California Assembly Member Mike Eng

2008 Legislative Summary

CHAPTERED

AB 1284 - Geologists and geophysicists. Increases the cap on the Board for Geologists and Geophysicists' (Board) examination fee for licensure as a geologist and deletes the written examination exemption for persons with out-of-state certification.

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AB 1545 – Professions and Vocations. This bill re-establishes the Dental Board of California, the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board, the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, and the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology within the Department of Consumer Affairs. This bill establishes an executive officer for each board, and sunsets these provisions on January 1, 2012.

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AB 2565 – Next of Kin Notification. Currently, there is no uniform statewide notification procedure for hospitals and doctors to follow when an individual will be removed from life support after being declared neurologically or “brain” dead. This bill establishes protocols for hospitals and physicians to provide families with reasonable time to say their last good-byes to their loved ones or make special arrangements, such as cultural, spiritual or religious services, before they are removed from life support.

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AB 2637 – Dental auxiliaries. This legislation repeals the requirement to develop three additional specialty tracks (registered restorative assistant, registered surgery assistant, and registered orthodontic assistant) for dental assistants and replaces this structure with two specific permits (Orthodontic Assistant Permit (OAP) and a Dental Sedation Assistant Permit (DSAP)) which may be added to the existing three dental assisting categories (dental assistant, registered dental assistant, and registered dental assistant in extended functions).

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ACR 108 – Hate Crimes Awareness Month. Hate Crimes are criminal offences committed against persons, property, or society that are motivated by the offender’s bias against race religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or ethnicity/national origin. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Criminal Victimization Survey reveals that 56% of hate crimes are not reported to the proper authorities. In an effort to improve public safety by promoting a better public understanding of hate crimes, this resolution establishes the month of June as Hate Crimes Awareness Month.

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AJR 33 – Commemorative Postage Stamp. This resolution urges the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee of the United States Postal Service, on behalf of the California State Assembly and Senate, to approve a commemorative postage stamp honoring the Nisei (Japanese American) veterans who served in the United States Army during World War II.

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VETOED

AB 2412 – Unlicensed Contractors. This bill would increase maximum fines for unscrupulous unlicensed contractors and expand the definition of victims in these cases to allow for restitution be ordered following one of these convictions. Contractor fraud, most of which involves unlicensed contractors, consistently ranks in the top ten lists of consumer complaints both nationally and statewide. According to the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, unscrupulous contractors defraud consumers of more than $100 billion annually.

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AB 2427 – Professions and Vocations. This bill would make it unlawful for a city or county to prohibit a person or a group of persons, authorized by one of the agencies of the Department of Consumer Affairs to engage in a particular business, from engaging in any act or series of acts that fall within the statutory or regulatory definition of that business, occupation, or profession.

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AB 2947 – Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse. This bill prohibits facilities, such as residential care facilities, from forcing elderly and disabled residents, as a condition of admission, to give up their legal rights in cases of elder or dependent adult abuse. It is increasingly common for facilities such as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly to include such “pre-dispute binding arbitration” provisions in admission materials. Consumers, particularly the elderly and disabled, should never be required to surrender basic civil protections against abuse to secure a bed in a nursing home or in a residential care facility.

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AB 2970 – State Water Project Delivery Reliability Report. The California State Water Project (SWP) provides water to two-thirds of California’s population. This bill will codify the State Water Project Delivery Reliability Report providing information to local communities regarding water availability. This vital information may be used by local agencies in preparation or amending their water management plans and identifying the new facilities or programs that may be necessary to provide adequate and affordable water supplies in their communities.

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HELD IN COMMITTEE/ON FLOOR

AB 20 – Human Relations – Assessment and Strategies. This measure requires the California Attorney General’s office to contract with a qualified organization to research, study, analyze inter-group relations in diverse areas around the state, and deliver a report with recommendations to the Legislature. The report would include a plan of action for the state, based on an evaluation of best practices, to ensure that California has an effective approach for preventing and responding to inter-group tensions and conflict.

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AB 240 – State Surplus personal property: centralized sale. This bill requires the Department of General Services to establish a program to centralize the sale of state surplus personal property using the best available technology, including, but not limited to, the Internet.

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AB 675 - Department of General Services: public contracts: report. The state has established a state contract participation goal of 25% for small business enterprises and has difficulty achieving that goal. This bill will provide the Legislature with a breakdown of contract category and the level of small business participation in each contract category so both policymakers and state agency contract administrators can identify the categories where its has achieved the goal and where it has not so that we can focus our efforts on those categories where there is an identifiable and consistent level of failure to achieve the small business participation goal.

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AB 704 - Public contracts: metropolitan water districts: design-build. This measure will authorize the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) to use the design-build contracting process for the installation of solar energy systems. The Metropolitan Water District provides drinking water for 18 million people in the Southern California region, and this bill will provide an important tool to MWD in distributing water to these communities using environmentally and economically sound methods.

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AB 906 - Community colleges: salaries of classroom instructors. This bill, until January 1, 2015, increases from 50 % to 53%, current law requirements that a district's current expense of education be spent on instructor salaries, and expands current law to include the salaries of counselors and librarians. The bill also requires random audits, as specified, and reports on these audits to the legislative budget committees by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.

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AB 1925 – Tax Delinquent Licensees. This bill would authorize the Franchise Tax Board to suspend occupational and professional licenses for failure to pay tax liabilities and notify their respective licensing agencies of the suspension. It is estimated that California loses approximately $1.4 billion annually as a result of uncollected tax liabilities that apply to professional and occupational licensees.

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AB 1957 – Collection of Unpaid Use Tax Liabilities. California loses over $1 billion every year as a result of unreported use tax from the purchase of electronic and mail-order goods. This loss is the result of consumers and businesses who have failed to report their use tax when making out-of-state purchases, especially through the internet. This bill would require taxpayers to report and pay use tax on their state income tax return if they did not report and pay use tax directly to the Board of Equalization.

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AB 2277 – Community College Funding. California’s community college budget is dependent on a variety of funding sources including the State General Fund, student fees, and local property taxes. For the current budget year, community colleges face an unexpected $84.4 million shortfall in property tax revenues. If the budget shortfall is not addressed, community colleges are expected to reduce course sections, growth, and services to students. AB 2277 will direct the State Controller to allocate $80 million from the General Fund to the California Community College system in order to backfill the current year property tax shortfall.

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AB 2514 – Human Remains. In 2005, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority unearthed dozens of human remains during construction on L.A. County property near Evergreen Cemetery. Many of the human remains were of Chinese American decent and included other artifacts, dating back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It would be six months before Asian American community groups in LA found out about these human remains due to a lack of State protocols on the handling of historical remains. This measure aims to provide more direction to state projects by establishing procedures for the proper handling and preservation of historical human remains.

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AB 2603 – Public Contracts. This bill would require contractors to prepare an annual report regarding service and consulting contracts entered into with the agency and to transmit that report to the Department of Finance for submission to the Legislature.

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AB 2691 – Ground Water Management. AB 2691 updates current law requiring the Department of Water Resources to update their California’s Groundwater report – also known as Bulletin 118 – every five years. This bill will provide lawmakers and state agencies with the necessary information to manage California’s Groundwater System.

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AB 2762 – Larry’s Law. Over the last few years, California has experienced an alarming increase in bias-motivated incidents in public schools. One egregious incident includes the tragic murder of LGBT teenager, Lawrence King, at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California. To prevent such hate based violence, this bill will require schools to establish protocols for reporting threats of violence that are made between students.

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AB 2823 – The San Gabriel Basin Water Restoration Fund. This measure will establish the San Gabriel Basin Water Restoration Fund in the State Treasury. The money in the fund will be dedicated solely for clean up in the Main San Gabriel Basin. The groundwater in this basin is the primary source of drinking water for over 1 million residents in the San Gabriel Valley.

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AB 2951 – Street Racing. This measure authorizes a county or city to adopt an ordinance providing that upon a third conviction of speed contest, a court with jurisdiction over the offense may declare the defendant’s motor vehicle a nuisance and upon conviction order the vehicle to be destroyed at an auto yard. This legislation stems from several fatal accidents involving illegal street racing, one which resulted in the death of an El Monte woman and her two children.

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