Senate Floor

Secretary, please take the role.

[Roll Call]

We have a quorum. So would members and guests be on the rail and in the gallery, please rise. And we will have we'll be led in prayer by sister Michelle Gorman, after which you will follow me in the pledge.

So let us gather ourselves and be in God's presence again. The book of Proverbs says, above all else, guard your heart for everything else flows from it. Creator God, give us a heart like yours that inspires us to love without reservation, to step out in courageous service to one another, and never to dig up in doubt what we have planted in faith.

Fortify us with your grace to speak kindly, to keep our actions on the upswing, and to refuse to allow any discouragement to infiltrate our spirits. Gracious God, let your light shine through the cracks and splinters of the less than perfect portions of our hearts.

May we forgive ourselves our imperfections and in response, return compassionate love and forgiveness to others. Amen.

Now please join me in the pledge to our flag. I pledge Now we will move to privileges of the floor. Under privilege of the floor, Senator Becker. Senator Becker, from the Majority Leader's desk, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. President. I am pleased to honor an amazing student athlete in my district who is here with us today. Ryan Liu of Burlingame High School was selected as a 2026 California Interscholastic Federation Male Scholar Athlete of the Year. Since 1982, the scholarship award has honored student athletes who excel in the classroom and athletics and are strong contributors to their schools and communities. Brian represents more than 800,000 CIF student athletes and truly embodies what education based athletics should be.

He's dedicated countless hours to athletic achievement while achieving at the highest academic level, all while serving their communities. Brian is captain of the cross country and track teams at Burlingame High School. He's founder and president of the Current Events Club at BHS, also a Panther Pal ambassador. Additionally, for the past three years, he served as an intern and researcher for the Burlingame mayor's office. Thank you, mister president.

He also volunteered with our former colleague, now congressman Kevin Mullen's office. As Ryan said so eloquently upon receiving this award from CIF, trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship are not abstract ideals. They're daily choices in how I engage with my community, building connections that make our hometown stronger for everyone. He will be attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall and received a $10,000 scholarship from CIF.

I'm pleased to honor Ryan with his legislature, legislative resolution jointly signed by my assembly colleagues, Diane Papen and Mark Berman.

Joining Ryan here today are his parents, Kevin and Goldie Lou, and his brother Tyler Lou. We also welcome the executive director of CIF, Ron Nocetti. It is an honor to celebrate Ryan's academic and athletic achievements with my colleagues here in the chamber today. Thank you.

And continuing under privileges of the floor, Senator Allen, you're recognized at the Majority Leader's desk.

Well, thank you so much, mister president. Members, I have great privilege this morning of introducing an extraordinary constituent of mine, our CIF Scholar Athlete of the Year, Mona Tsubawara. Each year, as you know, the California Interscholastic Federation has honored one male and one female high school athlete selected from the more than 800,000 student athletes across our wonderful state.

Folks whose excellence in both academics and athletics not only represent the state's best and brightest, but also you know, help and lift up their classmates and teammates with every step. So, in keeping with tradition, the $10,000 scholarship and title of Scholar Athlete of the Year celebrate the culmination of four years of tenacious dedication, selfless community work, academic brilliance.

Mona here is a four sport varsity athlete and a model student taking 15 AP courses. My goodness. I thought I had a stressful job. Earning a near perfect ACT score, achieving a 4.79 GPA. Mona's athletic career has been a tour de force as well.

Studied with awards and titles including varsity tennis MVP, varsity swimming league champion, head team captain for both varsity badminton and varsity water polo. So four, four letters in different sports. Okay. So beyond her academics, Mona is both first chair bassoon soloist. She's taken on the role of head woodwind captain in her senior year.

She and the rest of the upper leadership have devoted their Monday nights zero periods, which is the hour before school even begins, and two full weeks of summer camp for training and coordinating the band to play and march in perfect unison.

And as though she, she clearly has lots of additional free time, because then then she's able to captain the West High West Torrance High Science Olympiad team, founds and leads the science club, founded and captain the National Science Bowl team, and helps lead the West High National Honor Society chapter. And lest you think that her efforts are only on the campus, she volunteered in local hospitals assisting in the cardiology department serving as a translator for both Japanese and Spanish.

Oh, my goodness gracious.

This is just this is this is too much. Okay. Intern at the local surgery center, started a private tutoring enterprise, and has analyzed over 300 CT scans as a lab research intern. I'm this is I'm flabbergasted. Okay.

So along with Mona, we have the honor of welcoming to the Senate, Ron Nasetti, who is the executive director of the CIF, Mona's mother, Manirat, and father, Nozomu. So as, as, Mona miss Mona's parents, I would just wanna express our gratitude to you for all, you've done to support your daughter's really extraordinary achievements. A very special example of, how bright our future is. As our Scholar Athlete of the Year, we know that Mona will follow in the tremendous footsteps of honorees in the past.

She went on to accomplish really great things in the years that followed.

Women like Sarah Hall in 2001, one of the fastest American women to ever run a marathon and founder of the Hall Steps Foundation supporting youth in Ethiopia. Folks like Eleanor Wickstrom in 2020 became a Rhodes Scholar studying at the intersection of US, foreign policy and imperialism and global information systems at Oxford, who also performed her poetry at the United Nations at the age of 17. We know that you've all accomplished so much in your life, Mona.

We are really excited to see all that you will do, as your life goes along. It's it's a great honor to, represent you in the state Senate and to recognize your extraordinary achievements so far here on our Senate floor.

Members, let's give an incredible, congratulations, a hearty congratulations to the the 2026 Scholar Athlete of the Year, Mona Sugawara.

Go Bruins. Mona looks awfully alert for a person who clearly has no time to sleep. And, continuing under privileges of the floor, Senator McNerney, at the Majority Leader's desk, you are recognized.

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, today I have the high honor and privilege of welcoming a a distinguished delegation from China's Jiangsu Province. They are visiting here today to further deepen the relations and ties between California state Senate and the Jiangsu provisional people's government in conjunction with the fifteenth anniversary of our sister state relationship. Jiangsu is China's leading provinces in terms of finance, technology, and tourism. It also leads in research and education, hosting 168 institutions of higher education, characteristics it shares with California.

I met with the delegation and I can tell you what, this is a a province with only one percent of the population that has 80,000,000 people, and they are manufacturing wind turbines, which I am partial to, solar panels, and a lot of other stuff. It's really quite an honor to have them here with us.

While visiting, they will also be participating in an event at the San Francisco Zoo celebrating crane cow, the story of a red crowned cane named crane named after California when escorted when it escorted governor Newsom and his delegation in a 2023 visit to the Wetlands Ray Rare Birds National Reserve. Now the video showed this crane walking in front of the delegation. It was really cute to see that.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity of recognizing them today and renewing the relationship between our institution of this California State Senate and the important Chinese province. Please join me in warmly welcoming these three government officials from the foreign affairs office of the Jiangsu provisional governments, to the California State Senate. The three of them, the leader is Frank, Lu Phan, Amelia, Yu Minxiu Wan, and Lily Wan, Wu Yu. Thank you. And give them a warm California well, welcome to California.

Welcome to the California State Senate. And now, Senator Ochoa Bogh, from the Majority Leader's desk, you are recognized.

Good morning, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, joining me today to celebrate California Taxpayers Association's one hundredth anniversary are Robert Gutierrez, president of the California Taxpayers Association, and John Shmielak, chair of Caltech's board of directors. Caltech is California's oldest and largest taxpayer advocacy organizations and has been advocating for sound tax policy and government efficiency since 1926. Organizations like Caltechs play an important role in ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly and tax policies are fair and predictable for all Californians.

Caltechs was founded on nonpartisan and nonpolitical principles so the association could bring about the greatest possible economies consistent with efficiency in the collection and expenditure of public monies.

CalTax has always supported policies that promote transparency, fairness, and accountability in tax laws. This includes one of their earliest victories in which they played a key role in legislation that required counties to prepare formal budgets, providing transparency for all Californians and Californians. Over the years, they've worked to defeat unnecessary tax increases and have worked directly with governors, legislators, county assessors, and tax agencies to ensure that California's taxpayers are always represented.

They've also played a role in the outcome of many ballot initiatives and court cases, and they never stop working to promote and support policies that make California more affordable to businesses and consumers alike. These are just a few examples demonstrating Caltech's long standing commitment to advocating on behalf of California's taxpayers, and I have no doubt they will continue to provide this excellent service for another one hundred years.

Please join me in welcoming Rob and John to the Senate and and in honoring the California Taxpayers Associations on their one hundredth anniversary.

And we all plan on being around for the next one. Right? And Senator Ochoa Bogh from the Majority Leader's desk, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and generals of the Senate, I have the great pleasure to have had the, pleasure of hosting my district staff in Sacramento. They've been seeing firsthand the life in the capital, meeting with key stakeholders, seeing the legislative process, and trying our classic Sacramento cuisine. We all know how hard our district office, works to stay informed with local issues, facilitate connections between communities, and build meaningful relationships with constituents, and my staff is absolutely no exception to that.

So it is with great pride and appreciation that I ask you to please give a warm Senate welcome to my team.

We have Nick Calero, my district director, William Boyd, Armando Martinez, Emily Davalos, Ariel Solis, and Millet Lusaraga Gaetan up in the gallery with me today. Please welcome help me welcome them to the California State Senate.

Welcome to Sacramento, California's God country. Okay. Now, messages from the governor will be deemed read. Excuse me. Messages from the assembly will be deemed read.

Reports of committees will be deemed read and amendments adopted. Under, motions, resolutions, and notices, first, pursuant to Senate rule twenty nine ten, the following bill is referred to the committee on rules, file item 45, AB 782. And further, Senator Menjivar, you are recognized.

Mister president, I request to rescind the vote on file item a 79, AB 1457, and place the item on third reading.

Senator Valladares.

I'd like to request a no vote.

We will take a roll call on that motion. Senator Menjivar is asking for an Aye vote. Senator Valladares is asking for a no vote. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Please call the absent.

[Roll Call]

The Ayes are 28. The Noe are 9. The motion carries. Now moving to consideration of the daily file. Secretary, please read.

The only thing we have to take up is the consent calendar. This is just a packed agenda today. Does anybody, want to have any item pulled off of the consent calendar? Seeing none, secretary, please read.

Assembly Concurrent Resolution 129, 164 and Assembly Concurrent Resolution 166.

Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The Ayes are 38. The Noes are 0. Item 49 passes. The same vote applied to items 50 and 51.

Now returning to motions and resolutions, we have adjourn in memory motions. And first, Senator Becker, you're recognized.

Colleagues, I rise today to join a memory of Clarence Jones. It's hard to summarize the life of a man like Clarence Jones in a few minutes, so I'll start by relying on the words of Martin Luther King himself. He said, ever since I've known mister Jones, I've always seen him as a man of sound judgment, deep insights, and great dedication. I'm also convinced he's a man of great integrity.

Throughout each of his ninety five years, Clarence showed this to be an apt description of who he was.

Born in Philadelphia in 1931, he went to Columbia University before being drafted. He would go on to earn his bachelor of law degree from Boston University and moved to Altadena, California in 1960. Then he joined the legal team of Martin Luther King Junior and went on to become his confidant, his strategist, adviser, and friend. So in April 1963, Clarence Jones was the one who smuggled, you know, those pieces of paper and, like, even margins of newspaper, scraps of paper, toilet paper that he smuggled out.

That became the letter from Birmingham Jail.

Clarence Jones was the one who smuggled out a lot of those papers. And here's a fun historical fact. Jones helped to he helped secure the bail money for doctor Jones and the others by flying to meet Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York, who gave Jones the bail funds directly from his family's vault at Chase Manhattan Bank. He would go on. He helped craft Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech.

Can you imagine that having worked on the I Have a Dream speech? I first learned about mister Jones through my friend Larry Moody, and we met him at a ceremony in East Palo Alto did to it was one of three cities selected to focus on honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. And I met him there, and I later learned more and more about him. For example, he chaired a group called Spill the Honey.

This is a platform dedicated to fostering and strengthening black Jewish alliances, which is a cause he was very passionate about.

He told CBS News, the black community and the Jewish community, that allowance alliance was so powerful, it turned the country around. Short film grand jury prize. It's called the baddest speechwriter of all. Trees and they named a play area in his honor at the newest and largest childcare center in San Mateo County. Even though he's in his late nineties in a wheelchair, I still remember kinda kneeling by him to speak to him and just being just kinda blown away by his presence.

After King's assassination, he would become a dedicated defender of King's legacy. He taught at Stanford and at UC at USF, University of San Francisco, he cofounded their Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice. His work reminds us that there are countless unsung heroes in the world, people who are working quietly and diligently behind the scenes to change things for the better for all of us. For a man who has seen so much suffering and experienced so much hate, he never lost his spirit or sense of justice.

Like Clarence Jones, not all heroes stand in the spotlight. It's important to remember societies held together by the unsung heroes whose names we may never know. He left a lasting legacy. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to adjourn the Senate in his honor.

Please bring, the name forward so that he may be properly recognized. And Senator Wiener, you are recognized.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Colleagues, today I rise to adjourn. Let me start over again. Thank you very much, mister president. Colleagues today, I rise to ask that the Senate adjourn in memory of a truly great San Franciscan and a giant in the San Francisco Jewish community, Rita Semmel, who passed away on May 13, at the very young age of 104.

And Rita, it's hard to overstate her presence in San Francisco as a leader for decades and decades in the San Francisco Jewish community, but also as one of the founders of the San Francisco Interfaith Council. Rita believed deeply in interfaith connections, and she worked hard throughout her life to ensure that people of all faiths were working together to address our city's largest challenges around poverty and homelessness and so many other needs and it was really part of her DNA.

And we will be forever grateful to Rita for her leadership and her vision. Rita is a native was a native of New York who found her way to San Francisco like so many of us did, and she was just a tireless advocate. She believed deeply that San Francisco's diversity was our greatest strength, not something that separates us, but something that brings us together.

She fostered deep relationships in so many communities. She was recognized endlessly, by with award after award too many to list here because that's who Rita was. When she had her when she turned a 100, there was a huge celebration, and there were she received blessings from every faith in existence, at Temple Emanuel, in San Francisco.

She served, for more than a decade on the city's Human Services Commission, And again, I just cannot overstate the strength of her leadership and the impact that she had on San Francisco. I actually saw Rita just about a week before she passed away.

I could tell that she was not quite as Perky as she normally was, and she obviously was, you know, in her in the last week of her life. But it was so Rita that at the age of 104, when she was only a a week before she was passing, she was still sitting there in the front row of a community event. Just an extraordinary, human being on all levels. So colleagues, please join me in adjourning the Senate in the memory of Rita Semmel.

May her memory be a blessing.

Please bring her name forward so that she may be properly recognized. Thank you. And now Senator Rubio frugal. Rubio

You're recognized.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, please help me adjourn in the memory of deputy Levi Vargas of the LA County Sheriff's department who worked in my district in the city of San Dimas. He's a graduate of Reuben Ayala High School in Chino Hills. Deputy Vargas served as an eleven year veteran of the department. He joined in 2015 at the age of 19 as a custody assistant, later graduating from the academy class four thirteen.

Over the years, he worked various custody assignments at different jail facilities before moving to NoWAC and later San Dimas Station. Deputy Vargas came from a law enforcement family with his mother working as an LA County sheriff's deputy department head, and father worked as a correctional officer. From an early age, Vargas showed a strong interest in law enforcement. He would wear sheriff's clothing, costumes. He would play with guns and swords.

He wanted to pretend he was a soldier in the army. Deputy Vargas was also involved in sports from a young age, a love he carried throughout his life, playing football, soccer, and basketball as a child and in high school. He later joined the sheriff's department's soccer team. Deputy Vargas was known for his calm demeanor, kindness, professionalism, and compassion towards the communities he served.

Sheriff Robert Luna described him as someone who loved being a deputy in LA County and referred to the department as his second family and home.

Deputy Vargas was married to Amanda Vargas, whom he met just before her father's death. She said he was my lifeboat and my light in a dark season of my life. His life and story remind us of the power of public service and what true friendship and companionship looks like. No matter what we do or where we come from, Deputy Vargas' example shows us that everyone can create meaningful change in their communities.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, please join me in adjourning in the memory of deputy Levi Vargas. Thank you.

Please bring the name forward so that he may be properly recognized. If there is no other business, Pro Tem Limon, the desk is clear.

Thank you, Members. The next floor session is scheduled for Monday, June 8 at 2PM. Thank you.

Thank you. The Senate will be in recess until 03:30, at which time an adjournment motion will be made. We reconvene Monday, June 8 at 2PM.