Legislature Acts On More Than 500 Bills

Katie Orr

Friday, May 23, 2014 | Sacramento, CA | Permalink

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Lisa Brettschneider, flickr

Bills had to pass in the Appropriations committees of their house of origin or they were done. The Senate committee took up more than 200 measures. The Assembly went through more than 300.

One of the most notable to stall in committee was Senate Bill 1005, which would have expanded Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented immigrants.

Senator Kevin de Leon supports the bill but says the state needs a better way to fund it. And he criticized Obamacare for excluding undocumented immigrants from coverage.

“As result we have a two-tier system that discriminates against millions of people (who), but for lack of paperwork, are Americans," he says. "They pay taxes. They work very hard. They raise families. They are our neighbors and they are our relatives. Such a discriminatory system cannot stand.”

Many other Senate measures did make it through, including a bill that would ban fundraising around the last 100 days of legislative session, a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for student loans and a bill that would impose a moratorium on fracking in California.

In the Assembly a bill that would require paid sick days for temporary workers, and a bill addressing the testing backlog of rape kits also made it out of committee.