Tag Archives: Lloyd Levine

Uncategorized

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez Co-Authors ‘Death With Dignity’ Legislation

2 Comments

(Cross-posted from the The Courage Campaign)

In February 2005, Assemblywoman Patty Berg (D-Eureka) first introduced AB651, the California Compassionate Choices Act, which was modeled after Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law, the Death With Dignity Act. Despite support from a majority of Californians for right to die legislation, the bill didn't even reach the governor's desk thanks to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Joe Dunn who, well, ended its life in committee last year.

Here is what Frank Russo wrote at the time.

Senator Dunn stated that when he gaveled up the committee, he had not decided whether to support or oppose the bill. With the overflow audience sitting on the edge of their seats, he described it as a “very difficult issue.” He stated he “wanted to speak from the heart, for a moment or two, with no notes.” For twenty minutes, he brought up arguments, both pro and con and then stated “I think the inquiry needs to go deeper.” At the end, he announced he was voting against it “with a heavy heart” because of bioethical concerns that were not answered.

In a related story, from the LA Times:

Dunn is now executive director of the California Medical Assn., which represents 35,000 doctors. Association officials oppose the legislation, saying that it contradicts a doctor's ethical duties.

Well, as with many bills that don't succeed their first time around, this year, thanks to a newly supportive Fabian Nunez, the California Compassionate Choices Act may have a second chance at life…

Calling himself a "Johnny-come-lately" to the issue, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez announced Thursday that he will back a bill to allow terminally ill people to hasten their deaths with lethal prescriptions.

The new bill, AB 374, can be read in full HERE. Co-author Lloyd Levine summed it up in the Democratic weekly radio address:

Our bill acknowledges the right of a terminally ill adult of sound mind with less than six months to live to ask for and receive life-ending medication. The bill has multiple layers of safeguards, even more than Oregon’s law, to ensure that only those whose lives are already at an end may exercise this right.

Patty Berg posted a piece on California Progress Report on Friday explaining the importance of such legislation and why she is reintroducing it:

Californians want to be able to discuss ALL their options with their physician if they are terminally ill. They need to know about hospice care, and about pain management. They want to be able to have these conversations in a way that respects their fundamental right to privacy – a civil right.

That is the core of the Compassionate Choices Act. It is about the freedom of the individual to make choices – and the freedom for your choices to be different from my choices.

Berg is optimistic about its chances this time around.

The Compassionate Choices Act…has a better chance of passage than ever before. We have more supporters and more co-authors, and we now have the determined partnership of our newest joint author, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez.

For Nunez's part, his biggest obstacle to supporting such legislation in the past has been his Catholic faith. This year, however:

Nuñez said he is "ready to buck my church," despite an entreaty from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. The Catholic Church, which is against suicide, helped defeat the previous "death with dignity" legislation.

Salladay has an interesting (read: disturbing) collection of reactions to this news from religious groups HERE.

So, what made Nunez change his mind?

He said Berg and her fellow author, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), persuaded him that the proposal, modeled on a 9-year-old Oregon law, is not about suicide but about "how people are going to live the last days of their lives."

"They're going to die," Nuñez said of those who would qualify for the lethal drugs. "The question is how much pain and suffering is involved and how much of that person's dignity is taken away from him or her."

And after all, as The Mercury News points out in an editorial in support of the legislation,

In Oregon, which passed its right-to-die law in 1997, people say it's a comfort to know that they can die peacefully and on their own terms. But fewer than 25 each year have taken advantage of that right. It hasn't encouraged euthanasia nor made the state a haven for those wishing to commit suicide.

I'm glad to see Speaker Nunez lending his considerable weight to this legislation this year. While I've been fortunate enough not to have to deal with the issue first hand, the right to die with dignity, to determine the quality of our lives and how we live our final days, just strikes me as so fundamental; as Assemblywoman Berg says, it is about that basic progressive value freedom of choice. I'm happy to see it is being championed here in California.

Uncategorized

Lloyd Levine enters race for Senate in the 23rd

6 Comments

Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, who currently represents the 40th Assembly district in the western San Fernando Valley, has made it official: he’ll be running for Senate in the 23rd (West L.A., Santa Monica, West San Fernando Valley, southwest Ventura County).  This is the seat currently held by Senator Sheila Keuhl, who will be termed out in ’08.

Levine’s Chief of Staff, Stuart Waldman, has already announced his candidacy for his boss’ vacated seat in the 40th.

California

Dan Walters on LGBT Harassment in School’s: Nothing Moral about Stopping it

Dan Walters doesn’t dig on “mandating propaganda.” Alright then, well, I assume Mr. Walters was in an outrage when Sec 51204.5, which mandates the study of various ethnic groups, first became law and was studiously pursuing the revision of the entire law. I’m sure he was also up in arms about the provision of law which requires that, “No teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race…”  Well, no you say?  He only began criticizing the law when Sheila Kuehl introduced legislation to include the LGBT community in its provisions?  Well, isn’t that convenient.

Sure, Dan will point out that he was livid, livid I tell you, about the Hindu American Foundation suing the state.  Back in April Dan summarized the case as: “Implicitly, the suit is telling state officials that the textbooks must be altered to reflect the Hindu American Foundation’s version of the ethnic group’s history – regardless of what that history may truly be.”

Well, let’s go look what remedy the complaint actually sought…an educated, balanced perspective rather than an ill-informed and biased one. Amongst other things, some of which are shall we say, a bit more propagandist, the complaint seeks a fair description of Hindu beliefs as Hindus beleive. (The exact language: “description of Hindu theology and its understanding of divinity be consistent with the understanding of practicing Hindus”) gasp!! These people want to descibe their religion accurately! How terrible that would be.

But the more intersting part of Walters’ argument regards Lloyd Levine’s AB 606.  After describing the provisions, Walters goes on to inform the reader of Levine’s thoughts. Wow, who knew the Bee had a columnist with ESP?!

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Los Angeles, is carrying Assembly Bill 606, which has moved through the Assembly and the Senate Education Committee on party-line votes. Ostensibly, it would require school districts to be more proactive in preventing discrimination and harassment of those with non-heterosexual orientations, building on a 1999 Kuehl-written law that made such discrimination and harassment illegal.

A few passages in the bill, however, are generating political heat from conservative “pro-family” groups. One would give the state schools superintendent enforcement powers, including the ability to withhold state funds for any school district deemed to be insufficiently diligent, and suggests that classroom instruction would be a factor. Another provision, just eight words long, would repeal a provision of Kuehl’s 1999 legislation, added to gain its enactment, that exempted curriculum from scrutiny in harassment and discrimination allegations.

Together, those sections of the Levine bill, opponents say, are a backdoor way of requiring pro-gay instruction similar to what Kuehl’s current bill mandates. They’re calling on Schwarzenegger to reject it as well. The criticism about the bill’s true intent is probably accurate.

Treating all people, regardless of sexual orientation, with absolute equality is one thing. In seeking such equality in marriages and other fields, gay rights advocates, it could be said, are occupying the moral high ground. There’s nothing moral about legally mandating propaganda of any kind in the classroom.  (SacBee 7/14/06)

Levine’s AB 606 seeks to deter “discrimination and harassment.”  The 1999 bill excepted the curriculum.  Why? Well, ask the Right.  But why should we accept harassment and discrimination in the curriculum? AB 606 doesn’t request a whitewashing of say…the AIDS epidemic. It merely empowers the State Superintendent to ensure that students of California are receiving a fair curriculum, not propaganda.  AB 606 helps to ensure a hospitable environment for all of California’s students, and that’s a goal we all should share.