups and their ability to sort of work together and get things done.

I would also say, having spent a good deal of time in Chicago, that Illinois is another one of those states that is able to sort of use the, sort of Chicago, but also the sort of downstate networks, to increase funding for the arts.

Especially during COVID, we were able to do, sort of, a lot of coalition building to make sure that the sector had the sort of bridge support that it needed to get over the, the hump. I think, you know, it is a, again, very challenging time.

And I think part of what we are seeing in this moment, that requires significant advocacy, is that there's a need to strengthen communication among, not only sort of state by state, but the entire advocacy, sort of, apparatus for the country.

Because there are, again, organizations like mine, which are non-discipline specific and have a sort of national mandate. There are organizations like SAG-AFTRA that have a very specific mission, but our missions are ultimately sort of aligned. We sort of mentioned the same legislation and—but did not plan that, right?

And so, I think, you know, in this moment there is also an opportunity to say, how do we build sort of better infrastructure so that we're communicating together, that we're on the same message, and that we're sort of pulling in the same direction. So, it's an opportunity, I think, for growth for everybody.

Assemblymember Zbur.

It's nice to see you both today and thank you for being here. I had a question, and I apologize for not hearing the earlier parts of your comments, but I've been inundated with a number of folks who were raising the fact that New York State recently extended the Broadway Tax Credit Allocation to 400 million.

And, of course, trying to sort of raise that and become part of the Film Tax Credit, which obviously has very different objectives, which is to obviously keep runaway production from leaving California and keeping jobs here.

Whereas the Broadway Tax Credit is something that is about, I think, bolstering just a theater production in the State of New York because of the economic circumstances that those—that those theaters and productions are facing. And of course that's a very different thing. We don't see theaters picking up and going to another state.

It's about sort of keeping the arts alive in those jurisdictions. But I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the state of theater production. And, and of course, you know, we've got folks advocating here in California that we do something similar to New York. And you know, it's—I'm just wondering your thoughts about what New York is doing and what that really means here in California.

Do you want to take it?

Well, I think that she announced 800 million—the Governor of New York. Right? Yeah, but, and Broadway, to be fair, has suffered since the Pandemic. Remember the pandy? And the same with us here was Pandemic and then strikes, once in a generation, strike which, God help us, once in a generation. And then our fires.

I mean, our whole city is—the city of LA is decimated. And we can use all the help we can get.

I'll just add—so, you know, sort of, performing arts organizations after the Pandemic were particularly hard hit, right? So first to close, last to, sort of, reopen. And theaters are—have been for a very long time—particularly challenged. So, we have a couple of things happening. We have very different sort of changes in audience behavior, right?

So, people are much more comfortable in their homes engaging with entertainment. So, a last dwindling audience is a big part of that. There's a loss of, sort of, earned and contributed revenue, particularly around corporations and individual donors. So, I'm an individual donor, I give $100. I've been giving $100.

But my $100 that I give, right, because of inflation doesn't go as far, right? So, theaters, in particular, have been in a very precarious position for quite some time.

This moment is particularly challenging because I think the sort of wave of COVID relief money that came in through legislation, like Save Our Stages, really was able to put a bandaid on some really fundamental challenges that theater has.

So, I'm really actually heartened to see New York stepping up in this way because theater is an incredibly vulnerable part of the ecosystem. And again, with the, sort of, emergence of, sort of, federal crisis, I think both state and sort of local governments need to really step up to make sure that the infrastructure remains strong.

Senator Smallwood.

Appreciate the comments and I apologize if these questions are repeating maybe something that was said earlier. I was at another event, but really happy to participate this morning.

And we got some statistics just around what our impacts are in LA, in terms of how much the arts generate revenue and engagement, with not just the cultural assets, but the entire economy of our region. So, 21.7 million people reported coming, last year alone, to participate in the arts through tourism in our region.

1.8 trillion contribution overall in the arts, based on our World Trade Center calculation of what that looks like across the region. It amounts to about the 11th largest economy in the world when you just look at the amount of tourism that hits our region in any particular year.

And just imagine, you know, that contribution to a county where our GDP is about 913 million. So, I give out those numbers because I, as Labor Chair, my, my question is, how are we looking at this economically? And what are the businesses?

Not just, you know, the arts, but the hotels, the restaurants, the merchandisers, the transportation, the Lyfts of the world, the Ubers, what—how are they coming to this conversation nationally about the impact of, of these cuts on the arts?

I do see where tariffs in other sectors, you have industry stepping in to really advocate for the abatement of those strategies because they will create a detrimental impact on our economy. And I love the arts. I am a culture vaulter. I love the arts. I love all of it.

But it's also a bread and butter, a nickel and dime issue, that my region, in particular, Los Angeles—I represent LA Live. I represent Culver City. We have two studios there. I represent South Central Los Angeles. We have, I would say, thousands of cultural businesses and enterprises.

So, this will have a significant impact when we see 21 million people coming to my region, just to consume arts and culture, and now that is being completely undermined by the Federal Government. And I want to say, at a time when the world is coming to California, when the world is coming to Los Angeles.

So, I'm just curious, how has the business community, outside of the enormous entertainment industry, and we know we are committed to ensuring that our film and television industry is competitive with rest of the country and other states, in terms of our film and tax credit program.

But I'm just curious about the other businesses, the chambers of commerce and so forth, where are they on this issue and what have those partnerships looked like nationally?

Yeah, well, I think you're 100% correct to make that connection and to also sort of re-emphasize the value that the arts bring to the economies of our local cities and the connection between, sort of, the arts and tourism, which is why so often we see the arts being funded by hotel occupancy, tax revenue, etc., etc. because there is a direct correlation between those things.

So, I will say that AFTA, for example, puts out, every several years, an economic impact study, where we go sort of—national study, but we also break down by state and region.

I think all of that information and data is very much available, but it sounds like you're equipped with a lot of that too. But I think it's a good—I'll just say that I think it's a good reminder, as we're, sort of, building coalitions, that there are people outside of the arts that need to be brought to the table, that benefit from the arts.

The arts are an economic multiplier, right? So, the restaurant next to the theater benefits from the theater's productions, right? So, again, I think that is the right flag.

And I think as we're thinking about building the coalition, that's important to do. I will also say that we're going to be in Cincinnati for the Americans for the Arts annual conference. And I just say that to say that Cincinnati is a place where they receive—the local arts agency there receives no funding from the city.

Their local arts programs are almost funded 75% by corporate support, that they do through a large, sort of, fundraising program. I think they're, in some ways, a model for, sort of, more, sort of, corporate and philanthropic responsibility on the business side.

So, I think there are some good models, too, just to think about how we reengage, sort of, business communities as advocates, as well.

I appreciate that. And I think it's a way for us to think through the coalition, that can help us really advocate for how we get these dollars reinvested, particularly as we are going to welcome the world to so many of our arts and culture centers here in the state.

Ms. Fisher, my question for you is the impact on workers that this is having, and certainly, we have a history in this country of—there are moments when we attack those that have the most impact on people's decision making and opinion making, you know, from the Red Scare to the, the period in the 80s where Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of and dismantle the Endowment for the Arts.

And, and certainly we're here again in this, in this history.

And I, I know that your advocacy around ensuring that we are in California doing everything that we can to be competitive, in terms of our film and tax industry, making sure that it is representative of California and diverse and that we have models of accountability in that system.

But can you, can you say from, you know, certainly, this being the culture in arts and entertainment capital, what is this doing across the country for workers who are in this industry? And I'm particularly thinking about those new—those younger workers—those workers who are just entering that field.

And, you know, we talk a lot, again, thinking economically about recession and what that means and layoffs and pink slips—pink slips and what that means for our economy. And this is a major, I mean, this is the biggest pink slip, right, that could ever be offered, as the Federal Government is walking away from so many of its commitments to the arts community.

What is the impact on workers? What are the culture workers doing to brace for this? And what can California do to really protect workers in this moment?

Oh, my gosh. We represent, like, 170,000 members. It varies from year to year. And 2% of them make over $200,000. 2% of all our membership. So, the movie stars and the big TV stars. The rest of our membership is journeymen, broadcasters, you know, people that play in the background—a very important part of the tableau.

They make, you know, a minimum—we raise their minimums in the vast contract. But we are, we are middle class—we're the middle class. And when we don't have production in California, we, we have to move out.

Some, some of my—my husband is a filmmaker and a cameraman, and a lot of his friends moved to Atlanta because there just wasn't any work. And, and that's been happening for about a decade. It affects the little dry cleaners across from Warner Brothers that stays open 24 hours. If there's no production at Warner Brothers, Miltonides goes away.

It affects the restaurants. It affects the drivers. It affects the people that make our clothing. It is—the whole ecosystem fails. And we've already suffered so, so very much. I think we saw a lot of support when we were on strike.

Across the country, I would travel and there'd be picket lines, you know, here and there, and they were like, go get them. You know, go get the corporate greed, you know. We are the workforce. We are the workforce. We just choose to sing and dance and play and play other people. And also, we are the American scene. So, when we make—our, our creativity reflects the American scene. We still have stories to tell.

So, I think we need to—I want to ensure that we get this tax incentive in California, and then hopefully on the federal level, they'll be able to do something for performers across the country.

Well, really, really appreciate all your insights, and I know hopefully both of you will be able to stick around to hear the rest of the panels. Maybe if people have additional questions for you, related to the other panels, we can bring you back up. But thank you.

And thank you for all the leadership you provide to our arts community nationally.

Thank you.

Appreciate it very much. All right, well, so we've set the stage, now we're going to talk very specifically about the relationship with California agencies and federal agencies, on the art side. So, we've got Rick Noguchi, who's Executive Director for California Humanities, who's here. He'll be first. Then, Greg Lucas.

We're going to ask them all to come up, please. Greg Lucas, our California State librarian, who I saw, there he is. Love him. And then, of course, Danielle Brazell, who's the Executive Director for the California Arts Council. So, really looking forward to all three of you.

And we'll just get started with you, Rick, and thanks for being here.

Good morning, everybody. First of all, my deep gratitude to the Honorable Senator Ben Allen and the Honorable Assembly Member Christopher Ward for convening us and hosting us today and for their distinguished leadership in the cultural sector of California.

My thanks to the Members of the Joint Committee on the Arts and the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports Tourism for listening to us today and for being supporters and leaders of California culture. So I am Rick Noguchi. I am the President and CEO of California Humanities.

The humanities are the home for life's important questions like why you exist and what is your purpose in life? What makes you human? The humanities explore and interpret the human condition, history and expression, and it celebrates the human spirit. The humanities give context to the arts, and together they are the cultures that enliven and define us.

But right now, those cultures and the culture of California are under attack. For 50 years, California Humanities has served as the designated state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the neh bringing federal funds to California to connect Californians to ideas, to one another, and to understand our shared heritage and diverse cultures.

Our vision at California Humanities is to ensure that Californians possess the knowledge, understanding, respect and empathy to create a more thoughtful, open and just state. State we have advanced our democracy in California by lifting up untold stories and voices seldom heard with an approach that acknowledges diversity and embraces inclusion.

And we believe that America's excellence and exceptionalism are a result of its embrace of all its peoples and what they contribute to our great state and our great nation.

As a longtime steward of federal funds, California Humanities has been effective and efficient in using taxpayer monies to support humanities projects across the state and in every Assembly District of California. Although we are an independent nonprofit, we are the designated federal state partner, similar to the California Arts Council as well as the State Library.

While not a state agency, 25% of our board are gubernatorially appointed, so we have a fixed connection to the state. Yet we are currently do not receive any state funds to match our federal funds.

Through grant making programs like our California Documentary Project, which is the only documentary program dedicated to supporting and telling California stories, and our Humanities for All grants, which highlight local stories from El Cerrito to Bakersfield to Redding to San Diego, our grantee partners highlight the stories that make California. Our funding has had considerable leverage for many years.

Since 1975, we have granted over $44 million supporting 2,175 nonprofit organizations including libraries, museums, historical societies, cultural organizations and education institutions in small towns and big cities, on the coast, in the mountains, in the desert, and Our valleys.

Our funding makes a difference in helping all residents, new, young and old, immigrants and indigenous peoples better understand who California is and why we matter.

On April 2, we received a letter from the acting Chair of the NEH informing us, along with all 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils, that our work, quote, no longer effectuates the needs and priorities of the agency and that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda.

After 50 years of serving California, our funding was cut immediately and without warning. Our annual budget of about 4.5 million, mostly from the NEH and approved by Congress, does not include from the state any funding.

The impact of our terminated federal funds to California Humanities has a negative impact on our state, with 112 current nonprofit grantees directly affected with $650,000 they were hoping to receive.

I'd like to point out that California Humanities has awarded grants in each of your districts, and many of them have lost funding due to the cuts to California humanities from the NEH. So for this year in FY25, $970,000 in grants will not be awarded. So we were in the process of making several awards.

The day that we got the letter for FY26, $2 million in grants is on the line. These are not huge amounts, but for the cultural sector, mostly with annual budgets under $1.0 million, the loss is devastating. Our already underfunded sector will be further hampered by the federal cuts.

California culture is key not only to our success, but to the soul of our democracy. The misguided assault on cultural agencies and institutions will result in an erasure of the diversity that is our reality and our strength.

So my question to you today is, what is California willing to do now to protect, preserve, and advance California culture as a beacon of the culture of our nation? Is the Joint Committee willing to commit investments to safeguard who we are as Californians?

And by the way, I am deliberately saying culture because the issue is more than the arts. The humanities, our museums, our libraries, along with the arts, not only have considerable economic impact from each of our respective areas, but together we help define the collective culture of California.

So is it possible to have the Joint Committee make investments to keep us intact for now and to explore dedicated funding through a ballot measure or other mechanism that would sustain our culture on an ongoing basis?

I look forward to your questions and just want to thank the Committee again for your dedication and leadership in the arts and to the culture.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for bringing Your very important story forward for all these Members to hear and a lot of follow up to do on that. So let's go next to our state librarian.

Greg Lucas, California State Library. Thank you for including the State Library and California libraries, which play a significant role in California's arts and culture community as partners, as facilitators, as platforms.

On any given day, I'm telling you what you know already, but on any given day, there's 100,000 different programs that are going on in state libraries and a lot of in California's local libraries. And a lot of those are partnerships with the arts, with humanities, with local historical societies, local museums.

And you know, to me, it's an extraordinary thing to be able to work with local libraries because none is the same. Every library is different because every community is different. I mean, what's going on at the West Hollywood library is different than what's going on at the Mark Twain Library, right, in Long Beach.

And it's different than what's happening in Santa Monica or Kearney Mesa is different than Mission Valley. Right. And that's, I've never seen another government agency that's more responsive and more nimble than libraries. And it's in part because the community walks in the door and says, here's what we need.

And that's the mission of libraries, right, is to help you connect with the information that you need to succeed. In terms of the state library, we're privileged to be able to help support local libraries through grants and through statewide programs that all libraries can participate.

So a recent one we introduced is a statewide ebook library, 300,000 titles in it. And so, you know, the city library in LA probably has 175,000. Don't hold me to that, but 175,000 ebook titles. But a lot of libraries in the state don't.

And so now we've created a situation where if I'm a smaller library like the Palmdale or Boron or somewhere in San Bernardino, county, and I can only afford 500 ebook titles, all of a sudden I'm connected to 300,500.

Well, that's a program that's paid for with the money that we've been receiving from the Federal Institute for Museum and Library Services. And thank you for mentioning their, their value, that agency's value.

We're in a slight, we're in a significantly better place than Cal Humanities and we're in a significantly better financial place than we were a week ago today. A week ago today. The 15 million that California normally gets from the IMLs to support local libraries had been canceled. We filled out the paperwork.

We did the things that they ask us to do, and within an hour of doing that, a portion of the funding was restored. So as of last week, we had a $3.4 million hole in this year's budget, and then we're not going to receive 15 million that we were supposed to receive next year. So we've been.

We've received a check to help us become whole for the current fiscal year that ends June 30th. And 50% of what we're supposed to get in the next federal fiscal year has been set aside for us to access. I think we need your help because the May revision doesn't show us.

This all happened so recently that the May revision doesn't show that. So we may need something that says, yes, you can go access this federal money, but we're in a better position than we were.

Although getting 50% of our money means we're not going to be able to do some of the local assistance that if not all of the local assistance we've done in the past, that's kind of where we are.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you. So it's. It ain't ideal, but, I mean, it was cataclysmic a week ago.

Right. Well, good. Thank you for getting on that so fast and getting some good news. Okay, so we'll. We'll. We'll come back to a discussion in a sec, but let's. Let's now go to Danielle.

Okay, great. Gosh, you guys are amazing. I just want to say, and I'm really happy to be in partnership with you, and I want to thank the. Yeah, absolutely. I'll send it to Mrs. Lucas and just say, Mrs. Lucas, I really like your husband. Not in that way, but yeah.

Thank you so much for holding this important hearing. And I want to thank you all for being here today. It's such a big day. I represent the California Arts Council. My name is Danielle Brazell, and I am so honored to serve the people of California as the Director. And we're your official state arts agency.

We call them SAAs. So I'm going to give you some Alphabet soup. And we are similarly structured, like the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA, and for close to 50 years, the CAC has been the consistent, constant, and as of recently, the only statewide funder of the arts.

And we are fervently, fervently committed to investing in communities from Calexico to Bakersfield up to Lone Pine to Eureka and everywhere in between, we have some materials that I'll circulate about the agency on a flash drive to save paper, because we're all concerned about money right now and the environment.

But the handouts that you'll get will show you all the great work that the CAC is doing and has been doing. We are currently accepting applications for our next fiscal year cycle. Those applications are open and will be available until June 3rd.

And we currently have our art specialists program specialists crisscrossing across the country in libraries, in community centers, in small theaters, working to make sure that communities throughout California, regardless of anybody's cultural infrastructure or anybody's political affiliation, because the arts are indeed for everyone.

And we want to make sure that we drive resources down deeply into communities, because our priority is indeed to ensure that every community in the great State of California has access to high quality arts and cultural experiences.

Because we believe that access to the arts, creativity, to imagination, to social connection and belonging, is good for our civic body, it's good for our economies and good for communities to thrive.

And when Congress established the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, it did make a commitment to ensure that states would receive a designated percentage of the federal funds. It used to be 20%, now it's 40%. But to qualify for the funding, the state had to have an official state arts agency.

And so California decided to do an official state entity. And these funds are primarily used to support part of our operations, and part of it is to stimulate economic opportunity in communities specifically for the purpose of culture.

And on Friday, May 2, the National Council on the Arts, which approves the allocations for the NEA, held its spring meeting. The docket did include its partnership agreements for state arts agencies and regional arts agencies, as well as a handful of projects for arts and ongoing initiatives.

And by and large, they actually approved the state and local partnership agreement. This is great news. They will be made for Federal fiscal year 2020-25 funds, which will be our next fiscal year. And this is, of course, a first step in a multi year process. They'll send us award letters and contract language.

We are eagerly waiting for that contract language so we can review the terms of the agreement we sign. But the plot thickens because earlier that day, the White House submitted its proposed budget to Congress for fiscal year 26. And that calls for the elimination of the NEA, the elimination of the NEH, and the elimination of the IMLS.

That's all three of us at the federal level. And then the same evening, the NEA sent letters to to some grantees terminating existing grants and rescinding offers for grants not yet basically encumbered or ratified. These termination notices appear to be selectively widespread. The good news is that the NEA is.

What does selectively widespread mean?

I know. Isn't that interesting? We're curious about that too. That's why I wanted to just highlight that this is part of the information that we are trying to get from the federal agencies so we can understand which states and which agencies were essentially canceled or terminated.

And how does that compare with everything else and what were the grounds of that termination? What we do know is that the NEA cancellations and terminations were based on alignments with the President's orders. We still need to get the information. We have submitted a FISA request for that.

Considering this course of events, the CAC is conducting a DAM assessment by requesting information about the terminated grants in California as well as nationwide, so we can really assess the impact. Communicating with our interested and affected parties. That means our stakeholders, our partners, many of whom are here today and they are absolutely extraordinary.

The California Arts Council simply could not do our work without our state and local partners. We have partners in each of our 58 counties and they are in a sense, our offices on the ground. And they ensure that we are serving the community in the way in which the community wants to be served.

We don't want to tell people what arts to go to or how to access the arts or how to think, but we want people to access the arts and we want people to access their minds and their creativity. We're also preparing talking points because as I mentioned, our art specialists are on the ground. They are.

We are getting bombarded with calls, frantic calls from grantees across the state who simply do not know how they're going to close the gap. You've heard the extraordinary testimony by my colleague Erin Harkey at Americans for the Arts.

But I will just say that just to reiterate that the potential loss of the NEA and its related cultural institutions pose a significant and far reaching risks to our national and statewide arts ecosystem. The NEA is the largest, single largest funder and any disruption to NEA grants will have serious adverse impact on the American arts ecosystem.

It makes over 2,400 direct grants and an additional 8,000 plus state and regional regrants of federal funds. So it is a multiplier effect. And these will absolutely hit rural communities, low income communities in a much more severe way. These communities do not have access to philanthropy that is Central Valley, just not a lot of philanthropy.

We are the only statewide funder in the arts. And so it is in a sense, many of our most marginalized communities that will receive the biggest hurt. I also, I will close with this by saying that cities across the state are also facing severe budget deficits.

I know my colleagues in Los Angeles, in Santa Monica, in San Francisco, in San Diego are all facing massive cuts. That is putting a greater onus on funding at the state level. And our funding, we'll see in the may revise how that fares.

But I will tell you that the dollars that we invest into communities make a huge and real difference. They are jobs, they are people's lives, and they are people's livelihoods. And it's what makes communities thrive. So I thank you so much for your testimony. I look forward to your questions.

One other thing before I close, and I can be long winded, so bear with me. We are finishing up on the creative economy plan for the State of California, which is a bit of an audacious task, let me just say.

But I think that as you'll hear from some of my colleagues later today, we really may need to think about our existing systems and what California can do to ensure that our cultural organizations that are solely for public benefit are going to have access to the tools and the capital and the resources needed to ensure that they can remain in operations should our federal system collapse.

What will we do in California to imagine a dynamic and robust support system for creativity? Whether or not you're in the for profit side or nonprofit side, it simply doesn't matter. We are a crossover sector and creativity fuels us all here in California. So with that, I'll stop and thank you and welcome your questions.

Thank you. No, thank you very much. And you know, this is why we want to have this hearing because the level of challenge we face right now as a result of all this is enormous. And we really do have to figure out another path.

And I just, for those of you who just got here, we started this panel with our great friend, the head of the California Humanities, which is a standalone organization that's been around for a long time, helping to fund stories about California from all different types.

I mean, they've had extraordinary number of documentaries and programs all over the state. And they're literally, you know, they've been very reliant on federal funds and they're now being told they're getting zeroed out.

So, you know, I guess my, you know, since this is an arts group here, I guess I could quote Hamilton and just say, stay alive, stay alive. I mean, we've got to keep you alive, right? I mean, you know, to last through the situation.

So whether that's some state funding, I just, I want to, you know, make sure my colleagues understand the threat that exists to this particular statewide organization that has been reasonably relying on federal funding for years and years through Republican and Democratic administrations and is now being threatened to zero out. So can you just give us the latest?

We met a couple weeks ago to talk about your situation. I certainly want to do everything we can to help.

But can you tell us the latest about the federal conversation with regards to, you know, any news from the congressional conversation as it goes to Nehemiah and state programs and any progress on that front and how your federal strategy is evolving?

Yeah, no, I'm happy to address that and thank you for the question and thank you for the support.

And the song, too, hopefully. The song.

I was trying to think of a Hamilton song, but it's not going to.

No, no, no song.

No. One more time, I think. Okay. All right. One last time.

All right. All right. Okay.

Yeah. So as I mentioned, you know, our funding from the NEH has been cut. We do have a reserve that we are currently operating on at the federal level. Our Federation of State Humanities is currently exploring the option of taking legal action.

So because we're a little different, we're not state agencies, we're kind of quasi state agency, we're independent nonprofits. We did explore the possibility of having a multi state litigation, you know, against the NEH in their decision to terminate our funding. And we were hoping that the attorneys General would take it on.

Unfortunately, because we're not a state agency, they're not able to take it on. They're not able to. They're not able to. Not a state agency. So they're willing to help us in our pursuit. We have. So we are exploring that option of having pro Bono or to hire an attorney to take on the case.

So now what about on the. So that's great. I mean, I think as we've been discussing all morning, there's an litigation strategy. There's got to be an advocacy strategy.

So on the, you know, given the fact that you and your counterparts represent all sorts of communities all over the country, red and blue states, how are you, you know, is there. What's the status of an advocacy campaign to Members of Congress and others to push back.

Yeah. So we're continuing to, you know, advocate for funding for FY26. And ironically, we are eligible for funding for FY26. And I did Submit an application for that funding. Remember that we were. Our funding was terminated for FY25 because we didn't align with the President's priorities.

So going into FY26, you know, in the application, we really have to use language that aligned with the President's priorities. Of course, that's not really well defined. I mean, we have some Executive orders, but, you know, the language of being patriotic, being looking at American excellence, we've been doing that.

We've been doing that work, you know, and I'll point out, one of the reasons why we are set up as independent nonprofits versus being a state agency was because they wanted to keep the humanities more neutral so that there wasn't going to be a political agenda by the state governors.

And so we were really intended to be more neutral in that by having a nonprofit do the work. But we're continuing to do advocacy and try to get funding for FY26. Unlike past years, it's not guaranteed.

We're not sure how they're going to make decisions on our FY26 funding, but I would like us to be around for that time before we can be here to accept those funds. If we're awarded an FY26 grant, and.

Just for the edification of the Committee, you know, some of whom may be more or less familiar with the work, can you give. Just give us some examples of the kind of stuff that you've been funding of late, including great stories of California Excellence, American Excellence.

Yeah. I mean, and you'll be hearing, you know, from a few grantees or potential grantees that are here to provide public testimony later today. But, you know, we have been one of the primary funders of documentaries in California, and we created that program as a counterbalance to the East Coast.

And so when the NEH started funding documentaries through, you know, PBS, a lot of it was very east coast centered. Yeah. And so California Humanities created the California Documentary Project so that we could counterbalance that and really have, you know, our story told.

And you'll find, you know, historically, in the past, you know, few decades, that many documentaries that have got airplane on PBS started with California Humanities funding. So, you know, there's one that's out there right now called New Wave that explores the Vietnamese involvement with New Wave music in the 1980s.

And it really becomes a very personal story to the filmmaker, because in the process of making that film, she learns about the intergenerational trauma that she had been suffering. And she initially set out to create a documentary about music, but she realized that her relationship with her mother was because of this intergenerational trauma.

That's a very California story. And so we're happy to be able to support something like that.

And there's so many of those. I mean, you did one on Pat Brown, there's one on Edelman from the LA County supervisor. There was a Republican Assembly Member, I think, from Riverside County that had a great documentary. There's stuff on Native Californians, Chinese American community, Jewish community.

I mean, so many of these wonderful stories that I just commend to everyone. These are the documentaries that end up in classrooms in our schools as kids are learning about California. California history.

As you say, American history is so the textbooks are so dominated by East Coast stories, which are really important stories, very foundational for our country, and yet there's so many interesting stories here. And California Humanities has been really at the heart of the effort to tell those stories in an accessible way.

Stories of all different types, and they're literally getting zeroed out. So we've got to figure out a way to help them stay alive. So let's open up the Any questions, thoughts, things that folks want to raise or yeah. Senator Ward.

Thank you. Thank you for your candid and direct, you know, contributions this morning. Information and, you know, deeply apologize the pain that I think a lot of you are currently enduring and the fear that you have for the future that we have for a lot of these programs.

I'm wondering if you have how do you currently, or maybe do you anticipate modifying, tracking educational or economic outcomes for some of the programs that you are funding? Sometimes.

I very much do appreciate sometimes as we think about budgets here and you think about budgets and awards in your respective roles, I like to be able to translate not just in dollars but in impact. Right. Because that helps. Back when we're talking to average neighbors, voters, constituents. What does it mean?

Yeah, it's when you want to think about, you know, $18 million in grants, but how many students are not going to receive an arts program in their school and where is there are you able to sort of analyze, you know, the kind of spread and diversity of funding across rural communities, you know, disadvantaged communities in our inner city.

You know, how do you track that money and how do you report those outcomes?

Well, it's public money. And so we need to absolutely make sure that we are tracking those dollars. And to your point, Assemblymember, it's also about the programs and the people that are being touched by it. Each and every year we Fund about 8,000 programs that are Reaching communities throughout the State of California.

That is of course, a multiplier effect by the number of people that are actually attending those programs. If you want to put up the slide deck, I can show you a few high level numbers.

But our creative core program alone, which was the largest public investment in public in art since the Great Depression, created over 7,000 jobs, direct jobs for artists, another 10,000, including the administrators.

That initiative allowed us to get funding directly into communities that do not have a local arts organization, that do not have any kind of cultural infrastructure that would allow us to regrant directly to them. So we were able to draw on our partnerships with administrating organizations.

And one such organization, which was our Kern County partner in, did an extraordinary job covering 12 other counties in servicing and moving dollars directly from that one little area of the Kern County dance alliance to 12 other counties and making sure that artists had jobs. That was during the pandemic.

And we see that that system is working really effectively.

And I would add from, you know, from California humanities, one of the ways that we track it is, you know, we have to match our dollars to the Federal Government and our grantees also match our dollars. And so we require a one to one match.

So they're matching our grants by, you know, one to one, but oftentimes it's four to one. So they're bringing, you know, we're bringing $4 to every $1 to the State of California. So I really appreciate the economic impact, but I think even before that, you know, to get to the.

To think about economic impact, it is important to think about values and, you know, who we are as Californians. And so that investment to the humanities allows for that conversation, for us to know who we are, what our values are, and how we want to make that economic impact.

The statewide public library service that ironically, federal dollars help pay for that. Gather some of this information. We, the state library took another chunk of federal money to help local libraries try and measure impacts in a meaningful way. So for years and years and years, it was like, okay, how many people went through the turnstiles?

How many people checked out books? Which is a really imprecise way of measuring the impact. So I walk into Rick's library and ask him for help getting my resume together so I can go get a job, okay? He was a significant factor in me being able to get a better, higher paying job.

But it's not like the library score is a check mark for that because they're a part of the process. Similarly, right in the education system, there's incredible. Libraries are an essential part of the education system, but it's hard to quantify.

How is it that a kid is succeeding better in school because they started going to story times and reading books when they were three?

Sure. Even qualitative, I think outcomes can help to, I think raise public awareness about, you know, what's on the line here. The good work, the you already do that maybe goes unnoticed unless you're that person that needs that assistance or is going that benefit.

But I think everybody appreciates is out there and somebody needs it and it brings benefit to the broader community.

Local jurisdictions also do you know, I mean there's some do it better than others, but do a better job of measuring like you were saying, sort of this qualitative impact.

I think these are the underpinnings of what I want to get to going forward is, you know, we have to take action and we have to do a better job of telling these stories about the work that does go on unnoticed on the annual basis and what's on the line that would be at risk for the coming year.

And I know that, you know, your job is not necessarily, you know, to be an intergovernmental relations expert, but fantastic, I'm glad you've got that expertise. So with the Federal Government and your respective organization there, the neh, the nea, ilms, they are congressionally entitled organizations, is that correct?

Yeah. This is really curious. I mean, what is interesting to me is somehow the National Endowment for the Arts managed to not have the same outcome as IMLS and NEH. Our partnership agreement. We are waiting for that. It should be coming this week.

I need to look at the details, but it seems that it actually is holding at this moment. I don't know what the answer is, but it is very curious because my sister agency, NEH and Cal Humanities were unceremoniously completely cancelled, whereas ours is still somewhat intact and still under threat.

Do you know? Well, what I would say is, and this is part of the litigation that will come out is, you know, for the National Endowment for the Humanities, we also have. They also have 40% of their funds that are directed to the states. And those states are set up and they're statutorily required in the founding legislation.

So that's where, you know, that we feel that there was a violation because number one, we are in the legislation, we should be funded and they took our funds away. Number two, you know, there was no warning that we were doing anything wrong.

And then because there was no due process, we have all submitted appeals for the termination, but we haven't had any kind of hearing. So in the meantime we are just completely cut. But statutorily we are required.

Right. Well, we've got some education and some advocacy to do with I think some of our congressional representatives as well and help save these programs in their communities too. Thank you.

It's one of the arguments in the multi state lawsuit that's been filed in Rhode Island that Attorney General Bont has been a big part of, been a big help to us on behalf of the imls. But one of the arguments is, hey, you know, Congress said this is how the money's supposed to, to be spent.

It's not, you're not supposed to be doing this. Right, but it's, I don't know how to say it right, but it's kind of a sub argument under, you know, irreparable harm is going to come to these different states as a result of this arbitrary and capricious action.

Thank you. Okay. Senator Lackey.

Yeah. I'd just like to shift the conversation from political survival to a pragmatic issue. Is there anything that we could do as legislators to help protect creative jobs from being replaced from artificial intelligence? That's another very, very big threat that as you know, during the strike was a big area of concern. It hasn't gone away.

So is there anything that we could do to address this issue to help bring some calm or some focus to this particular issue? Because this is a very big threat.

You know, I completely agree with you and I thank you for raising this important issue. Not only is AI threatening to take all of our jobs, I think that there's real concern about authenticity. And I really go to the WGA, the Writers Guild of America that embedded some, some stipulations for what I simply could not do.

And first draft cannot be written by AI. I would also say that you have the ability to set forth legislation to protect AI from, from, from copying from copyright issues and artist intellectual property.

Getting something passed in California that protects that and even to have some sort of a label that is able to indicate whether this was, this piece was created by artificial intelligence or a human being is a consumer protection act that I would strongly encourage consideration for.

And I appreciate the question. We recently were celebrating our 50th anniversary of serving California and we had a program launched at the end of February and the title of the program was how the Humanities can Revolutionize Artificial Intelligence. And so there has been a connection between humanities and artificial intelligence.

And the NEH actually launched a whole initiative to explore that idea. The panelists and the idea behind that question is the reason why there's all this loss and there's all these issues around artificial intelligence is we haven't started with humanities.

We haven't developed, you know, critical thinking and empathy, so we could avoid some of these questions that we're having now. So it should start with the humanities. And I do also want to say that I appreciate your question earlier, you know, in the opening about feeling left out.

And I wanted to say that, you know, for me, as a third generation Japanese American growing up, and I'm dating myself, but growing up in the 70s and 80s, I also felt that way that I never really identified with much in the culture, and my only person I could identify with was Bruce Lee.

He's not Japanese.

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Senator Stern, of course.

Yeah. Sorry. I didn't want to let the Assembly Members first part of the question slip just, because I thought that was an important point--it just, the general point about the creative economy because I get there was an AI second piece to that, but thoughts on that, that first piece, just, you know, when I look through the, some of the documentaries, for instance, they got, get the California Humanities grants.

I was just reading, you know, What Fire Reveals, this documentary with the Kitchen Sisters about the CZU Complex Fire, and there's a whole thing up in Siskiyou County all did as well. That was very insightful. Just different--but those, when you do those productions--well, AI can't do a documentary with real people in it, like, it doesn't--that's one thing it can't do, right, is actually make a human being there to talk to.

But what kind of workforce impact are we having on the documentary filmmaking side, for example, that--we're looking, for example, on the film tax credit around uplifts for rural areas, for independent films, but I don't know if that can really solve this documentary gap.

Have you guys sort of thought in that strategic lane that you guys are such a linchpin of funding for, how to--what that is? Like, do you just tell those producers those films like, sorry, goodbye, and then the films, the productions fail from your 25 round? I mean, that we're gonna--were there shows that were gonna get made or movies that were gonna get made that now are not?

That's true. I mean, we went through a round, you know, for our FY25 grants for documentaries. We had ten that we were gonna fund, and they're not going to get funded from us. I mean, hopefully they will get funded from other places so that work will continue.

Is that something you can track and get back to us on, the sort of destiny of those kinds of projects so we understand what the make or break is for--and how many people per documentary typically are employed? I mean, what kind of...

I don't know the details. I know that there's a couple of documentary filmmakers here today that I could ask those questions of. I think it's a great question, especially because the documentary film field is so important and so precarious because they are the least funded area, and I think they're, you know, they have such wide impact because so many people see these films. One of the films that we funded was Crip Camp, you know, and that went to Netflix, it got a lot of funding, and it was a huge success.

Got an award too, in one of the big films.

Several awards, not much funding, but they have significant impact, but it starts with, you know, a lot of times it starts with funding from California Humanity.

There was a story about kids with developmental and physical disabilities and is that sort of like cool coming of age--I saw a part of it.

Yeah. No, it's about the civil rights movement for the ADA and so how it started with a camp in upstate New York and how a lot of people for the first time felt independent by going to that camp, and then many of them came out here to California and started the whole movement and occupied a building in San Francisco.

Love that kind of feedback. Just going forward their way to assess that jobs impact and what mechanisms, if you have recommendations for us, how to fill that jobs economic gap, not just the creative gap, but the kind of economic one that goes with it.

That's a great suggestion.

Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Senator Smallwood.

Thank you. I appreciate the conversation and I have a question, but I have a question and more of a comment. When the--was recently announced that the head librarian for Library of Congress was fired, as the librarian here for the State of California, when you fire the head librarian of Congress, what are the implications of that long-term?

And is there a particular warning for California that is coming from Washington and that action that we should take deep concern in terms of not just the investments that we've made in the infrastructure but I think you spoke so eloquently to our values and how important those values are and how these investments reflect that. I'm just curious.

I know we're talking about this as a broader issue, but when I read that, I actually got a very deep chill in my spirit. You talked about the soul of democracy. As a head librarian for the State of California, can you just offer a little bit of your sort of reactions to that deep down in your librarian soul and spirit?

And then my other question that I had is there was a comment meet that 24,000 grants are made through the NEH, 8,000 sort of state regrants. What percentage of our sort of arts and culture infrastructure rely on those grants? And then is there a national strategy?

I know there's a little sort of a litigious strategy, how we're going to fight, but is there a national strategy about how we might fund these things outside of, you know, individual states trying to figure this out? I know we're looking at regional approaches in many different sectors here at the state, working with our Western partners.

Just curious, is that a strategy, something that's being thought about? But those are the three questions I have. But I wanted to hear from Mr. Lucas on this other question because I know I felt a particular kind of way. It felt very ominous to me, and, you know, representing communities, I have a district that is probably the most diverse of 30% African American, 30% many immigrants from Latin America and Chicano residents, huge API community, Jewish community. So I'm just, you know, if you could just share what that--what are the implications, and we certainly have seen it over history, we've seen it in other countries. What does that mean?

Well, I mean, by any objective measure, I mean, Dr. Hayden was one of, if not the best qualified librarians of Congress and did a terrific job in the time that she was there and was really supportive of helping not just the California State Library, but state libraries all over the country.

And, you know, I can't speak to the efficacy of the structure, but it's the Library of Congress, but the president is allowed to appoint who the Librarian of Congress is, and it seems sort of, you know, comparable to some of the actions this admin--that the Trump Administration has taken with the Kennedy Center and things like that and the Board of NEH, am I remembering that right? And I mean, what are the implications of that? Well, that's hard to say, right.

Whoever's in charge has the prerogative to be able to change out people the way they like to do that. They have the authority to appoint. And I mean, I--in my, in the state libraries work with local libraries, there isn't--I mean, libraries are serving the unique or serving the communities that they exist in and we don't really ever have ideological conversations. I mean, it's like, can we help you with the creative state, right? Can we help you with a creative idea?

Can we make it easier for people in rural areas to get books so they don't have to drive 20 miles into town to the library and they can just be ordered online? You know, so, I don't exactly know how to answer your question other than to say, you know, I'm super old, right, and so the pendulum has swung back and forth a few times, and, you know, my trips around the sun, so it's swung this way, and I, I'm confident it'll swing back the other way, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Well, that's good to know.

Go ahead. Do you want to take a cut at the other question?

Yeah, I was going to address what I think I understand from question number two is around the percentage of what we're supporting across California, and I don't know that percentage of what we're supporting, but I can tell you the demand is significant and we can't meet that demand.

So we typically get, you know, probably close to 1,000 applications a year throughout all of our grant programs and we could fund less than ten percent of those. So we know that there's a huge demand for more humanities programming across the state and we just can't meet that demand.

There are so many communities, rural mountain communities, that want to tell their stories, and we have, you know, very small, quick grant program that provides small grants to them to tell their stories, and even that is very competitive. We would like to be able to serve more communities across California, but the demand is very high.

Same. I will say that public funding, we would not be able to get public funding into our rural communities for it not for our state and local partners, and I'm going to give them another shout out because they are at some points the only entity that is able to drive direct services for our community, and we are deeply, deeply, deeply committed to ensuring that every Californian has access to the tools and resources and access to imagination.

If our federal system collapses, that is such a big question, and I know that you all are grappling with that on every single aspect: education, transportation, health and human services. So we do--it is an existential crisis for us to think about what is the California that we want to create? What is it that we want to protect? What are the consequences of any short-sighted thinking that we are going to do as it relates to cuts? What do we want to double down on in this moment?

What do we want to say that this is important, that our people are important, that our stories are important, that the most diverse state in the country, the most diverse city in the country, our beloved Los Angeles, is the harbinger for the possibility of the future of this country? The philanthropic sector will not close the gap.

They simply will not. And we don't have a strong enough philanthropic sector here in California, but we also know that public funding, public cultural infrastructure reaches people where they are and we do that for the long-term.

I too am appointed by the governor and I can be removed at a stroke of a pen, you know, like the Library of Congress, right, as unjust as it is when we have qualified people in our positions, but that is the system that we work in.

And so we got to take the good with the bad, but I think we can also create a vision for that more perfect union, and I will tell you that the arts and cultural sector are--we are organized, we are connected at the federal, at the states, at the regional levels, and we will continue to fight the good fight.

I would say briefly that, I mean, we heard earlier there are national conversations about what are strategies to help the, you know, the film industry, right? But I think in terms--there's a lot of value, and I think there would be even more value in the short-term, taking a look at some of the strategies that are used in other states around the arts and culture and libraries and things like that because there's a variety of different models and no state is really the same in how they structure it, but there's a lot of good elements in the different structures that different states use, and it might be--I think it would be worthwhile to spend a little time examining those and saying, okay, is there stuff here that helps make California more sustainable on its own without reliance for federal money?

And I know I'm going to get the cane, but because Lauren texted, said we got to wrap up, but I will say that states and cities across--

You don't get the cane, you get the hook.

Oh, the hook. The cane.

Oh, oh, okay.

But states and cities have recognized that creativity is the way in which--is the future, and so Washington, Georgia, New York have all engage in creative economy plans for the State of California, so I'm excited to circle back with you and your offices on the work of the creative economy plan and the key recommendations that are putting forward to do just that.

And we have a research bureau that works for you to research issues just like this.

And if I could mention one other thing, just really quickly in terms of models, you know, for us in the humanities, the envy of all of the state humanities is Minnesota. So Minnesota was able to pass a measure that they get a percent tax for arts, humanities, culture, environment, and hunting.

And so they looked at like, what really identifies--what can Minnesotans really identify with, and so they were able to pass this bill for a tax, and it funds the, just the Humanities Council in Minnesota. They get $18 million a year from that. And so that's the envy for all of our states. That's the model.

Sounds like a future Smallwood-Cuevas bill. All right, all right. I'll be supporting that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it very much. Let's move on to our next panel. This is Minnesota. This is panel on community voices and policy impact.

So we're going to start--we have Leslie Ito, who's executive director for Armory Center for the Arts, Jacob Kornbluth from Jacob Kornbluth Productions, a documentary screenwriter and director, Edward Tepporn, who's from Angel Island Immigration Station, the executive director there, Carlos Cristiani, who's the Director of Fleet Center, the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park and all throughout San Diego, and then finally, Ann Burroughs, who's the President CEO of the Japanese American National Museum. Some wonderful voices from around the state. Let's start with you, Ms. Ito.

Thank you. Good morning, Senator Allen, Assembly Member Ward, and the members of the committee. My name is Leslie Ito. I'm the Executive Director of the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. We're a community-based arts organization founded in 1989.

We present exhibitions by diverse contemporary artists, provide artist-led education programs for children, teens, and adults, and are guided by our mission to nurture our community and its young people by creating, learning, and presenting art to advance equity and social justice. We envision joyful, healthy, and equitable communities shaped by imagination, creativity, and diverse voices.

Today I'm here to talk about what happens when that work, especially work focused on equity and inclusion, becomes vulnerable. In the last 60 days, the federal government terminated four of our grants, three from the IMLS, totaling about $410,000, of which 140,000 are directly funding salaries, teaching artists, and overhead, and a $30,000 grant from the NEA that supports major exhibition from the ground up.

These aren't just budget lines. They're anchors for ambitious, inclusive, thought-provoking healing work. They're disappearing at a time when we're already navigating what we've come to call our triple challenge: first, the ongoing trauma and recovery from Covid, second, the devastating impact of the wildfires in our region, both that have affected our communities emotionally and economically, and third, the chilling effects of a shifting federal priorities. Let me briefly share with you what is now at risk for the Armory.

One of these grants would have supported participatory action research, a youth-led effort to reimagine how the Armory evaluates our programs. We were going to hire an evaluation associate and train our staff to actually listen to youth in real time through arts-based multi-sensory methods.

Another was the Sowing Seeds Initiative, a three-year project co-created with the Pasadena Unified School District and Tongva Cultural Advisor, focused on environmental justice, food sovereignty, and healing through the arts.

We also lost support for From the Ground up, our Getty Pacific Standard Time exhibition designed to explore how communities nurture resilience and creativity in hostile ecological, political, and cultural environments. And lastly, we had a plan for a K-3 curriculum that connected art and science through outdoor education.

This program nurtures environmental stewards beginning at a young age and included adaptations for special education students and deep collaboration with indigenous educators. Here are the human costs: seven full-time staff positions, ten independent contractors, 49 artists who are part of our faculty, 70 educators who are our partners, over 4,500 K-12 students, and an audience of more than 72,000 people across the San Gabriel Valley who over the next three years would have been served. But that's not all.

We're also facing pressure from broader national shifts. Tariffs are increasing the cost of everything from materials to essential services. Donors are redirecting their giving to urgent causes like immigration justice, LGBTQ rights, the environment, elections, and the stock market's volatility has shaken donor confidence and reduced philanthropic giving.

And all of this throws our capital campaign into uncertainty, just as we've started to try to renovate our facilities and navigate skyrocketing construction costs caused by the Altadena rebuild and inflation.

Despite everything, I've been trying to keep the organization steady and focused on the health and well-being of our people, our mission, and our values on transparency and keeping our community informed every step of the way. The Armory was built on the values of access, imagination, and social justice. These values don't waver when times are hard. In fact, they shine brighter.

Now is the time to double down on what we believe: that art changes lives, that young people deserve opportunities to grow through creativity, that artists play a role in helping us imagine that a different, more humane and just world can and should exist, and that communities flourish when we invest in art making and shared cultural experiences. We need your help.

We need the State of California to step in as a safety net to protect arts institutions that are committed to inclusion, justice, and community self-determination, to help us weather the storm of federal instability and to show that California still leads when it comes to arts, creativity, and culture.

This is not just about our institution, it's about the kind of culture that we're trying to build together, the kind of future we want to live in, especially with the global spotlight on our region as we welcome the World Cup and the Olympics. It's about the arts ecosystem and our cultural infrastructure where artists are at the center of our work. Thank you for your time and thank you for standing with us.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're next going to Mr. Kornbluth, who's over here. Yes.

Hi. I'm Jacob Kornbluth. I'm one of the documentary filmmakers that received a grant from Cal Humanities that was cancelled, and I'm here to speak about the personal impact as an artist that this has had on my work. But I thought I'd begin by giving you a taste of the film that has been halted.

So if we could just share a brief clip. This is a trailer of a film I'm working on. It's called 'We're Still Here.' I hope it is able to run. I can tell you a little bit about it. It's following a truth and healing process between the State of California and Native American--and Native Californians initiated by Governor Newsom's apology to Native Californians in 2019.

I've been traveling around the state visiting with Native communities from the far north to the southern border to east to the coast and hearing their stories as a possible corrective to a historical record that has not--that their story has not been a part of. So hopefully we can share it. Well, that's too bad.

I can tell you a little bit about my work and how this has impacted it. So I'll speak from the heart because I think I'm the one here who all these organizations are attempting to support. I'm at least a representative of that voice.

So I had for this year $800,000 in funding to make films and to make my work. It's not a huge amount of money, but for the documentary space it's significant. Every single one of those dollars is now gone. I have $0 to fund any of the work that I was planning to make this year, and I don't have the time to be here today because I should be out hustling and get a job.

This isn't just me, obviously. It's a network of artists and creative professionals that are essentially working in the creative gig economy. We go from project to project. We don't have long-term resources to sort of fall back on, and these are sound people, these are camera people, these are editors, these are colorists for film, all of whom I had promised a job for this year as the leader of this particular project that I can no longer give them. That is not just an impact on me, it's an impact on that whole community.

And I am lucky enough to be one of the successful filmmakers, I'm established in the documentary space, and I remember I grew up in a farm town where I went to a public agricultural school and I came to California because I wanted to be around a place where people could work in these creative professions.

It was inspiring and exciting to me and I fought like hell to get here to do it. When I got to Sundance for the first time and had my film shown there, when I won Sundance, when I won an Emmy, these are the moments that I remember, will always remember as things that established me, and to be here at this stage of my career, in my life, without any idea how I'm going to make it next month, how I'm going to make it this year, how I'm going to sustain my work, is the impact of what's happening right now.

I think for various reasons, I'm at the front lines of this struggle, but I'm part of a deep ecosystem that is, as I think some folks mentioned here, incredibly fragile. The documentary space is just not that well-funded generally.

The survival of it in California is both necessary to tell the stories that we all love, but it's also a struggle for everybody who's in this space to make it every year, and we do it because it's a passion profession, we do it because we care about it, and the folks who are making it in this space here are incredibly talented artists giving everything that they can to make something great.

They've made it through a crucible of one of the toughest industries around, and I can't find people to work on the films now here in California that I'm making because they can't afford to live here and I can't afford to pay them enough to kind of sustain the business here in California. So this was already a struggle.

This is what I would call an incredibly delicate moment and possible death now for some--death notice for the ecosystem of artists and people who I love and who I work with, which is why I took the time to be here today and try to share this story so that you could see this is what's happening on the ground.

So I'll probably make it because I'm, you know, far enough along. I think I can pivot and do some other things, but I'm worried about my profession, I'm worried about my community, and that's why I showed up to tell my story. So thank you.

We ready to go? Yeah? Okay. Yeah, let's--

You want to see a little bit of a film that--

Fingers crossed.

I want you to see it just because I want you to know, feel it somewhat more really what a project is that's not going ahead.

Three quarters of my graduating class isn't alive today.

It was normal to experience intense loss. We had friends who were dying by suicide.

Those come from systemic problems in our society that stem from genocide. There's not a person in California who hasn't benefited from the genocide of our people.

During 1860, California passed a law that said, you can go out and shoot any native people.

In California, there were some children forcibly removed to go to boarding schools at age 3.

Not only were these children made indentured slaves, but they probably got to watch their mothers kill them.

We talk about historical trauma, but there's present trauma right now. I'm sorry.

On behalf of the State of California. Governor Newsom is apologizing to Native Americans and announced the formation of a new Commission called the Truth and Healing Council.

What can you do to make this be different, community driven, meaningful, and actually work?

In California, we go above and beyond our job description to make sure this is done right.

Part of it is this truth telling. It's an opportunity to tell our story and for state government to listen and then take some accountability.

Acknowledging that you're on our land without returning that land to indigenous peoples shows that you're doing very little to put your money where your mouth is at times.

What we've done to the land and if we can go back to some of those traditional ecological ways, the land gets healed and we get healed. I think I'm looking for ways that we can inspire direct action, especially around what it has meant to be the. Survivors of an attempted genocide.

I came here when I was 10 years old in 1950. I was sent here not because of my choice. So all of the buildings that have. The rock were built by the students?

Yeah, the stone buildings are a beautiful thing, but, like, is that really what we want to, like, romanticize? These kids were kind of like forced labor.

Took the wash rag, and they just washed their face real hard, and they wanted to wash away the Indian or something. Was the government's intention to eradicate our culture.

And of course, all the girls that went to Sherman, too, came back sterilized.

But Grandma would say that. She would say, oh, yeah. When I left the hospital, they told me that Dickie ruined me. It was the only one I'll ever have.

I think for very long in this state, we have been really invisible, meaning that tribes and I think they have worked to overcome that, and that's not an easy task.

I made the choice to do something that probably is slower going, but I'm hopeful will produce, like, bigger results and bigger Change and bigger, ongoing healing.

One of my employees came up to me and told me that, oh, we were just hiking up in Lake Tahoe and we saw a sign, but it said, this is where Washoe people used to be. And I said, well, we're still here.

Well, thank you for listening and for any advocacy for my industry, in particular, documentary filmmaking space. I appreciate you hearing us and appreciate the chance to tell our story.

And I will say one last thing, which is all of the folks in my community texted me with messages saying, you know, please do something to help spread the word, because they're all scared. They're scared that the industry won't have a future if we don't get some support in somehow, some way. So thank you.

Thank you, thank you. Is the film. Is. What's the status of the film?

We finished production, we're in post production, and we needed the funds to edit. So, for instance, there's a Native American composer that I had identified through months of research that I wanted to get work on doing the music for the film. I had to call him yesterday and say, we can't get go yet.

And I'm trying to edit the film. And I. There 's no assistant editor. There's no infrastructure. And some of these resources just go to those micro pieces that I think at the very least will compromise the quality of the film, if not the timeline, because these people are going away.

I'm losing my editor in a month because I can't pay him, and he had to get another job, for instance. That's just like another kind of micro moment within a business when if you don't have regular funding, the system basically falls apart and everything gets affected.

Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We're going to go next to Mr. Tepporn.

Thank you. And if we can pull up my slides, please. Good morning, Chair Allen. Good morning, Vice Chair Ward and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today regarding the harmful impacts of these recent Executive Orders.

My name is Edward Tepporn and I currently serve as the Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Western Museums Association. For 42 years, the foundation has been the primary nonprofit partner to California State Parks to help preserve the buildings at Angel Island.

I am a first generation immigrant who was born in Thailand in the 70s, grew up in Texas in the 80s, spent a decade in Missouri in the 90s, and moved here to California in 2000.

California, a state that's recognized as noted earlier as the Golden State by people across the country and around the world because of our values of hope, inclusion, equity and opportunity. In Texas and Missouri, my family and I definitely experienced our share of racism and xenophobia. Where are you from? Where are you really from?

And go back to where you came from were often heard phrases. But while we felt unwelcomed at times, what is different today compared to 50 years ago is that I and many other Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders have never felt more unsafe.

Between 2020 and 2023, Stop AAPI Hate documented over 13,000 self reported incidents of anti AAPI bias. Earlier this month, the Asian American foundation released survey findings estimating that one in four Americans worry that Chinese Americans are a threat.

And while California overall remains a relatively inclusive state, there are signs, such as in this report by the Institute of California that the tide is shifting. But racism and xenophobia aren't new.

It's the same racism and xenophobia that led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 as well as the construction of the US immigration station at Angel Island. Over 1 million men, women and children were processed or detained on Angel Island between 1910-1940.

Wang Geng Yeo, who you see on the screen, was one of these immigrants. He came to the US with his father in 1919 and the two were separated by the immigration officials. So at the age of nine years old, he spent four weeks in detention on Angel Island before being reunited with his father.

While Angel Island is sometimes called the Ellis island of the west, let's be clear that Angel Island was a detention center primarily for Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants, and the experience for them was starkly different and more difficult than their European counterparts. They faced more invasive medical exams.

They experienced longer periods of detention that could last for weeks, months, all the way up to two years or more, and they experienced more physically and emotionally grueling interrogations that could last for days.

All in all, people from about 80 different countries from around the entire world were processed or held at Angel Island and they left behind over 200 poems. These poems are carved into the building's walls and these poems help to secure California Historic Landmark status as well as National Historic Landmark status for the site.

Today, the Angel Island Immigration Station foundation is a small but mighty team of four and a half staff. Together, we push out exhibits, programs and social media equivalent to organizations five times our size and budget and reach nearly half a million people through our in person and virtual events and communications.

We were thrilled to secure our first ever NEH grant of $25,000 earlier this year and our first IMLS grant of $70,000 last September. Our NEH grant would have allowed us to partner with Angel Island State park and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience to explore how to spark increased dialogue and communication and conversation about immigrants.

This is even more important at a time when immigrants are feeling less safe and less welcome in California and across the US Our IMLS grant was intended to help update our outdated permanent exhibits which were installed over 15 years ago.

Our sincere hope is that by doing so, we could educate communities about Angel Island's history of exclusion and thereby inspire a more inclusive Future. But on April 2, we received an email from Nehemiah informing us that our grant had been abruptly terminated because it no longer aligns with the Federal Government's priorities.

We anticipate receiving a similar email from IMLS. And together this would constitute a loss of about 20% to our annual operating budget.

These grants in our work at the foundation represent just one small part of the beautiful mosaic of efforts by museums, libraries, artists, filmmakers and other organizations to help lift up the many histories and current day realities of communities throughout the state and across the country.

So in closing, I want to express my appreciation again for this opportunity to testify before you.

And as the Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station foundation and as an immigrant, I also respectfully asked the Joint Committee, the Assembly Committee and all the Members of the California State Senate and State Assembly to use your voice and your leadership to help counter these Executive Orders and the devastating impacts that they will have on organizations and communities across California and across the U.S.

thank you for your time and thank you for your partnership.

Thank you and thank you for your work at that very important places I've been able to visit before. Fascinating stories and you guys do such a great job. Hopefully that doesn't go the way of Alcatraz, Right? Fingers crossed. All right, now go to Mr. Christiani.

Good morning. Oh, I'm good. Good morning. Members of this Joint Committee Chairs Allen, Vice Chair Ward. Thank you for your kind invitation and for organizing this forum. Thank you to your staff as well. My name is Carlos Cristiani, Director of Corporate and Government Affairs at the Fleet Science Center in San Diego, California.

The Fleet Science Center is a county wide organization with programs in 99% of residential zip codes across San Diego. County. We're an active Member of the arts and culture community, deeply engaged in community development, program implementation and advocacy.

Annually we partner with over 300 schools with diverse team programs and we serve over 400,000 people during 2024, about 40, about 60,000 students that come to our center enjoy the very documentaries that we were just talking about and our CEO Steve Snyder just shared this morning in the San Diego Union Tribune the importance of those moments of inspiration that are very, very that are foundational for social and our economic prosperity.

The museum employs trained and practicing artists across our programs, events and installations such as Art for Planetary Health, funded by the Prebys Foundation.

We developed strong partnerships and developed soil warming efforts during three years working for the our program for the National Science Foundation in the great neighborhoods of southeastern San Diego, building the capacity required to develop a competitive multi partner proposal for the National Science Foundation's Racial equity portfolio of grants, part of their broader impacts portfolio as well.

The collective work paid off and we were awarded 3.7 million for the project last year, which was just recently terminated. The program included seven partners the World Beat Center, Project New Village, the University of San Diego, the City of San Diego Public Library, Library Branch, Malcolm X, Nerds Rural Inc. And the Elementary Institute of Science.

The program aimed at building community capacity, heavily investing and engaging in, with and for underrepresented, under resourced and historically and systematically marginalized communities. It addressed two fundamental questions which forms of community development capital emerge in community authored narratives? The second question is how do different forms of cultural capital relate to feelings of belonging, competence and autonomy?

The program also aimed at reclaiming community ownership, especially in southeastern San Diego.

The project is based on a collaborative action research model which is an approach that fosters reflective inquiry, collective action and a cyclical process that strives to become sustainable, to improve practices, policies and actions, that develops benefits and empowerment for, in and by the Members of the community that participate.

The project centered the voices of the lived experiences of residents from southeastern San Diego at its core and a community of 22 distinct neighborhoods of primarily black, Latino, indigenous and people of color. Everything that I just described is at stake. Terminated, lost.

Not only are community voices being silenced, but entire communities are further reduced, othered, diminished and purposely ostracized yet again. That was the whole purpose of the project.

Cultural research for community development is interrupted and in communities with the greatest needs, a purposeful divestment is being imposed, undermining the collective practice of communities working together to foster equity and justice for all.

Communities of southeastern San Diego deserve to bring their own stories forward, to clearly communicate that their stories are valuable, their contribution is important and to communicate, but also to ensure that their cultural heritage will not be forgotten. The question is now, how do we meet this moment?

How are we collectively, as Californians going to meet the moment together? All of us? We call ourselves a land of innovation. We see ourselves as innovative, intrinsically, as part of our ethos. And innovation requires experimentation, boldness, enrolling others and relentlessly seeking breakthroughs.

Isn't this also the very definition of leadership, another characteristic that comes to mind when we describe our own communities? We lead, we innovate and we create the future. And we do so together. This is why we're here today, paraphrasing the voices of Chair Allen and Vice Chair Ward.

The silent stories deserve to be heard and we are here precisely to inspire action. This collaborative partnership continues to meet as we speak and as we figure out and build the future. Sailing in uncharted waters with a strong foundation and joint capacity. Let's explore multi year grants. Let's build incentives. Grant incentives for multi partner models.

Let's think out of the box and expand CAC to organizations of all sizes with funding that reflects the reality of our state's capacity, the reality of our ambitions. Incentivizing large organizations to share capacity with smaller and medium sized organizations. We have paused or canceled arts funding opportunities that we already built together that we can bring back online.

The future is made out of having one foot in reality with proven models and one foot in possibility in new paradigms. We are here at the ready to help you build the future.

Thank you, thank you and thanks for all the great work you do In San Diego. We've been chatting here about Senator Ward taking his kids to the Fleet Center. Okay, thank you. This is. Thank you. All right, let's go next to Anne Burroughs from another wonderful institution a little closer to my neck of the woods.

Japanese American National Museum.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair Allen, Vice Chair Ward, Committee Members, for convening this panel, for having us here today. I'm Ann Burroughs. It's not on? No, it's not on. You want to swap? Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. All right, do we. All right, thank you very much. I'm Ann Burroughs.

I'm the CEO of the Japanese American National Museum. Thank you, Chair Allen and Vice Chair Ward and Committee Members, for convening us and for having us here today. In the interest of time, I'm going to try and go through this very quickly and forego my slide presentation.

But, you know, a couple things that I firstly wanted to say about janm, about the Japanese American National Museum, before I talk about the impact of the federal cuts and the impasse that we find ourselves in. So for those of you who don't know, the Japanese American National Museum, we're both a cultural history museum.

We're also a Center for the arts and a Center for civil rights. Our primary purpose is to preserve the history of the World War II incarceration of 125,000 Japanese Americans with the Museum of Record of Japanese American History. But we're also.

Our mission is very, very specific in celebrating the cultural and ethnic diversity of the US it's also important to note that we see ourselves as being a place of memory, reconciliation, justice and hope. We're located in Los Angeles in Little Tokyo, which is the oldest Japan town in the US.

We are a national museum, but we also are very much a community museum. We consider ourselves the hub for the Japanese American, but also for the larger community. We have about 125,000 visitors annually and probably almost three quarters of a million visitors across our platforms and digital offerings.

We have, like most museums, we have an array of programming, we have exhibitions. We've produced over 100,000. Sorry, over 100 exhibitions in our galleries and we've travelled many, many, many exhibitions around the country. We have a collection of over 200,000 objects which are. Which detail the material culture of Japanese Americans.

And it's from that that we derive our authority. We also have our National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, where we bring people together to talk about difficult issues and to build bridges and to bridge divides. We also have a very robust Education program.

We have about 20,000 school students, mainly from Title 1 schools, who come to the museum. For most of those students, it's their only field trip and we actually raise the money to bring them to the museum. We also have a very robust documentary and film production unit.

And of course we've been extraordinarily fortunate to have had support from California Humanities over the years for the production of many of those award winning documentaries. We're also in the process of undergoing a historic renovation project which will renovate our galleries and also affect very significant infrastructure upgrades.

And we'll also be installing a new core exhibition and that's about a $23 million project. So that long preamble to get to the point of what the federal cuts mean for us. So the cuts are significant just for this year. Our budget, our annual budget is, you know, just over 13 million.

We potentially stand to lose 20% of our budget this year. We've already, and that's an awarded grant. We've already had $1.5 million of grants cancelled to date. And that is, that's funding through the IMLs and the NEH. We have an additional 1.6 million that's been awarded.

But we are not sure yet whether we're going to get that, whether we're going to get that funding. And that is through the National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites program. So that is very, very significant. That funding affects programs and also infrastructure and the upgrades to tha exhibition.

So just to give you one quick example of one of the education programs that's been eliminated, which was a grant from the. It was a program from the neh. It was the Landmarks Public Education program. And each year we bring 72 teachers from across the nation and it's an extraordinary professional development opportunity for them.

And each year we reach about 21,000 students. Well, that's gone. So we've had to find the money, $400,000 to, to keep that project going. But when we do that, it means we have to take from elsewhere. But that's a project that we feel that's extraordinarily important because it has such broad impact.

And then of course, which is not so easy to raise money for is the funding for the infrastructure that's gone.

But the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about as well is that we know that there is a values conflict here and there's an ethical conflict because the funding cuts have been driven by the administration's political agenda.

In February, our trustees came out with a very, very strong statement against standing against the assault on dei, the invocation of discriminatory laws that were used against Japanese Americans and other marginalized communities.

And they took a very principled stand to refuse to change anything, not to scrub websites, and also to double down on defending history, civil rights and democracy. So for our trustees, it became as much a question of protecting freedom of expression as protecting the shrinking civil space, shrinking civic space.

So the dilemma that we're in, and I think many other organizations as well, is that, do we accept this funding if it comes or don't we? We've not made that decision, but that certainly is a decision that we have to make. And it's a decision that carries very, very significant consequences for us. And the stakes are high.

So I think that it's important for you to know that we're not alone in this. There are many other organisations that are in the same position that are facing the same dilemma. So I really would ask you to think about closing those funding gaps, not just for us, not just for the museum, not just.

Not just for janm, but also to understand what the kind of dilemma is, and particularly for a state that has been. That has stood up for civil rights, a state that has made an apology for California's role in the incarceration of Japanese Americans. And it's also important to understand that there's not an enormous amount of recourse.

You know, advocacy is extraordinarily important. We have extraordinarily strong partners in the field. We've heard about some, some of them today. We'll hear more about them in the next panel. But, you know, there are not many options left for us. You know, there's lawfare, there's advocacy. The IMLs.

The class action against the IMLs was successful, but it only stood up for libraries, not for museums. At present, there is no other avenue for museums.

We actually are considering being part of a class action and possibly even leading a class action, because we have the luxury to be able to stand up, because our trustees have taken this position, but not every other museum has the luxury to do that.

So for us, standing up in the way that we have, we feel that it's a way to give voice and a way to give cover for others who can't. So I'm so grateful to you. I know you have an extraordinary. It's an extraordinary lift for all of us.

But we're so grateful for your commitment to this issue, to the arts, and for being there for all of us. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And particular thanks to you for the courage shown by the museum. And I know there's a lot of challenges that you're facing as a result. So let's open it up to questions from the Members. Senator Ward.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you everybody for sharing your experiences and stories today, whether you're from an institution or an individual recipient.

And the good work that you, that you're doing out there to be able to do exactly what we expect out of the arts, which is to tell a story, tell, share an experience, you know, provide inspiration, provide leadership and education.

And, you know, maybe that is the point of a lot of the defunding and the intentional dismantlement of the sector that's going on right now is we know the impact this can have on the well being of a future generation.

In case of the work that you do at Angel Island, reliving that history that we commit to not reliving, but by, I think erasing the exposure, the education that you have there opens us up to potentially dark days ahead.

So I think it's critical that we figure out a way in each one of your examples to be able to continue to be able to support that. And we will do our best that we can.

I think at the state, I know that we have shared our commitment and interest in many of us to be able to support where we can, you know, notwithstanding, you know, the news that we have today and the work that we have to do over the next four weeks to support more arts funding that I think we'll get to in the next panel as well.

The only kind of question that I have is, have any of you looked at some of the programs that maybe still are being funded, that maybe escape that first round of cuts? Have you started to notice any potential delineation of what is and is not subject to that first round of cuts that were issued in early April?

Well, I can probably take a stab at that. What's been interesting is that we've just recently, just in the last week, received another NEH grant, and that was specifically for preservation. But the funding that's been cut so far has been anything related to public education. So preservation, digitization, that seems to be.

We were actually only one of three California institutions that got an NEA grant. I mean, an NEH grant in this round. So it's very interesting, but there's no, I don't think there's enough data yet to do an analysis of that.

But certainly in our case, and just anecdotally from other museums, what is being cut is anything to do with public education, anything that stands the challenges the administration's priorities.

So you've got that union one.

So for fleet, what we have seen is in the case of NSF, their investments for broader impacts, anything that is racial equity or, you know, anything dubbed community, which is where we do all of our work. So there's a lot of uncertainty.

Many of those will not be coming back in future years at least, you know, as far as the policy that we're seeing being rolled out. Other agencies that also fund us, like NASA, for example, we were doing work with them, working with Latino communities. Also broader impacts, those are not going to be available either.

Other opportunities are perhaps more on the youth development and workforce development. We do some work with the Office of Naval Research that will, it funded a program for three years with, before, during and after school programming with wraparound services, with a group of CBOs and in partnership with the National City School District. So those models may continue.

We are working on a white paper to bring to Assembly member Alvarez, and we'll share with you a copy of that. Working with our partners in the STEM ecosystems across the nation and across the state, we're just trying to figure out what is the future and how we're going to build it together.

The past has ceased to exist to an extent.

And I want to ask a question not in the vein of any self interest. I know that you're a major institution in my district and also a lot of people I know that love the programming that you do.

But what do you see as an example for maybe as an example of those like you that are at risk for school tours, for the staffing of the facility, you know, the sharing of science education?

Build radical partnerships with, you know, all the organizations around you. They don't necessarily have to share the same mission as you, but we're, we're all non-profits. We are devoted to our missions. None of us owns the mission specifically. So radical partnerships, that's, that's the, that's the mantra.

Yeah. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Senator Smallwood Cuevas.

Yeah. I want to align my comments with Assembly Member Ward in terms of the work that you're doing and how important it is for, for our communities to see themselves in the institutions that you represent and the work that you do.