Capitol Briefs: Comings, goings and bills oh my

Gonzalez announces joint effort to restore LGBTQ+ crisis line: Lawmakers don’t officially come back into session until January 5^th, but Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles) has already announced plans to introduce a bill that would reestablish the 988 Press 3 LGBTQ+ Youth Suicide Crisis Line, an effort to backfill a program cut by the Trump Administration.

“I am not waiting for this federal administration to realize what they’ve done,” González said in a press release. “Lives are on the line right now, and every day we wait, more LGBTQ+ youth are pushed into crisis. If we stand by, thousands could be lost to suicide. Before this reckless cut, 1.5 million contacts were made to Press 3. That doesn’t happen by accident — that happens because LGBTQ+ youth trust this lifeline and rely on it in their darkest moments.”

He is being joined in the effort by L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn, who announced a board motion to establish a pilot program that, if approved, would allow Los Angeles County residents to access this hotline while a Gonzalez’s legislation is in process.

Initiative cleared for circulation: The office of California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has cleared for circulation a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit how much automobile accident victims could recover for medical expenses and the fees their attorneys may receive.

The proposal would:

• limit the fees such attorneys may receive so victims retain at least 75% of their monetary recovery, but does not restrict fee arrangements for defendants’ attorneys;
• for certain medical expenses, increase victims’ burden of proof and limit the amounts they may recover; and
• prohibit certain financial arrangements between attorneys and medical providers.

The proponents of the measure, John Moffatt and Kurt R. Oneto, now have until June 8, 2026 to collect the signatures of 874,641 registered voters (eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the November 2022 general election) for the measure to become eligible for the ballot.

Comings and goings: A few folks are on the move in the Capitol Community.

• The County Welfare Directors Association of California announced Andrew Cheyne as the organization’s first Managing Director of Government Relations & Public Affairs. Most recently, Andrew served as GRACE and End Child Poverty California’s managing director of public policy. He previously served as SNAP deputy director for the Food Research & Action Center and as the director of government affairs for the California Association of Food Banks.
• The Council of State Bioscience Associations (CSBA) announced the appointment of Mike Guerra, President and Chief Executive Officer of California Life Sciences (CLS), as Chair for a two-year term. Guerra will lead the national coalition of state and territory-based life sciences trade associations representing the grassroots network of innovators, researchers, manufacturers, and accelerators driving America’s bioscience leadership.
• Former Capitol Weekly intern and regular contributor Molly Jacoby has joined the California State Association of Counties as a communications assistant. She will be working on CSAC’s Public Affairs and Member Engagement team. Jacoby, a UC Berkeley graduate, is known in the Capitol community for writing many of the Capitol Weekly Rising Stars profiles.

The Capitol Weekly interns: Speaking of Capitol Weekly interns, we have a new trio set to begin in January. They are:

• Aidan Wyrough, a senior at UC Irvine and a staff writer for the New University, Irvine’s student newspaper.
• Jasleen Kaur, a recent graduate of CSU Sacramento who worked on the State Hornet.
• Chris Ramirez, a recent San Francisco State graduate who has previously reported for Politico, USA Today and the Vallejo Times-Herald.

They will be working alongside Capitol Weekly editor Rich Ehisen as well as senior correspondent Leah O’Tarrow and associate editor Brian Joseph.

Sex abuse survivors protest outside of Assemblymember Ward’s district office: More than a dozen sexual abuse survivors wielding signs reading “[Expletive] Rapists” and “Stand with Survivors” protested outside of Assemblymember Christopher Ward’s San Diego district office today, accusing him of working in secret to push legislation to protect sexual predators.

“Allow us to be respectfully blunt,” wrote the survivors in a letter delivered to the assemblymember’s office. “Although your effort is couched as ‘trying to save tax dollars,’ the only real impact of your efforts, should they become law, is that you will be protecting sexual predators of children from any true accountability for their heinous acts. In essence, you will be protecting sexual predators of children, not children themselves.”

The survivors say that the San Diego Democrat has been laboring behind the scenes to revive elements of a stalled proposal by Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) to change the rules in California for filing civil lawsuits against public entities for child sexual abuse.

That proposal appears to have been sparked by financial concerns out of Los Angeles, where the county has agreed billions of dollars to settle sexual abuse claims filed in the wake of 2019’s AB 218 by then-Assemblymember Lorenza Gonzalez, now the head of the California Federation of Labor Unions.

AB 218 opened a special, three-year window where the survivors of childhood sexual abuse could file civil lawsuits over incidents that were past California’s traditional statute of limitations. The legislation allowed victims to file claims on events that occurred decades in the past, opening numerous institutions within the state to unfathomable liability.

LA County was hit especially hard due to what has been described as hellish conditions at its juvenile facilities dating back to 1959. Immediately upon announcing the settlement, the largest in U.S. history, county officials warned it could affect public services.

Sexual abuse survivors protesting outside Assemblymember Chris Ward’s San Diego office. Image courtesy of Caroline Heldman.

On March 26, nine days before the county disclosed the settlement, Allen swapped out spot bill language in SB 832 for text that would raise the burden of proof for child sexual abuse cases from preponderance of the evidence (greater than 50 percent chance the claim is true) to clear and convincing (85 to 90 percent) and automatically dismiss any cases that rely solely upon a plaintiff’s testimony without any corroborating evidence.

SB 832 would change the law only for child sexual assault lawsuits filed against public entities. Child sex assault lawsuits filed against corporations, nonprofits or individuals, or other lawsuits filed against public entities, would remain unchanged.

The bill has never been heard in committee. Its first hearing, scheduled to be held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, was cancelled at Allen’s request in April.

The survivors protesting outside of Ward’s district office today say he is trying to revive concepts from Allen’s bill in an apparent attempt to address LA County’s concerns that the settlement will drain its resources.

“(T)he current effort by you and others is a classic ‘let’s blame the victims’ strategy, a strategy we survivors assumed the CA legislature had rejected decades ago,” wrote Caroline Heldman, professor of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at Occidental College and the president and CEO of Stand With Survivors, in the letter delivered to Ward’s office today.

The letter is also backed by four other survivor-focused organizations: Female Composers Safety League, Global Hope 365, The Sexual Predator Accountability Institute and Survivirs.org.

“You have thus far in your legislative career always stood with survivors of sexual abuse,” Heldman wrote to Ward. “Your current ‘behind the scenes’ effort can only be seen as an act of betrayal to all survivors of sexual abuse.”

Ward said in a statement to Capitol Weekly that he’d wished he’d have known the protestors would be coming by his office so he could have met with them. “Contrary to the implications in their letter, I want to ensure there is no disconnect in information on this or any important subject,” he said. “As they noted, I’ve worked closely with survivor advocates to enshrine key rights into law, and I take input from a wide range of stakeholders as we address critical issues like exploding liabilities and the risks these pose to public services in our schools, cities, and counties. “As with all legislative work leading up to the February bill introduction deadline, I continue to meet with a range of voices to fully understand the impacts and outcomes of any proposal we may put forward.”