Posts Tagged: lawmakers
Opinion
OPINION: This year’s state budget contains an unprecedented investment in California’s public libraries. The $439 million earmarked by Gov. Newsom and the Legislature for renovating and modernizing local libraries will provide decades of ongoing benefits to millions of Californians and the communities in which they live.
Opinion
OPINION: The worry of a mother for her child never ends. I am the sole caretaker of my adult daughter who suffers from multiple rare diseases. Her conditions hold her from living independently. During her 35 years of life and her 12 years of living with her chronic conditions, I cannot remember the many times that she almost died.
Opinion
OPINION: California can once again be a national leader in pushing for cost-savings reforms in the healthcare field by being the first in the nation to address the practice of rebate policies that can bring balance and competition back to the pharmaceutical marketplace, which will help drive down drug costs and improve patient care. This policy challenge is called a rebate wall.
Opinion
OPINION: As legislators reconvened this month, they returned to a relatively empty Capitol building. Why, then, are they pursuing a $1.3 billion Capitol Annex “renovation” project? Cognitive dissonance is the most charitable explanation I can conjure for this costly boondoggle proceeding amidst the COVID-induced economic disaster that’s destroying the lives of Californians and plunging countless in the state into poverty
News
A fight is brewing in the Capitol – about the Capitol. It’s all about plans to build a new Visitors Center beneath the domed West Wing and demolish the 68-year-old East Annex, replacing it with one of three proposed buildings.
News
When Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom concluded the chaotic legislative year Wednesday — his deadline to sign or veto bills — what emerged wasn’t the sweeping platform he and state lawmakers had outlined at the beginning of the year. But the dozens of health care measures they approved included first-in-the-nation policies to require more comprehensive coverage of mental health and addiction, and thrusting the state into the generic drug-making business.
Opinion
OPINION: With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, expectant mothers of color in California now face two battles at once: potential exposure to a deadly virus, and long-standing inadequate access to the best prenatal and maternal healthcare. And as the Black Lives Matter protests and national conversations around racial injustice continue to spread across California, it is more important than ever that California lawmakers address the systemic racial health disparities that plague our communities and give rise to this lack of access.
News
In the California Legislature, all types of legislative measures (bills, resolutions and constitutional amendments), as well amendments to those measures, can only be introduced or processed if they are in “Legislative Counsel form.” The purpose is to ensure greater consistency in California’s statutes. The nonpartisan Office of the Legislative Counsel serves as legal counsel and bill drafters to California legislators and the governor.
News
Proposition 14, the fall ballot measure to save California’s stem cell agency from financial extinction, contains much, much more than the $5.5 billion that it is seeking from the state’s voters. Added to the agency’s charter would be research involving mental health, “therapy delivery,” personalized medicine and “aging as a pathology.“ That is not to mention a greater emphasis on supporting “vital research opportunities” that are not stem cell-related.
Opinion
OPINION: In anticipation of a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine, lawmakers in California must extend the authority of pharmacists to administer all vaccines approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
A sign beckons library users with a compelling message. (Photo: Becky Ruppel, via California State Library)
