Posts Tagged: Senate
News
There is a growing acceptance in mental health circles that some psychedelics – particularly psilocybin, MDMA, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and mescaline – have great promise for treating certain mental health disorders, including post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. But some observers fear legalizing it could kick off a psilocybin Gold Rush that emphasizes profits over patient care.
Micheli Files
Occasionally I have been asked whether the Legislature’s adopted rules – the Assembly Rules, Senate Rules, and Joint Rules – have equal standing as legislative process rules found in the California Constitution. This question is particularly relevant because these three sets of legislative rules flow from a specific grant of authority in the state Constitution.
News
Today is Election Day and while we won’t be certain who is moving onto the general until after the polls close this evening, there is one group of people we already know are big winners: the campaign consultants. Campaign consultants for state-level races have pocketed more than $10.7 million so far this election cycle, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of expenditure data downloaded last week from the California Secretary of State’s website, Cal-Access.
News
After effectively rewriting the rules of American college athletics with her SB 206 in 2019 – a bill that made California the first state to give student athletes the right earn money from the use by their schools of their name, image and likeness (NIL) – Sen. Nancy Skinner has introduced new legislation (SB 906) seeking to bring some transparency to what has become a Gold Rush for some college athletes and their schools.
Opinion
OPINION – By December, 73 out of 120 state legislators will have left the building in just two years. As term limit reform kicks in, some critics have grumbled that this turnover is damaging, because we’re losing established leaders and decades of accumulated experience. What’s being overlooked is the leadership and experience we’re gaining.
Rising Stars
Julie Cravotto, Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-San Luis Obispo), originally thought she would pursue a career in the public health field, but that ambition quickly came to a halt when she was assigned to a cadaver lab in high school as part of a medical school preparation program. Nonetheless, she learned the invaluable lesson that there are various avenues to serve people in this world besides attending to cadavers.
Opinion
OPINION – There will be another primary election on Tuesday, and the result will be another indictment of this state’s failed top-two primary experiment. It’s time we go back to a system in which we let voters from all parties — Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens – select a candidate in primary elections and then let a battle of contrasting political ideas play out in the fall.
Opinion
OPINION – The opioid epidemic in California is an urgent matter that requires immediate action, particularly with regards to its effects on veterans and their families. It is time for lawmakers in Sacramento to take decisive action and stand up for our veterans in their time of need. We need leaders – policymakers who will lead by example and influence – to optimize better treatment methods for our veterans and help tackle an untapped salient issue, long overdue.
Micheli Files
We hear most often in the California Legislature that a rule is being “waived” or that someone is seeking a “rule waiver.” However, many rules may be “dispensed with” or “suspended,” rather than waived. So, what is the correct terminology to be used? Fortunately, or unfortunately, all of the above is the answer, depending on the specific rule.
News
Lobbyist employers, otherwise known as special interests, paid firms a little more than $77 million to lobby California state government in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of lobbying firm reports. That figure doesn’t include all of the funds spent on lobbying during the fourth quarter. Lobbying firm disclosure reports don’t include wages and expenses for in-house lobbyists, for example.
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