Successful legislative year made possible with stable budget, decreased GOP obstruction

by Brian Leubitz

Even if you only judge a legislative session on landmark legislation, 2013 was a banner year. The long awaited immigrant drivers license bill finally came to fruition. The minimum wage increase will make a big difference for large swaths of Californians. The LIFE Act gun safety legislation will help make guns a bit more safe, while continuing the pressure for thorough federal legislation.

You may notice that this year also featured a relatively smooth budget process, and few of the late night negotiation sessions which continually marked the last decade. George Skelton thinks that some of the structural reforms are staring to kick in:

It helped, of course, to be freed from a years-long budget crisis. No longer are the governor and legislators preoccupied with fighting over which public services to whack. Credit past cutting, a recovering economy and Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase last year.

But just as important, some recent voter-enacted reforms are starting to take hold. Specifically:

• Looser term limits. Allowed to serve 12 years in one house, new legislators aren’t arriving in the Capitol searching for their next job. They have a greater sense of stability.

Skelton then goes on to point to the redistricting commission and the top two primary system before lauding Gov. Brown’s previous experience as a tool for legislative success. It is hard to argue with any of these, except maybe Top 2. I’m not sure that any of the Dem on Dem races would have really changed all that much on any of these major pieces of legislation. Would Betsy Butler or Michael Allen have voted that differently, or really changed the tenor of the debate? I would submit that Top 2 really doesn’t accomplish all that much except create a whole lot more of campaign spending.

But, on the flip side, it seems apparent that the biggest one really was the redistricting in that it enabled Democrats to capture supermajorities, even if only temporary. It put the Republicans in a mood to work across lines if they cared to get anything major done. There were to be no trailer bills to save their priorities this year, as Prop 30 meant that the state wasn’t seeking new revenue and Prop 25 meant that the Democrats weren’t looking for Republican budget votes.

In a more perfect world, we would have a sane and robust political opposition. But the GOP, statewide and nationally, has opted for a position outside of the mainstream. And for California that means that the state is better off with them in a minority position where they are unable to obstruct the real work needed for Californians.

Last minute legislation is pouring through both chambers

by Brian Leubitz

Session is technically scheduled to start at close of business tomorrow. However, with Yom Kippur starting tomorrow at sunset, legislative leaders are hoping to close up shop tonight. There are a number key piece of legislation in play today. Here are a few highlights:

• Gun safety – You can find a quick summary of the gun safety legislation in this WaPo article. Forgive the journalist his folly saying that the legislators could face political blowback. Apparently he thinks that the politics in Colorado is somehow a reasonable analog for California. It is not. However, here are a few highlights from the “LIFE ACT” (PDF):
  
  • require gun owners to report stolen guns within a week
  • further limits who can own a gun, and requires gun owners lock up their guns around people who aren’t eligible
  • limits assault rifles: semi-automatic magazines limited to ten rounds, increases registration requirements
• Minimum wage – Luis Alejo’s AB10 to increase the minimum wage to $10 by 2016 has the support of both legislative leaders and the Governor.
• Domestic workers – Asm. Tom Ammiano’s AB 241 domestic workers bill of rights would provide all domestic workers who care for California’s homes and families with some of the basic labor protections they have been denied for decades. The Senate passed it yesterday, but the Governor has not said anything about the bill. Which way he will go is unclear.
• CEQA – It looks like at least some reform will get done. Sen. Steinberg’s SB 743 doesn’t completely overhaul the system, but it does ease restrictions on infill projects, especially ones close to public transit.
• Bay Bridge – The Legislature passed a resolution to rename the Bay Bridge in honor of Willie Brown. The governor opposed it, on the basis that our names for the bridges are good enough as they are. However, as it is a resolution, the Governor doesn’t have a veto.

As somebody who uses the Bay Bridge frequently, I tend to agree with the Governor on this last one. It isn’t a new road, the name has been the same for the better part of three generations. While Willie Brown is certainly a legend to the state and the region, I liked the name Bay Bridge. I have to imagine that the old name won’t go away quickly.

There will surely be more to come as the legislative session wraps up this evening; I’ll try to update with anything major.

Resolution gets a few Republican votes

by Brian Leubitz

Republicans don’t go out of their way to support LGBT Californians. That being said, it is hard for them to vote against veterans, no matter the cause. So, it was quite the conflict when Richard Pan’s AJR 19 rolled through the Legislature. The resolution calls on the federal government to provide equal benefits for LGBT veterans. But the measure got several Republican votes in both houses.

“Today California is united in recognizing the service of every veteran and correcting the injustices our LGBT veterans have endured for so long,” Dr. Pan said. “I applaud recent efforts by the Obama Administration to provide equal benefits for all veterans, but there is still much work to do.  I am hopeful that our leaders in Washington will heed this bipartisan call for equality and do right by the veterans who have put their lives on the line defending our country.”

“AJR 19 raises all of California’s voice in demanding that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender veterans be treated equally,” said John O’Connor, EQCA executive director. “These veterans risk their safety to defend all of our equality, and California has a duty to demand equal treatment for them. We hope the rest of the country will follow.”

The biggest issue here is the punishment handed out under DADT, and its even harsher predecessor, while it was in effect. From 1980 until the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in 2011, over 32,000 service personnel were separated from the Armed Forces of the United States under DADT and its predecessor policies. Because these discharges were sometimes characterized as “dishonorable” or “other than honorable,” many of these service personnel and their spouses became ineligible for veterans benefits.

In 2012, the legislature passed Dr. Pan’s AB 1505, establishing that that if the federal government acts to reinstate benefits to discharged veterans who were denied those benefits solely on the basis of sexual orientation serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, California shall also reinstate to those veterans any state-offered benefits.  The federal government has yet to broadly reinstate such benefits.

Trust Act would allow discretion to enforce ICE requests

by Brian Leubitz

As if to show just how polarized our nation is, California is moving towards a more humane program for immigration enforcement, just as other states are rushing past the boundaries of sanity (and the Constitution) to show how anti-immigrant they truly are. On Monday, the Senate passed Tom Ammiano’s AB 4, the so-called Trust Act, to allow local officials discretion on enforcement of voluntary ICE requests.

The bill – passed Thursday on a 24-10 vote – seeks to reduce the deportation of Californians under the discredited S-Comm program. The federal program, ostensibly designed to expel people with serious convictions, has instead resulted in the deportation of more than 95,000 people. More than two-thirds of those had either never been convicted of any crime, or convicted only of low level offenses.

The bill allows local jails to detain people for extra time after receiving requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement if the person has been convicted of a crime designated as a severe or violent felony. Local officials will still have the discretion to hold people, or grant release on bail, as the severity of charges warrant. These ICE requests are voluntary, according to the California Attorney General.

There are many problems with the status quo, but to really understand why it is so dangerous, consider this. If you knew that you were not in the country legally, would you call the police if you were involved in a domestic violence incident? Or just a plain old robbery? Recent research confirms that the program has led to decreased confidence in the police in Latino communities, where residents report being much less likely to contact law enforcement.

This is dangerous, flat out. End of statement. If we do not allow members of our communities, no matter what their immigration status, to communicate freely with our police officers, we are making their jobs more difficult. And we are making our communities less safe as crimes go unpunished. We are inviting criminals to a whole community of silent victims. It is a toxic brew no matter how you stir it.

Now, Asm. Ammiano tried with a similar bill last year, AB 1081, but that was vetoed. In his veto message, Brown makes a case for the use of discretion at the local level:

…Until we have immigration reform, federal agents shouldn’t try to coerce local law enforcement officers into detaining people who’ve been picked up for minor offenses and pose no reasonable threat to their community.

But I am unable to sign this bill as written. Under the bill, local officers would be prohibited from complying with an immigration detainer unless the person arrested was charged with, or has been previously convicted of, a serious or violent felony. Unfortunately, the list of offenses codified in the bill is fatally flawed because it omits many serious crimes. For example, the bill would bar local cooperation even when the person arrested has been convicted of certain crimes involving child abuse, drug trafficking, selling weapons, using children to sell drugs, or gangs. I believe it’s unwise to interfere with a sheriff’s discretion to comply with a detainer issued for people with these kinds of troubling criminal records.

The significant flaws in this bill can be fixed, and I will work with the Legislature to see that the bill is corrected forthwith.

This bill represents that compromise Brown wanted. It allows sheriffs and police departments to hold violent or dangerous undocumented immigrants under the ICE requests, but also allows communities the flexibility they need to enforce the law. This is still far from the perfect answer, that would require an overhaul of the federal S-Comm program at the very least. In the end, real solutions lie in comprehensive federal immigration reform, something the Republicans in DC seem intent on blocking.

The bill will go back to the Assembly to concur on a few Senate changes, and then back to the governor shortly thereafter.

Photo credit: Tom Ammiano at SF Progressive Convention 2007 by flickr user Steve Rhodes.