SACRAMENTO –The drive to enact an Oregon-style Death With Dignity law in California gained new momentum Thursday when the powerful Speaker of the Assembly put his name on a bill that will allow terminally ill adults to use prescription medicine to control their dying.

Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, one of California’s most powerful politicians, signed on to be the third author of the California Compassionate Choices Act. He joins Assemblymembers Patty Berg, D-Eureka, and Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, who carried a similar measure last year.

“These are people who might otherwise experience horrible pain and suffering up to the end,” said Núñez. “They have a right not to suffer like that.”

“We’re very happy that our Speaker has joined us in this effort,” said Berg. “I think his partnership sends a message that this is not only good public policy, it is good sound politics.”

Significant majorities of California voters consistently tell pollsters they think terminally ill patients should have control over their final days with the help of life-ending prescription medication.

“This is supported across the political spectrum,” Núñez said. “Democrats, Republicans and Independents support it.”

At the time of its introduction, the Berg-Levine-Núñez bill had 27 co-authors.

“Voters make it pretty clear they want this right,” said Levine. “And I want to make it pretty clear that we intend to give it to them.”

“Don’t let anybody kid you,” Levine said. “Under the current system, terminally ill people are aided in their dying every day. But it’s covert and secret and it’s done without regulation. Californians deserve better than that.”

The bill is limited to mentally capable patients who have six months or less to live. They must make oral and written requests, be informed of other options, and wait through a cooling-off period.

“This measure is about people who can not choose between living and dying,” said Berg. “They can only decide how much they’re willing to suffer.”

Barbara Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, the advocacy group sponsoring the bill, said, “The California Compassionate Choices Act is based on the simple premise that people should be free.”