By Rebecca Gonzales, Director of Government Relations and Political Affairs
Thank you to all who helped make our latest Lobby Days a resounding success! With more than 1,100 participants and 118 legislative appointments plus an appointment with the Governor’s office, the social work voice was heard loud and clear! This year we joined other groups in Sacramento to demand that we “Tear Down the Wall of Poverty” in much the same way that the Governor has focused on tearing down our wall of debt.
At Lobby Days, participants heard from our keynote speaker, former Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. As a co-author of Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, Steinberg has made mental health a key focus of his legislative career and is still working on advancing mental health policy through the newly created Steinberg Institute. His comments were timely and inspiring and we plan to partner with the Institute for many years to come.
Another highlight of Lobby Days was a presentation by the students at San Francisco State on SB 23, which would eliminate the Maximum Family Grant in CalWORKs. Students began their presentation with five narrators scattered among the audience who shared a short story of being poor and how poverty led to other challenges later in life. Two of the stories were not in English and were provided without translation and the audience was allowed to sit for a minute with the discomfort of not understanding. Part two of the presentation contained PowerPoint slides that explored attitudes about poverty and how this led to misguided and biased policies such as the Maximum Family Grant rule. The presentation ended with two students who ended with a poem/spoken word about the experiences of poor women and how they will still thrive!
Our three Lobby Days bills this year were — SB 3 (Leno) to raise the minimum wage, SB 4 (Lara) to provide healthcare to undocumented immigrants, and SB 23 to eliminate the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) in CalWORKs. Since Lobby Days, all of these bills have passed out of their initial policy committees and are now in the appropriations suspense file of their respective houses. Bills that are projected to cost more than $150,000 are automatically sent to the suspense calendar. Bills must pass out of their fiscal committees by May 29 in order to advance through the legislative process. Future updates will be provided in this newsletter.
MANY MORE LOBBY DAYS PHOTOS CAN BE VIEWED HERE!
