Capitol Briefs: Card room, prison sexual assault, Ticketmaster bills move forward

It has been one heck of a busy week, but even as we write these words lawmakers are wrapping things up and readying for their month-long vacation. Here’s a smattering of things you might have missed from all the action.

Measure to allow tribes to sue over cardrooms moves forward: By a 15-1 vote, the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization endorsed SB 549, a bill from Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) that would grant casino-owning Native American tribes standing to sue cardrooms they say are running “banked” card games. The tribes contend that under 2000’s voter-approved Proposition 1A they have exclusive rights to run those games in California, but have consistently had their lawsuits tossed over a lack of legal standing. In testimony before the committee, Newman said his measure would grant tribes that standing for a one-time lawsuit to “address this now decades-old question purely on its merits.”

The measure now moves to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

Ticketmaster bill earns pass to next round: Another hotly contested bill – SB 785, which would make significant changes to how entertainment tickets are bought and sold in California – is also moving ahead to Assembly Appropriations. The Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer protection, which has been roiled by contentious behind the scenes bickering all session – endorsed the bill on a 5-0 vote, with two abstentions.

The measure has garnered support from groups like the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), which contends the bill “addresses the major challenges independent venues and promoters face with regard to fraudulent tickets or massively overpriced tickets on third-party platforms that hurt our reputations.”

Opposition groups like the Consumer Federation of California note that California is one of dozens of states suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for violating antitrust laws against illegal monopolies. Further noting how long such cases tend to take to wind through the court system, the Consumer Federation argues “the California Legislature should act now to significantly trim the wings of the monopoly.”

PBM regulation measure one step closer: The Assembly Judiciary Committee endorsed SB 966, a proposal from Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) that would impose a suite of new regulations on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which act as middlemen between drug makers and health care plans. Under Wiener’s proposal, PBMs would have to be licensed by the California Department of Insurance and be barred from using “spread pricing,” where it charges a plan more for a drug than it pays a pharmacy. After being endorsed on a 10-1 vote, the measure moves now to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

Now you see a counter crime measure, now you don’t: On Monday, Senate pro tem Mike McGuire told the Sacramento Press Club that he and his Democratic colleagues were ready to push forward with a ballot measure of their own to counter a tough-on-crime measure that would overhaul large parts of Prop. 47 already set to go before voters in November. Then, on Tuesday night Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was scrapping that proposal, ostensibly because there was not enough time to get the final proposal together before he was flying out to Washington D.C. to convene with other Democratic governors for a meeting with President Joe Biden. He said he would, however, sign the package of anti-crime bills that will be heading to his desk sometime soon.

Move to stem prison sexual assault moves ahead: The Assembly Public Safety Committee approves SB 898, a bill from Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) that would implement several protections for incarcerated people from sexual abuse by guards and staff. The measure, which would also provide safeguards for whistleblowers, moves to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

And before you go: It’s wildfire season, and according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, there have already been close to 300,000 total fire emergency responses in 2024 so far. With that in mind, the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Tuesday considered SB 1014, a bill from Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) that would require the Deputy Director of Community Wildlife Preparedness and Mitigation to prepare a Wildfire Risk Mitigation Planning Framework sufficient to quantitatively evaluate wildfire risk actions. Alas, we’re going to have to wait a while to know the bill’s fate as the committee sent it to the suspense file. And so it goes.

Capitol Weekly intern Juliana Bolton of CSU Long Beach contributed to this story.