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Rendon announces committee assignments
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon released the full list of Assembly committee assignments via Twitter yesterday.
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon released the full list of Assembly committee assignments via Twitter yesterday.
ANALYSIS: One of the long-running points of contention when California courts examine what’s known as “legislative intent” is the judiciary’s general disdain for statements made by the authors of legislation. Those clear-language statements accompanying bills, common in the Capitol, seek to offer guidance and state the purpose and intention of an author’s legislation.
On March 23, about 80 people gathered on a Zoom call to launch Daybreak PAC, a political action committee aimed at moving the California Legislature to the left by supporting progressive candidates and policies. The PAC is headed by activist Jackie Fielder, an unsuccessful state Senate candidate who challenged incumbent Democrat Scott Wiener last year in San Francisco.
When preparing to lobby legislative committees, the focus is on legislative staff and then legislators. There are two types of staff for our purposes: committee and member. Committee staff, referred to as committee consultants, are those who work directly for the legislative policy or fiscal committees. Member staff are those who work directly for an Assembly member or senator.
Lobbyists at the state Capitol have noticed a trend developing over the use of letters to the Daily Journals in the Assembly and Senate as a substitute for making bill amendments. It’s a development little noticed by the public, but it is being closely watched by those with business before the Legislature.
Clearly, Washington, D.C., and Sacramento share many things in common — including such negatives as a hyper-heated political culture, insularity and a pervasive sense of entitlement. And California’s Legislature is obviously based upon the federal legislative model. Nonetheless, their legislative rules are different, so let’s take a look at some of the major distinctions.
The California Nurses Association is still committed to pushing through its controversial universal health care bill despite stiff opposition from the Democratic Assembly Speaker and medical professional organizations. The union has a strong ally in front-runner gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, who says that a single-payer system as proposed in Senate Bill 562 is the best way to provide health care to all.
OPINION: Technology has given us more freedom to choose the way we work, live, travel, and shop. But many Americans are hitting bureaucratic roadblocks on their way find full- and part-time work with peer-to-peer services like Lyft, Postmates, and Handy.
In the Legislature, there are several types of amendments — amendment is a fancy word for “change” — that can be made to any number of measures, including bills, resolutions and constitutional amendments.
This is the third in a series of detailed articles dealing with the inner workings of the California Legislature. In this installment, we focus on the rules surrounding committee hearings, floor actions and special sessions.