Caucus News

SACRAMENTO, CA – This week, Senator Melissa Hurtado’s (D-Sanger) Senate Bills (SB), addressing preventative health services, health care coverage, access to clean water and economic development advanced through the Senate and will move to the Assembly.

Senator Melissa Hurtado’s Legislative Packet

SACRAMENTO – In a victory for California workers and consumers, the state Senate today approved Senate Bill 707 by Senator Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) and Senate Majority Leader Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) to deter companies that make their employees or customers follow mandatory arbitration agreements from stalling or obstructing the arbitration process by withholding payment of arbitrator fees.

Sacramento, California – Today, SB 521, authored by Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D–La Cañada Flintridge) passed the California State Senate. SB 521 provides a tax credit to property owners who enter into new contracts to rent their property to Section 8 voucher recipients. SB 521 is an attempt by Glendale and Senator Portantino to incentivize property owners to rent to more Section 8 applicants.  Recently, property owners in Pasadena stopped taking Section 8 vouchers due to adverse economic interests.

Sacramento –  Today, Senator Scott Wiener’s (D- San Francisco) legislation to repeal a one-year sentence enhancement that is added to an individual’s base sentence for each prior prison or felony jail term served passed the Senate with a 21-11 vote. SB 136 will now head to the Assembly for committee hearings in the coming weeks.

Sacramento–  Today, Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 145, which ends blatant discrimination against LGBTQ youth regarding California’s sex offender registry, passed the Senate on a 24-2 vote. It now heads to the Assembly for committee hearings in the coming weeks.

SACRAMENTO – Senator Ben Allen (D – Santa Monica), author of Senate Bill (SB) 682 issued the following statement following its defeat in the Senate Appropriations Committee:

SACRAMENTO, CA – State Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) today issued the following statement on the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee’s 2019-2020 budget proposal:  

“There are a few things we can all agree on: It is a shame that in a state as wealthy and resourceful as ours, a million-plus people don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. Furthermore, our most underserved communities continue to lack timely access to health care – particularly in Southern Central Valley. These issues disproportionately affect my communities and keep me up at night.

Sacramento, CA – In a historic move, Senators Mike McGuire and Scott Wiener, authors of California’s Presidential Tax Transparency bill, have introduced amendments that would extend the transparency rules to the office of the Governor of California. 

Sacramento—Today, local leaders welcomed the state’s Department of General Services decision to recommend disposition of the Alfred E. Alquist Building in downtown San Jose. With this decision, San Jose State University (SJSU) is a local and state candidate to take over the property for a campus community expansion. Sen. Jim Beall and Assemblymember Ash Kalra, who are current tenants of the building, have requested initial planning funding for SJSU to prepare for the possible transition.

SACRAMENTO – Senator Anna Caballero today announced that SB 25 passed from the Senate, with bi-partisan support. SB 25 is a modest attempt to join forces with a federal tax credit designed to funnel an estimated $6 trillion from capital gains earnings into America’s poorest neighborhoods to create jobs and housing. SB 25 creates an incentive for green, sustainable development for critical housing statewide, and for economic development in the 879 Opportunity Zones, which includes California’s poorest census tracts.