Posted on 08/22/2004 8:01:00 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - More than 700 bills - including measures to ban smoking on state beaches, protect the state's oldest trees and set nutritional standards for school food - face life-or-death votes this week as legislators try to wrap up their 2004 session four days early.
Also on lawmakers' agendas are proposals to deal with the state's energy problems, help Californians obtain lower-cost prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies and allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.
The deadline for action on most bills isn't until Aug. 31, but both houses hope to adjourn by Friday to enable Republican lawmakers to attend the GOP national convention, which begins next Monday in New York City.
"We have until the 31st, but we are going to move with all deliberate speed to get everything wrapped up" by Friday, said Gabriel Sanchez, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.
Besides deciding the fate of hundreds of bills, Democrats will try to agree Tuesday on a successor to the Senate's leader, President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, who is being forced from office by term limits.
Democrats have 25 of the Senate's 40 seats and can determine who will hold the house's most powerful post without Republican votes - if they can agree on a candidate. Sens. Martha Escutia, D-Norwalk, and Don Perata, D-Oakland, are the leading contenders.
The bills awaiting votes include Sen. Gil Cedillo's legislation to allow illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses. Gov. Gray Davis signed a Cedillo bill last year giving immigrants that right, but it was repealed after Davis was recalled.
Cedillo has been trying to negotiate a compromise with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the deal seems to be stalled because of the Republican governor's insistence on some indication on the license that the driver is in the country illegally.
Supporters of Cedillo's legislation say that's a scarlet-letter-type distinction that could lead to discrimination against the license holder.
Also facing votes this weeks is Nunez's bill to try to avoid a repeat of the blackouts and price spikes that hit California's electricity market in 2000 and 2001.
It would require utilities to forecast their electricity needs years into the future and show how they will meet that demand, in part through energy conservation programs.
Schwarzenegger opposes this bill because it wouldn't allow utility customers to shop around for cheaper power. The governor and private energy companies also complain that the bill favors utilities in bidding to build new power plants.
Also needing approval this week are bills that would:
- Bar smoking on state beaches unless the local government with jurisdiction wanted a weaker restriction or no ban.
- Set up Web sites to help Californians buy lower-cost prescriptions through Canadian pharmacies.
- Ban logging of trees that were in existence when California became a state.
- Set nutritional standards for school food.
- Make it easier for news reporters to interview prison inmates.
- Allow pharmacies to sell hypodermic needles without a doctor's prescription, a step supporters say would help stem the spread of AIDS.
- Require health insurance plans to cover maternity services and domestic partners.
- Move the state's primary election from early March to the traditional June date, giving up efforts to boost California's clout in picking presidential nominees.
- Raise financial penalties for employers who violate equal pay requirements for women.
- Require businesses to give consumers at least 30 days to file for rebates.
- Bar homeowner associations from foreclosing on members' homes when they fail to pay assessments of less than $2,500.
- Raise the minimum wage from $6.75 to $7.75 by July 1, 2006.
- Put information about registered sex offenders on the Internet.
- Require prisons to develop rehabilitation plans for each inmate.
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On the Net: www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov
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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Coleman contributed to this report.
Great idea. Maybe the lawmakers should show how it's done by forcasting how much money they'll squander in the future and how they're going to pay for it.
If anyone has any curiosity as to why California is so totally screwed up, you only need to read this list of bills pending enactment.
The only thing there I would vote for would be a 30-day rebate window, but that is my personal bias and it really doesn't need to be a law.
I bet "pistol packing Don Perrata" would be a great D candidate to help drive California further into the hole it's been digging for years. Glad his Ammo Tax bill did not go through. Asswipe!
Interesting that the list doesn't include all the gun legislation that is pending.
Might be nice to see a summary of all the bills pending like this in all state and federal congress sessions. Maybe something like that already exists, but I am unaware of it. Anyone know a good resource out there?
Your lives, liberty and fortune are generally safe when the legislature isn't in session . . .
I was told by a gun store employee that the .50 BMG ban will not include only the BMG. He said the bill includes all cartridge 50 caliber ammo. That includes the 50 AE, the new Smith 500, and replica antique ammo.
He said it's the same bill as before. Only before it didn't specify modern or blackpowder. That's why it didn't pass before, because of concerns re blackpowder.
This is way frustrating.
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