Legislature Continues on Accelerated Pace, CHEAC Measure Passes to Senate

This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee assembled for their house of origin hearing this year. Members of the committee met to hear over 90 bills, with the majority of measures placed on the Suspense File. The Committee will meet next week to dispense with these suspense file bills including SB 793, Senator Jerry Hill’s measure to ban flavored tobacco products statewide.

Meanwhile, the Assembly convened two fairly lengthy floor sessionsthis week. Of note, the Assembly passed CHEAC’s sponsored bill, along with co-sponsors HOAC and SEIU, AB 3224 (Rodriguez) with a 76-0 vote. The measure nowmoves over to the Senate. Wednesday’s session also included an over two-hour debate on ACA 5, which would place an initiative on the ballot to overturn Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot initiative that prohibited the consideration of race and sex in public education, employment, and contracting. The measure, authored by Assembly Member Shirley Weber, passed the Assembly on a 60-14 vote. Thursday’s Assembly session considered measures on high-speed rail, a task force on reparations, a measure to allow elections to be conducted vote-by-mail, and a clean-up measure for Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez’s landmark AB 5 (Statutes of 2019), which rewrote California employment law, that was signed into law last year.  

Below, we highlight bills of interest to CHEAC Members. For a full update, the CHEAC Weekly Bill Chart is available here. 

Communicable Disease Control

AB 2077 (Ting) as amended May 20, 2020 – SUPPORT

AB 2077, sponsored by HOAC, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and the Drug Policy Alliance, would extend the sunset from an existing law that allows pharmacies to sell and adults to possess sterile syringes for personal use without a prescription. The bill passed off the Assembly floor 50-18 and now advances to the Senate.