Ready, Set, Vote
The annual speed course on the legislative process has begun-- also known as the final week for bills to clear their house of origin.
And it's not a small stack of bills to sift through, especially in this holiday-shortened week. When the Assembly began its session this morning, that chamber alone had 383 bills to consider over the next few days.
Some of the more interesting bills that cleared one half of the legislative obstacle course today:
* AB 2948, by Assemblymember Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), would have California join a group of other states in agreeing to award its Electoral College votes for President to the candidate that receives the most popular votes nationwide. The bill would only go into effect if another states joined in so as to ensure the outcome at the polls matches the outcome in the Electoral College, unlike what was poised to happen in the 2000 election.
* SB 1696, by Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove), would ban the California National Guard from participating in domestic law enforcement activities-- including surveillance operations, which is what the Guard was accused of conducting last year.
* AB 2190, by Assemblymember John Benoit (R-Palm Desert), would allow prosecutors to charge a person involved in a street racing accident with a felony. The state DMV, according to Benoit, noted a 9% increase in street racing convictions between 2004 and 2005.
* AB 1970, by Assemblymember Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), would require electric devices sold in California to have a label that shows how much electricity the device uses. Levine calls some of these gadgets "vampire devices"-- saying they suck power, and therefore run up utility bills, even when a consumer thinks the device is turned off.
* SB 1404, by Sen. Mike Machado (D-Linden), would allow any parking ticket written for illegal parking in an area designated for street cleaning to be cancelled... if the city can't prove that the street cleaning actually took place as scheduled.
