Senate Standing Committee on Rules

The Senate committee on Rules will come to order. Before we begin today's agenda, can we please establish a quorum?

[Roll Call] Quorum.

Great. A quorum has been established. If there are no objections, I'd like to take up first on today's agenda, governor's appointments not required to appear starting with item two c, the appointment of Rick Simpson as a member of the commission on teacher credentialing.

I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] Four votes.

Alright. That has four votes, and we'll leave, that open for members to add on. Next, we have item for governor's appointments not required to appear. Item two d, Trinidad Solis, MD, to the medical board of California. I'll entertain a motion.

So moved. Thank you, Senator Reyes. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

[Roll Call] Four votes.

Alright. That has four votes. We'll leave that open for members to add on. Last item for governor's appointments not required to appear. Item two e, Gerald Talbert, MD, to the medical board of California.

I'll entertain a motion.

Thank you. I have a motion by Senator Jones. I'm sorry. Yes. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] Four votes.

Alright. That has four votes. Next, I would like to take item three, reference to bills to committees. I'll entertain a motion.

Thank you, Senator Laird. Can we please call the roll on that?

[Roll Call] Four votes.

Alright. That has four votes. We'll leave that open for members to add on. Next, our final items before we turn to State Bar of California appointees are items of California appointees are items four through 12, floor acknowledgments. I'll entertain a motion.

Uh-huh. Thank you, Senator Reyes. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] Four votes.

Great. That has four votes. We'll leave that open for members to add on. Now, we will return to State Bar of California appointees required to appear. Item one a, the appointment of George Cardona, JD, as chief trial counsel, State Bar of California.

Mister Cardona, you are welcome to come to the table. Thank you. So I we start off for rules with just the appointee, and then that's okay. That's okay. That's totally okay.

And then when it's time for those in support or opposition, we will welcome you to the microphone. Alright. Thank you. Discount. Thank you.

No. Thank you. Mister Cardona, you will have the opportunity to provide one to two minutes for your opening testimony to the committee. In your opening, we welcome any introductions of your guests. We will keep time of your opening and prompt you as you get close to the time.

Welcome, mister Cardona. You may begin.

Thank you. Good afternoon. When I told the board of trustees that I was interested in serving a second four year term as the chief trial counsel, They asked me why, with perhaps a slight hint of disbelief that anybody would want to continue in the job.

My answer to them is my answer here. My office, I think, has achieved a lot in my first four years. There remains much, however, still to do and I would like to work to continue to improve the office.

When I started as the chief trial counsel back in October 2021, the disciplinary systems failures with respect to Thomas Girardi and his firm had been the subject of extensive publicity. And there were concerns that the disciplinary system was broken.

Ineffective, unfair, and rigged, in favor of those who had influence. Over my four years, we've spent a lot of time addressing these concerns and have made what I think is significant progress, but work remains.

First, we've made significant changes to our policies and procedures to address the failures in the state bar's disciplinary system revealed by its handling of the trauity matters.

These changes include new and revised policies and procedures for identifying addressing conflicts of interest and gifts, precluding dismissal of a complaint simply because a complainant requests it,

imposing enhanced investigative requirements for bank reportable actions and try cluster client trust account related cases.

Second, we've successfully handled a series of important and difficult discipline cases in which lawyer misconduct had significant consequences, often to vulnerable victims. I provided some examples of these in my written responses.

I believe our handling of these cases has demonstrated that my office is both willing and able to take on serious attorney misconduct no matter who commits it and no matter how difficult it may be to investigate and prove.

Third, we've continued to monitor and attempt to address the discipline disparities identified in the 2019 study by professor George Farkas.

The 2024 update of that study demonstrated progress, but disparities remain and we still lack more complete data needed to identify and understand the root causes.

We need to maintain the practices already put in place in my office to address the observed disparities, continue to gather and analyze data to identify the root causes and then take action to address them with the goal of further reducing any identified disparities and ensuring

that the discipline system remains fair for all. Fourth, we've continued to try and improve efficiency in handling cases to reduce both overall average case processing times and the backlog of overage cases.

We've engaged in several reorganizations to reflect changes in case loads and staffing.

We've adopted streamlined investigative procedures. We've imposed team based disposition goals with specific data tracking of dispositions for cases that exceed 750 days in age. And we've implemented a diversion program for less serious offenses.

We're currently looking at adopting new technology tools, both non AI based and IAI based to speed some of our more common tasks. The results of these efforts have been promising.

Much of our work at improving efficiency, however, is threatened by significant increases in incoming cases at the same time that our staff is shrinking. Our staffing is currently 40 positions below what was budgeted for 2025, a 12 13.2% vacancy rate.

At the same time, the number of incoming cases of all types has significantly increased. 2024 to '25, we saw huge increases. I'll I see I should stop.

Anyway, as all of that makes clear, there's still work to do and I would like to continue to try and do it. So with that, I'll stop.

Thank you. Thank you, mister Cardona. We are going to invite, our members if they have any questions or comments. This is the moment. We will begin with Senator Laird.

Thank you. I really appreciate your opening statement and I really appreciate your work over four years and your crazy willingness to do it for another four. I think I would like to just maybe follow-up and drill down on a couple of the subjects that you raised.

And I think the the Girardi situation was so whatever the word is intense that it's always the question of of a lot of safeguards have been put in place since then.

Do you feel comfortable that you've gotten at this in a way that that if somebody really tried some of the things that happened there early on that you have safeguards in that would truly prevent that from happening again?

I do. I mean, I can never give you a 100% guarantee that someone won't be to circumvent those, but I do feel comfortable. You know, we were the subject, you know, there were studies, commissioned by the state bar.

In addition, the state auditor came in and looked at some things, and we've complied with their suggestions. We've put in place mechanisms to check to ensure that our policies and procedures are being complied with.

You know, we basically eliminated any ability of people in our office to accept gifts of any kinds from attorneys which was one of the underlying causes of the Girardi problems.

And we've put in place new measures for checking conflicts and places for auditing to make sure that people are in fact ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest when they're handling cases.

We've also spent extensive time trying to put in place safeguards to try and catch the type of manipulation of client trust accounts that was going on in the Girardi case. I'm comfortable that we've put in place procedures and things that I think will prevent that.

And the ongoing work that needs to be done is to ensure that those remain in place that we adjust those as we see additional things happening and make sure that people are in fact fine with them.

And then you mentioned the auditors audit that I think was 2024. Is it somewhere in there? But it and you noted in your opening comments that there seemed to be an explosion of cases at some point later in your tenure.

Where are we with regard to a backlog and do you feel like you're still having to address that?

I do feel that we still need to address that. We haven't gotten where we should be. You know, in 2023 and 2024, we made significant progress with some of changes we've made in kind of changing the makeup of our overall case inventory.

In particular, the number the percentage of cases that were more than 180 days old, we decreased significantly.

2024 and 2025, we've seen kind of an accelerating growth in incoming cases, and that has put that progress at risk rather than our inventory going down, which we had actually accomplished.

It's now going back up because of the huge number of cases that are coming in and we're going to have to try and find ways to deal with that.

Right now, we have a pretty big backlog in our intake section, which is the group that first reviews cases when they come in and we're looking at ways to address that.

Indeed, coming up in May, we're going to have a week where virtually every attorney in the office picks up some intake work to try and reduce that backlog as quickly as we can.

But that's gonna be an ongoing issue. I mean, right now, as I said we're at basically a 13.2% vacancy rate for budget reasons and to comply with the statute that says move towards a 15% vacancy rate.

You know, that has been coupled with seeing this huge increase in cases and it's kind of like, you know, we've got two things going like this and and that has caused problems. We're gonna have to

rate. And do you feel like even if all the positions were filled, you have enough resources to try to handle the backlog in the cases as they're coming in at the rate they are now?

So if all of our positions were filled I think we would be better capable of doing it. If you ask me if I think we would completely eliminate the backlog, I don't think so.

You know, the the number of cases we get, they've been growing not only in number, but we're also seeing typically longer complaints.

We are seeing many complaints that appear to be drafted by AI that include more allegations, more information that makes it take longer to go through those and determine what to do with them. And that's something else that we're gonna have to deal with as we move forward.

And do you believe the vacancy rate is a function of salaries or what what why do you think you're having trouble attracting people to sort of fill out?

Oh, I don't think we would have trouble. I mean, when we were able to hire, we were able to fill our positions with I think very qualified attorneys and investigators.

You know, right now because of the fee bill and costs and other things that have increased in order to basically try and balance our budget with the current fee bill, we're we and the rest of the state bar are slowly moving towards a 15% vacancy rate to try and balance that.

That's just where we are with our current budget. Okay.

Well, I have a few more questions but I think my colleagues will like to answer on those topics and it's over time. If there are issues with the budget or other things, I hope we hear from the administration in a way that we can be partners in addressing. Thank you for your responses.

Thank you. Next, we have, Senator Grove.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem. I apologize for being late. I had another committee that had to take a vote and close down before, I could come to Rules.

I don't know that, you've been asked this question and I don't know if you're inclined to, answer it, but I am gonna ask, I'm not gonna rehash the twenty twenty presidential election and that's not why I'm here.

But I do have a question about two weeks ago, your office successfully prosecuted and disbarred John Eastman, whom you or your office accuses of advocating, false claims about the twenty twenty presidential election.

I'm not a legal expert, barely graduated high school, But, mister Eastman seems to have been offering his client who you probably disapprove of, which is the president of The United States. But he was offering his client legal advice, on the 2020 presidential election.

And, I mean, people may not like his client, but mister Eastman has a long distinguished legal career.

And, can you explain to me how disbarring, mister Eastman for offering his client who, like I said, is probably why he's been disbarred, a legal opinion and, if that client runs it and how that client runs against the oath of office that he supposedly misused because

he advised his client on what he thought was his legal opinion.

So I will say that, A, that prosecution I will say was not political. There was an extensive trial at which there was extensive evidence presented on on the basis of which the state bar court found the hearing department and the review department then affirmed after

mister Eastman challenged the hearing department's determination that mister Eastman had violated certain rules of the state bar in particular rules that prohibit all lawyers, whoever they're representing,

from making false statements of fact and from presenting legal positions that are in fact frivolous and unsupported.

And there was extensive evidence supported presented to support the findings by the state bar court that that is what mister Eastman had done.

That he had made statements of fact that he knew to be false and that he had made provided legal opinions that he knew were unsupported and frivolous. And no lawyer can do that even when they're representing a client.

So all of that surrounding the 2020 elections was very political. And so it was only non factual or not supported based on some people's opinions, not everybody's opinions, and not even the legal opinion.

The Claremont Institute condemns the disbarment of John Eastman, saying that, punishing him for offering legal counsel to these matters is a chilling attack on the core freedoms and the safeguards of the republic. The Claremont, Institute is not some fly by night organization.

He said is that they also go on to say that doctor Eastman's advocacy concerning the conspicuous con constitutional irregularities of the twenty twenty presidential election gave him the bounds to and well established legal and his well established legal practice.

And, and by you know, not violating the constitution himself, but the result of what he did. And all he did was attorney client privilege advising his client.

And, I guess my question or my thought or my statement to you is if we began targeting lawyers for disbarment, expressing political opinions that others disagree with, that's a slippery road to go down.

And you have an individual like in in, mister Eastman or doctor Eastman that has a distinguished career like thirty plus years career in the legal system providing excellent legal advice and then takes on one client and gives him legal advice and automatically he is disbarred.

That's a little troubling to me.

So I will agree with you, that we should not be prosecuting people based on their political views. That is a slippery slope that we do not want to go down.

I will just say that the issues that you have raised were in fact the very issues, some of the issues that mister Eastman raised as a defense at his trial and that were litigated extensively on the record before the state bar court.

And the evidence, as I said, determined that he violated obligations that all attorneys have even when they are providing legal advice.

It's your office that does the investigation though. Correct?

That is correct.

And you provide the information to the the legal court that does that?

It was a full fledged adversarial trial at which both we presented evidence and mister Eastman presented evidence.

Okay. Alright. Well, thank you. That's all I had. I just had curious questions about that.

Thank you, Madam. Thank you. Any additional questions, Senator Reye.

Thank you, Madam PT. And thank you for your response to that because as an attorney, there are things that we can do, things that that we cannot do. And we cannot cross the line, otherwise, we will be held accountable.

One of the issues that that I wanted to ask about is disparities in attorney discipline. In prior years, it it was determined that the discipline that was shown or that it was found against black lawyers was much more harsh than it was against others.

Now there was the more recent report shows that there had been some some work done in that regard. But now, the same update showed that there was a slight increase in Latino lawyer disparities.

Could you tell us how that is being addressed specifically? Yeah. So the because it appears that forgive me for interrupting your it appears as though when you got the first report about the discipline being harsher on black attorneys.

That was something that that that your your your office was very specific about making sure that that was not happening and you improved. But now Latino lawyers, Latino men, specifically, now were the ones that were not being treated equally according to the to the study.

Yeah. So, first I will note. So what you're referring to is first 2019 study by professor George Farkas, which found disparate rates of probation and disbarment between, in particular, black male attorneys and white male attorneys.

Yes.

As a result of that, some studies were done. Another professor came in and gave did a study to recommend actions that could be taken to address certain things that were identified as potential causes of that. In particular, larger numbers of complaints against blackmail lawyers.

So they had a larger history of prior complaints, larger hit larger history of bank reportable actions involving insufficient funds transactions on their client trust accounts and lower rates of representation in disciplinary matters.

So some general improvements were made to address those root causes. Steps were taken to try and address all of those.

Those results in part, we think, contributed to what we've seen over the last five years, which is a narrowing of those gaps. With respect to Latino lawyers as compared to white lawyers, the discipline gap also narrowed according to the 2024 study.

But when we look at the most recent data, we do see as reflected in our last annual discipline report, we do see that the percentage of Latino lawyers who are subject to discipline exceeds their representation in the actual lawyer population. It's something we need to look at.

We don't know what the causes of that are. Neither the Farkas study nor the current data suggests that there's any discriminatory intent that underlies that.

We do need to look at, and I suspect we'll be doing this over the next several years, is to try and look at what is causing that. What are the factors that contribute to that and do the same thing we did in response to the Farkas report,

sort out what those are and see how we can address those. I don't have an answer for you right now as to what those factors are or what we can do to address it, but it's certainly something we're going to look at.

In particular, using some of the new data we are gathering, as a result of improved data gathering. Some of the things we're looking at are, firm size, which seems to have some correlation, and practice area, which also potentially has some correlation.

And then looking at, are there preventive measures we can put in place that will address some of those underlying things and try to narrow that disparity.

And it seemed that sole practitioners were there's more disciplined against sole practitioners and those in the large firms. It it unfortunately reminds me of our criminal justice system as well,

where we say we have more blacks and more Latinos in prison because there are more complaints against them. But that the disproportionate represented when we look at all of the population. The another area thank you for that answer.

Another area I wanted to ask you about was unauthorized practice of law.

And very specifically, when it comes to immigration services in Mexico or Latin American countries, you have an notario that has a title greater than what we consider a notary public here in The United States.

But there oftentimes is almost equivalent of an attorney and there are many who come to The United States and use the title of notario to provide immigration services and unfortunately, people believe that they are in Notario. They must be the same as an attorney.

What specifically is being done regarding Notario's, doing work in immigration, the immigration arena?

So we have, limited remedies that we can impose for non attorneys, like people acting as notaras who aren't attorneys who are engaging in unauthorized practice of law, and we pursue those. We get complaints about them.

What we can do in response to those is, and we do do, we issue cease and desist letters to notify them and tell them that they can't do it.

And in more extreme cases where it continues and where we see a repeated practice, we can go to the superior court and get an assumption order to basically close down their practice, seize their files, and redistribute them out. Those are all kind of after the fact remedies.

On the front side, we also do do outreach. We try to get the word out through the media, about the difference and about the fact that here, you know, only lawyers can engage in the practice of law and we provide guidance as to how people can check to try and ensure that

the person they are speaking with is a lawyer. We hope to continue doing that outreach and potentially expand it to try and educate more people about this. We have found willing partners.

A number of the large Spanish language media stations have partnered in making announcements and we've had people from our office do interviews in Spanish to provide guidance on how to do this.

So we hope to continue to do that and continue to pursue those kinds of assumptions. We just did one last week of a practice up in I believe it was in the Livermore area of a woman who was practicing and representing herself to be a lawyer and in fact had caused some

harm to an immigration client through failing to do certain things.

Very good. Thank you so much and thank you for that answer. Thank you.

Great. So I Oh, so you. Yes. Okay. So we'll go with Senator Jones.

Thank you. I wanted to get a little bit more detail about the Eastman situation if I can. I don't know mister Eastman well. I've met him. I've served on a panel with him and that's about all I have done with him.

He seems to be fairly articulate and and as Senator Grove has shared a stellar legal background. Going through the process of researching this, he was convicted charged with 11 violations, convicted of 10, upheld by the California Supreme Court.

So obviously, to some degree, your office, you know, did well in the prosecution of this case that and to the point that the Supreme Court agreed with you. I I think, you know, I I can make the argument that the California Supreme Court today is fairly partisan.

It's certainly not nonpartisan. I think what I'm interested in learning is what was the impetus of the case? How how did what started it?

So, you know, I am limited in what I can say because litigation is still pending. In other words, mister Eastman has indicated that he is going to pursue petition for certiorari in the US Supreme Court. Okay.

So I can't really discuss facts beyond what's in the record of That's right. Happened in the Supreme Court.

But facts on the record would be appropriate, I believe.

I can tell you that, you know, as with many cases, we get complaints from numerous entities when there is misconduct and we investigate those complaints and make determinations on the facts that we develop in our investigation as to whether we believe charges appropriate?

And when those charges are filed, they are tried in the state bar court.

In this particular case, were those, complaints, external? Meaning somebody, from outside your office started those complaints or did somebody inside your office, find these complaints and to bring them forward?

I am not sure I can answer that because our complaints are confidential. You know, what's public is what we filed in the notice of disciplinary charges. I apologize. No.

No. That's fine. I'm I'm trying to do some quick research up here, and find out what the 10 charges are. None of the articles that I'm finding list the 10 article the 10 charges. They just mentioned 10 charges out of 11.

Do you happen to know, from memory or notes what those 10 charges were?

There was one charge that was failure to uphold the laws of The United States, and the constitution. That was one charge. There was another there were other charges that were, I believe, and I will paraphrase, essentially making false statements in court pleadings.

And there were other charges that were violations of business and professions code section sixty one zero six which encompasses acts of moral turpitude, deception or corruption.

Okay. Thank you. If you did all that from memory, well done. I think the where I'm struggling with this is, as has been stated, mister Eastman was, counseling, then President Trump.

How does California and I'm sure Eastman is I don't know this. I'm gonna assume, and you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Eastman is a legal attorney in other states besides California. Why does California have jurisdiction over this?

We have jurisdiction over California licensed lawyers.

Okay. And even though the advice may have been placed in another state or Correct. Okay. Okay. I share some of the concerns that have been, you know, stated here.

You know, obviously, this went through a process. Whether we agree with, you know, that that was a, you know, proper process or not. That that can be debated. But it it does have the appearance of a political prosecution. And so I am concerned about that.

I would be really interested to find out how this got started in the first place. If it was legitimate complaints from the public, that's one thing. But if you have a if you have a department of attorneys looking for these type of of violations, that would be concerning.

And obviously, we're not gonna solve that. We're not gonna figure that out today. That's all I have, Madam Pro Tem. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, for being here today. I wanna ask you, actually, just a couple follow ups on some items that were touched on, by some of my colleagues. I'm gonna start with, just some of the backlog of cases.

And, if you could just speak to, what your observations or any insights on what may be driving some of the influx of cases, but also how you are addressing, some of the backlog of cases and processing.

So we actually worked with the data section of the state bar to look at incoming complaints to see if we could identify any factors that might be driving the increase. We weren't able to identify any particular factors.

We did look at other state bars, other state disciplinary agencies, and other kind of consumer disciplinary agencies and did note that there appears to have been a general trend over the last two to three years of increases in complaints from consumers in a number of different areas.

So this may just be part and parcel of that. We don't know what the causes of the increase in the complaints are.

In terms of trying to address it, we've done a number of things. We've adopted kind of, in streamlined investigative procedures. We've tried to eliminate some of the unnecessary steps in our investigations to limit,

kind of the unnecessary paperwork that investigators and other have to do so that they can focus on the substantive work of doing the investigation and eliminate some of the unnecessary kind of administrative tasks that go with that.

We've tried to put in place a diversion program to try and deal with some of the less serious offenses so that we can focus our resources on the more serious offenses and get rid of some of the less serious more quickly. We've reorganized our office so that we have basically teams.

We try and differentiate our cases as quickly as we can with various priorities based on risks so that we can assign the more risky cases that are more likely to proceed to actual charging to groups that have the time to work on them and allow other groups to focus more on

filtering through and disposing of the cases that should be disposed of. We've tried all of that to address the backlog.

And as I said, we have made some progress, but we have not made as much progress as we would like to. We simply have a huge number of cases that we try and deal with every year.

Thank you. And I think that's important for us to to hear, but also to think through and know that this is a priority for us to try to figure out how some of these cases do get heard in a timely manner as well.

One of the questions that you just received, had to do a little bit with post Girardi, reforms. And I am that got a lot of national attention.

And as you think through your role on the state bar, what do you think is the greater role in terms of rebuilding the public trust in moments where it may be questioned or it may be lost?

Like, what do you think is your specific role as a member?

I mean, that's a really important thing. I mean, our our discipline system won't work unless we have some level of public trust. We rely on people trusting us in order to encourage them to submit complaints to us.

If people won't people don't trust us, they won't submit complaints and we won't find out about misconduct. Similarly, we need people to trust us and cooperate in our investigations.

If they don't trust us, we can't get the cooperation we need to gather the information we need to prosecute the charges. So I see that as a very important thing.

You know, people, both attorneys and the public need to perceive the discipline system as being fair and efficient as much as we need to be fair and efficient.

And I see that as a very important function, kind of publicizing and making clear what we are doing so that people understand and believe that we are acting fairly and efficiently.

And are you doing something different to rebuild that trust in moments where it's lost than you used to do before this big national headline?

Well, I wasn't here at the time of the big national headline, so I only have the post big national headline time frame to look at.

And as I said, we've spent a lot of time kind of looking at what went wrong with the Girardi cases and then trying to put in place things to address that. You know, it's an ongoing thing. We monitor our case loads.

We have a ton of data that we look at to try and make sure that we don't see anything that suggests that there's someone out there who's another Girardi.

We track repeater respondents, attorneys who have large numbers of complaints. We flag them so that they get more attention to try and avoid the situation we had in Girardi, where for years he had complaints that never went anywhere.

In part, because people weren't checking and didn't know that, you know, attorney a was handling this set of complaints against him, while attorney b was handling this set of complaints.

So we've tried to put in place procedures to ensure that that won't happen, that we unified that we unify those and flag people as repeaters. So we've tried to put in place all those procedures to try and address those things.

Okay.

Thank you. Now switching switching gears just a little bit. As part of the work that you do and certainly that we are seeing more and more, there has been some use of, AI, in this line, of work.

And so I'm wondering if you, can speak a little bit to the pilot of Gen AI and just the human loop aspect of it.

Sure. Yeah. So we're we're in an interesting situation in that, you know, lawyers are starting to use AI. In fact, it's becoming kind of a necessary part of the law practice to be efficient and cost effective. We are in that same boat.

We are looking at potentially using generative AI for certain functions to assist our attorneys in trying to do things more quickly, in part to try and deal with the backlog.

You know, I think you probably know, but the Supreme Court sent us a letter on January 28 telling us to put on hold our use of AI until we submit a report to them, regarding our testing and the procedures we've put in place to ensure that there is in fact human review.

We're in the process of putting that together. We expect to present that to the board in May and then submit it to the Supreme Court to outline what we've done.

At the same time, we're getting complaints and in particular referrals from judges who are seeing pleadings that have been generated with AI that contain fabricated citations.

And in fact, we have pursued a number of discipline cases based on that. We've had stipulations from a couple of attorneys admitting that they did that and stipulating to discipline and we filed notices of disciplinary charges against that.

In part to try and send the message that just because you're using AI doesn't relieve you of your obligation, which has always existed to be responsible for and review what is in the pleadings you submit to the court.

Yeah. No. That's important. And I think we're all grappling with this, in all sectors, including our very own. And I appreciate, you walking us through this.

Seeing no other questions, we're now, at the point where we will open it up for members of the public. If there are members of the public who are here, to speak in support of the appointee, we welcome you to come forward to the microphone. Do so at this time. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Come on up. Yes.

Madam Chair Pro Tem Limon, Vice Chair Grove, and Senators Jones, Laird, and Reyes, my name is Mark Toney.

I was appointed public member of the State Bar Board of Trustees in 2020 by governor Newsom, reappointed in 2024, and appointed in 2025 as Vice Chair of the, State Bar Board of Trustees by the California Supreme Court.

I'm here today on behalf of the Chair of the, Board of Trustees and the rest of the trustees to urge you to confirm George Cardona as Chief Trial Counsel.

Since starting, he has prioritized disciplinary actions involving attorneys who pose the greatest risk to the public, implemented enhanced review processes for repeat public, offenders, and established a diversionary program to,

responsibly address low level matters involving attorneys who do not present significant public harm. He has reduced the backlog despite a forced workforce reduction of 15% due to lack of funding.

I urge you to support and confirm George Cardona as chief trial counsel. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And we're welcome to have folks just come up, say their name, their affiliation, and their position.

Pro Tem, Limon, Members of the committee. My name is Arnie Sowell, and I am the Senate's public appointee to the state bar. I was just recently appointed in February, I think. And I also, am the chair of the bar's, finance committee. I appreciate the, the level of inquiry that has been directed at at mister Cardona.

These are questions that as members of the board of trustees that that we grapple with on a consistent and sort of a constant basis. I'm I'm gonna be brief, but just say that we are deeply appreciative of the integrity, of the innovation, of the calmness, and of the expertise that,

mister Cardona brings to the role as our chief trial counsel given the many challenges that, that we face. And I just wanna echo the comments of, Vice Chair Tony and say that, we urge you strongly to, confirm, George Cardona as our chief trial counsel.

Thank you. Next.

Hi. Good afternoon, Madam Pro Tem and Members. Daniel Sherrill with SEIU Local 1000. On behalf of our bargaining unit members, attorneys, and administrative staff at the State Bar.

And wanted to note, while we were unable to submit a letter before today, that our members of the State Bar did support Cardona's confirmation appointment in 2022 and remain glad that they did and continue to support as his tenure at the State Bar has been positive.

I'll just quickly note that, expressing their confidence in his leadership during a period of increased cases, Mister Cardona has remained an open door policy, listened to the feedback of the staff, and notably the attorneys who have, expressed concerns around their workload.

He has taken on while taking on these challenges as have been discussed today, they would like to continue to emphasize that with adequate funding for the state bar, those vacant positions can be filled to address the backlog and continue to protect the public.

And so with that, we urge your support, and thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anybody else in the room wishing to speak in support of the appointee? Alright. Seeing no one else here to speak in support. Anybody wishing to speak in opposition of the appointee?

Alright. Seeing no one in the room, I'll bring it back, to the Members for either final comments or questions. There we go. Senator Jones.

I take those to be sincere and appreciate your communication on that. The obviously, the witnesses in support of your confirmation make a big statement.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem. I'm really struggling with this appointment, and and I think I have equally weighty conflicting issues on my mind here regarding this. On the one hand, in support of the of the confirmation is the excellent testimony, your opening statements.

On the non confirmation side and then also, I guess one more thing. There's you know, I double checked. There's no comments in opposition to your confirmation, from the public or from any community organizations. But I am concerned about the case in particular.

And, probably because it's such a big case, a national case, I need to dig into that some more.

I think one of the other things that concerns me about that is many things that were said about the 2020 election in 2021, that were considered, wild conspiracy theories at the time.

Now in other other states have now become fact. So things that were dismissed before as as being not fact have now become confirmed. Some things, not everything. And I wanna be very clear.

I'm not a 2020 election conspiracy theorist on all of that. But I am concerned that some of these things are coming to light that weren't in light then. So I'm gonna hold off on the confirmation today on voting Aye.

I'm not gonna vote I today and take some time between now and your confirmation on this on the Senate floor to dig into those issues a little bit more for myself so I have a better understanding of them. So, thank you for your, testimony today.

You did you did a good job.

Thank you, Senator Jones. Senator Laird.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to maybe reiterate what I said at the close of my, questioning which is I think you stepped into this job at a time of crisis, at a time when there was a backlog, time there was a loss of faith because of the one particular case.

And I believe you have played it straight. You have played it straight with the law. You have tried to lower the backlog.

You've tried to deal with the funding issues. You are aware of the vacancy rate and what it means and you are even trying in a very practical way to assign people the week of May to deal with the intake to to. So to. So Madam Chair, I would move that we advance this appointment to the Senate floor.

Thank you, Senator Laird. With that, we do have a motion made by Senator Laird. So I will ask for the role to be called, for this appointment. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] Three to zero.

Alright. The appointment has been approved to move to the full Senate confirmation with 3 Aye votes. Congratulations.

Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have our final public item, which will now turn to State Bar of California appointees required to appear item one b, the appointment of Laura Enderton-Speed, JD, as Executive Director of the State Bar of California.

Thank you.

Miss Enderton-Speed, you will have the opportunity to provide one to two minutes for your opening testimony to the committee. In your opening, you we welcome any introductions of your guest.

We will keep the time of your opening and let you know if you are approaching it. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Pro Tem Limon and Members. I'd like to begin with some thank yous. Thank you to the members of the State Bar Board of Trustees, some of whom you just heard from, for placing their trust in me as the Executive Director of the State Bar.

I would also like to thank my spouse, my dad, friends, and colleagues who are also in attendance or watching online today. I want to thank all of you for considering me for confirmation as the Executive Director of the State Bar.

I come into this position with full acknowledgment that the State Bar has recently faced challenges that impact public confidence and public trust, such as disciplinary actions and the administration of the bar exam.

In response, there has been significant effort by the Board of Trustees and the Office of Chief Trial Council to strengthen the discipline system, as you just heard from mister Cardona, again focusing on education initiatives and pursuing discipline against the

most egregious actors who do the greatest harm to the public, and implementation of stronger internal conflict of interest standards. I also have to acknowledge that the February 2025 bar exam did not meet expectations of the applicants, the public, our stakeholders, or the state bar.

And although this occurred before my time at the state bar, I take very seriously the responsibility to understand what happened and to ensure that we learn from it.

I sought out this position partially due to these issues, watching from the outside, looking for a way to contribute, problem solve, and find solutions, all in furtherance of our mission of protecting the public.

I'm committed to promoting access to justice and ensuring public protection in our legal system. State Bar plays a critical role in both areas through ensuring fairness, transparency, consistent with applicable laws,

and accountability and regulation of the legal profession. This position is an opportunity to advance those principles through strengthening the discipline system, streamlining operations for efficiency, and improving current processes

with a focus on our core function of admissions, regulation, and discipline. I have more than two decades of experience in administration, policy, and leadership spanning across all branches of California government.

I'm dedicated to public service, and I know firsthand its importance, its value, and the difference it makes in the lives of the people that we serve.

I have always prioritized good governance, ethical governance, and public trust, and I will continue to do so as executive director of the State Bar of California if confirmed.

Thank you again for your time and consideration today, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Members, we'll start with Vice Chair Grove.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem. I just have a couple questions, probably just one. In the 2026 budget, it checks expenditures significantly exceeding revenues for, the state bar's 2026 budget. I guess I should have stated that.

The state auditor has also, identified ongoing structural pressures in recent years.

And then, in other words, a fee implemented as, for to help address this. But aside from the fee, which cannot continue to go up, we can't just continue to fear a way out of situations.

Is the bar, the state bar in in initiating or putting together a plan for long term solutions for this, structural budget deficit that's anticipated?

So one of my goals, coming in is, fiscal stability for the state bar and budget stability. Yes, We have, we're projected to have about a 1,200,000 deficit.

However, I will say we've implemented a hiring freeze where we've hold quite a few number of positions open right now that, actually are likely to result in savings. We expect approximately $6,000,000 of savings from there.

We've also gone through personal services and other portions of our budget, and we cut another $3,000,000 out in that area.

We are continuously looking for ways to improve efficiencies and processes and to either cost containment or cost savings where we can.

Knowing though that, impacts on workload, the vacancy rate, as you heard mister Cardona talk about, and the impacts on our core functions is very important and we have to balance those needs.

So we are being I am and my team and the board of trustees are being very budget conscious, and and doing what we can internally.

But rising in all sorts of areas, from, you know, the cost of doing business, the cost of personnel, the cost of health care, and and benefits. And those are the types of things that we have to figure out how to account for and build into our system.

I appreciate that answer. Thank you. Madam Pro Tem, I don't have any other questions.

Thank you. Senator Laird?

Thank you. And thank you for being here today and being willing to serve. In your opening statement you talked about the February 2025 bar exam and you talked about sort of getting on top of it.

Let's go into a little more detail because there was the audit and there's a question of whether the audit has recommendations that you're acting on and I believe there's something you have to report to the state Supreme Court and the deadline was next month.

And so I was wondering about the progress on those items and if month.

And so I was wondering about the progress on those items and if you'd go a little deeper into it like do you have at this point an assessment of sort of what went wrong and what steps you wanna start to take as an executive director to make sure that doesn't happen again?

Absolutely. So let me start with the February 2025 bar exam. We have the SB 47 audit, which is audit, I believe, you're referring to. That is ongoing. Then we also have a board ordered internal investigation, and we have the litigation against major learning.

There are a number of areas are actually between all three of those. Investigations are are ongoing right now, and our the findings are confidential.

We will absolutely be happy to share them with the legislature and work with the legislature when we can do that, but those are ongoing investigations right now.

We as far as the deadline, so we are considering the Board of Trustees and the Committee of Bar Examiners Examiners, our committee sorry are considering the future of the California Bar Exam.

Most recently, the Committee of Bar Examiners developed their recommendation and sent that to the Board of Trustees.

The Board of Trustees will take that up at our May, it will be submitted to the Supreme Court shortly thereafter. The Supreme Court will need to issue in a their decision by July so that we meet the statutory requirement of two years notice for applicants.

And ex I'm sorry. MLA person. Explain to me what that means. They act and then what happens after that?

The so we will make a recommendation. Board of trustees will put a petition in to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will consider the petition and the recommendation by the board of trustees and determine, either approve it, deny it, or make an alternative option

that's within their jurisdiction. Once that's done, that will determine the future of the bar exam or at least in the near future of the bar exam, and we will go about implementing that plan.

Okay. So they recommend changes. You implement the changes if that's where it goes. Then the other thing I wanted to ask and I know it seems like we have beaten the Tom Girardi thing to death.

But there was one thing that was more in your Ballywick than with mister Cardona and that is is there were some members of the the board that accepted gifts that were unreported.

How do you get at that? How do you have guardrails to make sure that doesn't happen again?

So since that issue, since Girardi, we have implemented stronger conflict of interest reporting requirements. All Board Members are also subject to doing a form 700 on an annual basis.

We have, we do yearly training for them at an open board meeting, actually, to ensure that they are all aware of their duties and their responsibilities and things they, conflicts of interest rules that they cannot break.

And so we've we've done a lot in place of putting internal controls in place to hopefully stop that type of activity.

Which on your part is actually prevention. Yes. You are trying to do prevention. Yes. But the sort of paying the piper comes if it's not reported correctly on the form 700 and then it goes into a process where there's penalties or sanctions based on on not doing that.

Right. I mean, if that were to occur, we certainly would take corrective action and work with the appropriate appointing body.

In the case of the board of trustees, we have appointments from the governor, the Senate, the assembly, as well as the Supreme Court, and to take action in the appropriate manner.

Well, and and just for the record, I know the two people that were here testified. I don't expect that they're going to be in this category. So just in case there was any inference read into this. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate your responses.

Thank you, Senator Laird. We're gonna go with Senator Reyes and then Senator Jones.

Thank you. I'd like to go back to the bar exam.

Okay.

The decision to make it mostly remote administered in February 25 was whose decision?

So I was not with the bar at the prior to February 25, and so I don't feel comfortable commenting on the actions that were taken at that time. Again.

Who would have made the decision?

Ideally? In an ideal world?

No. No. I mean, you may not have been there, but I assume that because it was such a big problem, you would have looked into it to see who made that decision or who made that recommendation. So I that I so I ask my question again.

There were in February of for the February 25 bar exam, there was a decision made that the bar exam be mostly remote administered. Let me ask it this way. Was that the first time that had ever happened?

Mostly remotely administered outside of the Covid years. Yes.

And who made that decision?

I don't think there was a sole source to make that decision. Again, some of this is still confidential and under investigation, but there were actions taken.

Are there criminal investigations?

No. State audit.

So when you say investigations and you can't talk about it, usually that refers to a criminal investigation.

So we're under confidentiality for California State Auditor, privileged internal investigation, and as well as court order under the measure learning litigation.

Alright. So ideally, who would make a decision that the state bar would be, primarily remote administered?

Ideally, our leadership team works with the Committee of Bar Examiners and the board of trustees to make a recommendation to the Supreme Court that that happen.

Alright. And we know that as a result of that February 25 bar exam, the those who were taking the exam had experienced lots of problems, lots of issues.

Login failures, testing platform crashes, non functioning exam tools, unnecessary interruptions by proctors, multiple choice questions on unexpected new topics, multiple multiple choice questions that omitted vital facts contain spelling and

grammatical errors are provided to potentially correct answers. Then I understand that in April, there there are are let me go back up.

There was a pass rate that was then changed.

Correct?

That's correct. There were corrective actions taken after the February 2025 bar exam. Recommendations were made to the Supreme Court and approved by the Supreme Court to to address some of the errors that occurred on test day.

And the state Supreme Court directed the state bar to return to the traditional in person format for the July 25 exam. Is that correct?

Correct. And we've been in that format since July. Wonderful.

I will tell you when I heard that this was going to be remote in a non Covid era, I personally felt that became a problem for the integrity of the state bar exam.

But nonetheless, there was a decision that was made and I'm glad the Supreme Court said, don't do it again. Let's go back to in person.

Taking into consideration the the the issues or the the findings that were already made and now knowing that the auditor is going to is in the process right now. What do you expect the auditor might find, when they release their report this summer?

And what will the bar do to as a result of those findings?

I don't feel I'm in a position to comment on what I believe the auditor might find or the state audit might find. What the state bar will do is take their recommendations, look at them very carefully, and implement, and report back and work with them and work with

you, legislature, our stakeholders, the court. And now going back to the Girardi, fiasco, I was I was part of Judiciary committee and and there was a specific hearing, where the your predecessor came before the Judiciary Committee to answer a number of questions.

And I don't recall if we asked her, but I would like to ask you, what discipline was taken against the staff that accepted those gifts and who turned a blind eye on Girardi's, disciplinary issues.

I do not have the answer to that. Off the top of my head, that predates my time at the bar, by a couple of years. So I'm afraid I cannot answer that at this.

But it was one of the bigger bigger black eyes.

I agree with that. It it definitely was and it certainly is a situation that should not happen.

We have focused aside from disciplinary action against staff at that time, which I cannot speak for, focusing on moving forward, putting in stronger safeguards, not only with board of trustees, which I talked about earlier,

but also with staff on their reporting, conflict of interest reporting, attorneys they may have worked with in the past or investigated in the past, all across the board, including an upping education and making sure people are aware of of the risks and their duties.

We we are, as public servants, Girardi type situation.

And forgive me for pushing back on this, but if if someone made such a mistake in the past, I would want to know exactly what happened and how that was allowed to happen. So that as I move forward, I want to make sure that never happens again.

And that's the reason that I asked the question. I'm well aware that you started in '25. I didn't your resume didn't say when you started in '25.

And so I asked the bar exam. But I know that Girardi predated you. But what were the lessons learned by you regarding the Girardi situation?

Heather, birth. I did start in November '25. Okay. To clarify, I didn't realize my resume did not say that.

Maybe it's just the way that we internally set it up. No worries. I can't blame you.

So I think lessons learned from Girardi is really some of it goes back to oversight of staff and and things note things that you're looking for, for, you know, going back to, Senator Laird's question about accepting gifts, there's pretty much a ban on that at this point.

There would be corrective action taken if there was something that we found, an an employee, a staff member had done. Internally, we would work through our, discipline process internally to address that as well.

Very good. I you don't have an easy job. I think just about everybody who comes before us doesn't have an easy job because you are you you the position that you're coming for that you're being appointed to isn't some but something that you just apply for a job

and it's given to you. You have to really show that you are qualified and that you understand the issues. So I do appreciate you coming here.

I appreciate that your willingness to take on this position and to protect the public because in the end, that is the job of the state bar. It's to to to work with the members, collect our fees, and then to make sure that the public realizes that they can count on the state bar to protect them. So thank you.

Thank you. Senator Jones.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Just a real quick, can you speak to the Eastman case and I specifically two part question, because I think it predates your time here as well.

But, you know, what is your current role in that case, and what was your office's role in that case when it got started?

My role I don't play a role in individual disciplinary cases, and that is in an effort to keep the disciplinary, process fair. So it's really within office of chief trial counsel and the and the layers of review that they go through. So we did not play a role in that.

At the beginning or currently?

I cannot speak to at the beginning again because that would have been initiated prior to my time.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. I wanna thank you for bringing this forward. I feel like some of my colleagues have actually answered, some of the, questions. I do wanna just talk about one that tends to come up a bit here in the legislature, and that has to do with State Bar fees.

And so I'm just question my question is what are you doing now, in preparation? Certainly, we've seen that come through legislation, and it's caused quite a bit of, deliberation.

So I'm just curious what you're doing in this moment to prepare for that for 2028.

We also currently have a hiring freeze where only the most critical positions are being filled. That's resulting in roughly just over $6,000,000 in savings. We went through the budget on personal service and contracts and reduced the budget by $3,000,000.

Oh, okay. Sorry.

For 2028.

So I think you're in reference to the there's a fee in the current fee bills or State Bar Act for an extra $52 relating to personnel costs. That relates back to what we're doing related to the vacancy rate.

I will be completely honest that if we lose that $52, it is roughly equal to about $12,000,000. We are currently so we did the just prior to my starting at the State Bar, we did a voluntary reduction in force.

People were incentivized to either go towards retirement, or leave State Bar.

So from that from the voluntary reduction in force, we have a roughly 5,200,000 ongoing savings from in general fund. We do have some other, what I would call special funds, and those are largely grant areas or in admissions.

If we get to 2028 and the $52 we lose the $52, there will have to be more either a higher well, actually, not likely. There will have to be a higher vacancy rate, and we're fully aware that does affect some of the core functions of discipline admissions regulation.

And so we are planning, working, trying to address it the best we can, but it it will be a tough situation.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. On that note, this is the time where I welcome any members of the public. If you are here to speak in support of the appointee, you are welcome to come to the microphone, and begin.

We encourage you to just make it brief, state your name, your affiliation, and your position. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Toney, Vice Chair of the State Bar Board of Trustees, here to ask your support for, Executive Director Enderton-Speed.

She represents a break from the checkered past of the state bar and has exercised leadership in embracing a future focused on delivering a robust and reliable state bar exam with no surprises and prioritizing, the modernization of technology. Thank you very much for your support.

Thank you.

Madam President Pro Tem and Members, Mike Belote speaking on behalf of the California Defense Council, the State's Civil Defense Bar.

We are here in support of the, confirmation of Ms. Enderton-Speed and would only point out, in our, interactions with her, she has shown real accessibility collaboration and we applaud her return to core function focus as she assumes this position.

So we would ask for a confirmation. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

And members, Daniel Sherrill on behalf of SEIU Local 1000, the bargaining unit members, attorneys and administrative staff in support of this confirmation.

I'll just quickly say and I appreciate the discussion here, specifically around the reduction in force that our, union, member leaders work closely with the prior executive director around this. Of course, anytime in labor you hear reduction in force, it gives members pause.

And so we appreciate, the past executive director's willingness to engage with our members, and they look forward to engaging with, miss Enderton-Speed.

Again, the executive director sets the tone, and so we would appreciate, support today as they they welcome an executive leadership team that restores public trust and integrity to the State Bar. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Hi. A little shorter.

Good afternoon. My name is Sheila Johnston. I'm founder and CEO of Luminary Partners. I'm a small business owner here in California. And I've known Ms.

Speed since 2002, since we were interns in the Leon Panetta Fellowship and then continued to be professional colleagues since then. Laura is a humble, kind, and deeply professional, with a methodical and thoughtful approach to decision making.

She possesses a rare ability to lead complex organizations while remaining approachable, grounded, and attentive to the people around her.

Based on my own experience leading statewide associations representing attorneys and other professional societies and CEO and executive director roles,

I can confidently say that Laura possesses the integrity, judgment, and solutions oriented thinking necessary to guide an organization as important as the State Bar of California, and I am in full support of her, nomination in front of you all today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Once again, Arnie Sowell, a member of the board of trustees and the chair of the finance committee. I served on the hiring committee for the executive director position.

And as you could well imagine, we were looking for someone with a high level of administrative and sort of organizational sort of experience and expertise,

someone that could help right the ship and sort of meet the moment that we were facing in terms of the number of challenges that were in in front of the board.

But probably equally as imperative, we were looking for somebody, that was that had a willingness to, to to look under the hood and examine our practices, examine our programs, and, not be afraid to make hard decisions and bring, tough choices, in front of the board.

And while Laura has has only been on the job for, I think it's either five or six months to date, she's fit that bill in every way. And so we just urge you to to confirm her.

Thank you. Alright. Seeing no other individuals in the room speaking, in support, do we have any individuals in the room who would like to speak in opposition? Alright. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the Members.

Vice Chair Grove.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Pro Tem. I would move the board appoint or board comfrey to the full floor for a senate. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. We do have a motion, so we'll go ahead and call the roll, please.

[Roll Call] 5 to 0.

Great. The appointment has been approved to move to the full Senate for confirmation with a five o vote. Congratulations. And now, we are going to go through the roll Yeah.

I can lift some calls.

And we will lift some calls. So we are going to begin with, Governor's appointments not required to appear starting with item two c, the appointment of Rick Simpson as a member of the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Can we please lift call the roll on that?

[Roll Call] Five to zero.

Alright. That item is approved 5 to 0. The next item is governor's appointments not required to appear. Item two d, Trinidad Solis, MD, to the medical board of California. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] 5 to 0.

Thank you. That item is approved 5 to 0. Next is governor's appointments not required to appear. Item two e Gerald Tolbert, MD to the medical board of California. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] 5 to 0.

Thank you. That item is approved. 5 to 0. Next, we have item three, reference to bills to committees. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call] Five to zero.

Alright. Thank you. That is approved. 5 to 0. Our next item is State Bar of California appointees.

Our items four through oh, sorry. Before that. Sorry. Correction. The next items are items four through 12, floor acknowledgments. Can we please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Alright. On that note, we have almost, concluded. I do want to make a note that as we conclude our public portion of the hearing, today is the final day for Senator Jones to serve on this committee, on the Rules committee.

I got kicked off.

No. That is not true, everyone. He for all of those, everyone should know that he was very gracious to help me as a new leader in the new Chair and to stay on longer than he may have desired.

So, I appreciate his partnership, and I really appreciate, him being part of a member of this committee. And I know my colleagues feel the same.

Well, thank you very much, madam pro tem. And and I can say honestly and without hesitation that you didn't need me to stay on, to help you out. You've done a fantastic job as the new, Rules Chair. It has been an honor, to serve on this committee.

When I was originally asked to be on it, I will admit I was begrudgingly coerced.

No, I was coerced by the former pro tem and I be begrudgingly complied with the request, to serve on this committee, because it is a lot of work. It and it does take a lot of time to to do this, job, well and properly.

And, but it has been a a fantastic learning experience for me. I've enjoyed, getting to know Senator Laird better, Senator Reyes better. I particularly enjoy Senator Grove picking on me as much as she does.

But and also getting to know you better as well. But having the opportunity to interact with the appointees, I think, is the biggest, blessing of this position.

Because as elected officials, trying to represent the 1,000,000 people that we have in our in our districts, sometimes it's you don't know who's who in the zoo.

And, this kinda helps, clear that up and and gives us, more resources for our constituents, which I think all of us should take serious and, make important.

And I know that a lot of the appointees that have come through here have, answered calls, from my constituents, and I appreciate that about all of them.

So thank you, and, thank you to the staff. The staff is wonderful. Everybody works hard here, and, appreciate everybody. And I will miss you and and the committee. So I'm sorry?

Because you actually requested a cake. I did. What was it? Two weeks ago?

Yeah. You requested cakes.

Right. Yes. So so this is your

God bless me for requesting a cake so everybody else can enjoy it too.

We have a cake for you, thanking you for your service. It was between flowers and a cake, and we all remembered cake.

Oh, yeah. I'll take cake over flowers for sure. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your service.

Thank you. And I will share with everybody.

Yes. So we have a cake here we're gonna pass on over to you and we will, cut. But as, I get ready to to keep with this portion, I wanna thank, again, Senator Jones, who has, served on this committee. I wanna thank the public today, who is here to participate.

The we are going to go ahead and conclude today's public portion of the agenda, and we will be, after cake, adjourning to the public, to the executive session for this committee.

And with that, we will go ahead and adjourn.