Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins Discusses Challenging Session, Terming Out

I am Maureen Cavanaugh. It is Wednesday, said Tom 16. Here are some of the San Diego stories we are following in the KPBS newsroom. The NFL has pulled his invitation to San Diego to make a presentation on a proposed harder Stadium at next month honestly think. Local officials say they are planning a more detailed presentation for a smaller set of owners on progress in efforts to keep the Chargers here. The driver of a car that became stuck on a railroad track in Lindbergh Field earlier this morning is alive and well. Now has some story to tell. Not only did he escaped injury when he felt to navigate a curved prior to ending up on the track, he also walked away from the crash involving an Amtrak train. The storm that brought record-breaking rainfall to San Diego on Tuesday is moving out. Forecasters say mostly clear skies and 70s this afternoon and tomorrow with hot weather returning this weekend. Listen for the latest news to the day right here on KPBS. Our top story -- has been a long summer for legislators in Sacramento with special sessions on health care and transportation and some highly charged debate on climate change legislation and right to die legislation. Living but of that discussion was Tony Atkins. She is a Democrat representing the 78th district in San Diego. Just turned out to the assembly at the end of next year. Speaker Atkins welcome to the show. It is great to be here. The legislative session wrapped up on Friday. Much of the news that came out of that centered on the passage of the end of life option at. Double a while patients to get Dr. assistant eight and dying..br -- bill failed. Smack it was never taken out by the committee originally. Was reintroduced as a built in special session under the healthcare special session. Which is allowed under a silly rules. The committee to get up at that point and pass it to the floor. It was a long discussion. It has been one of the most debated topics I think this year legislative session. It now goes to the governor's desk work hopefully he will be possible to take a long look at this. This legislation importantly I think for those who support it is the hope was it can go to the ballot. On it goes to the ballot we asked legislators have important role to debate and discuss. And balance the protections in line with the choice issue that people want to make. We feel like we took the issue seriously and work to put forward a piece of legislation that needs the balance of concern and need an choice that people who advocate for it work. But with the proper protection. The governor was not exactly happy that this happened in special session. He would have rather seen this happen in the regular session. To allow more debates and more time for consideration. Do you think Governor. Brown will be signing this bill? I cannot say. The governor has his process. He is incredibly deliberative and powerful. And he will be on this issue. Whether it was regular session or special session, the debate was long and extensive. Either way, it is a piece of legislation that will make a way to his desk in the process allowed right our legislature. Overall, what you think about this very busy legislative summer in Sacramento? This is my second year as speaker when we come to end of session. It is always busy and always the little chaotic. You have so many moving parts. We got really historic climate change legislation. I know the media focused on the piece we did not get, but I hope people understand what we were able to accomplish. Telephonic is on the climate -- cutting edge of climate change and setting aggressive goals as we did with energy efficiency. Is a big deal when you think about making sure all of the buildings in California we have some aggressive standards to make all of our loadings more efficient. That helps our overall electric grid. When we talk about renewable portfolio standards, our goals or renewable energy. 80% by 2030 is significant. We have more work to do on that but I think where we ended was really good. Climate change, medical marijuana relation after 20 years when the voters supported prop to 15 it has taken us this long. We had stakeholders come together -- marijuana growers can't dispensary's. For the first time we have state regulation as we should have had when this came forward 20 years ago. We have continued work to do on transportation of course that a special session is still open. Healthcare is still open. Locally I managed to get a couple of really important pieces of legislation done as did some of the other legislators in San Diego. The River Conservancy making a permanent much like other Conservancy's. We will get $70 million from the water fund to help us with water management and medication. Between the Harborside fisherman's markets will be available throughout the state. A number of other things -- housing bills, a tax credit bill for affordable housing to leverage federal money is on the governor's desk. 1335 which is my signature piece of housing legislation for resources and money of permanent source of funding is a two-year bill here I look for to moving forward with that in January and February. There is still so much going on. So much has been accomplished. If you look at the year, the budget session, on income credit. More money for. I feel good about what we accomplished this year. Clearly we have more to do. It was a pretty successful year for us in San Diego and for California. I'm speaking with a silly speaker Tony Atkins. I want to go back to climate change legislation that you mentioned. A lot was made about the fact that the proposed reduction of gasoline consumption by 50% was dropped from the bill. We did have a discussion here on this program with the new environmentalists and the idea was this is still a landmark piece of legislation. The weight you have outlined. Does the bill tell -- get any clue about how California is going to reach those targets? Reach those renewable energy goals was my It does. Under And trade. We have resources available that have continuously help us. We have worked with utilities on the -- as the GMD. Via fork up with all of the stakeholders. We are in San Diego if you look at SDG&E we are ahead of schedule on meeting those goals. So you used to resources from And trade to help industries become efficient and help homes become efficient. When you look at the community choice aggregate that was a big issue for San Diego the city has put that into the general plan and support it. We have come to an agreement with the CC a car, investor owned utilities. All to try and get there together. That is significant. We will get there. The art aggressive goals. But we have And trade resources to fund programs like solar, renewable energy, the long-range plan which I know makes people's eyes glaze over. We are a big state. We want to integrate all of the agencies, the California Energy commission, TP use the. Be an dependent system. We need to integrate that so we can see where we are making strides in goals and how we are doing in every community. This is significant. I travel to England a few years ago to look at high-speed rail. We were invited specifically to meet with officials in London around climate change. We are a state not a country. So what that means is the world's worker demising the world California place that will help us in our own country. Our governor is in negotiations with people in Canada, India and China. I think the one piece we will have to continue to work on how to get there is fuel's. Should not diminish the overall significance of what we accomplished this legislative session. The governor's goal in advancing those two special sessions that as you say are ongoing on healthcare -- transportation. They have not seen so far any resolution to the major outstanding questions on funding. So as far as the summer goals, what you call those sessions a failure? I would not. We had so much to focus on. If you look at the significance of SB 350. Some of the other pieces of legislation it was huge. We had seven members from the Senate and assembly working all year to put that together. The right to die legislation. All of those things consumed a lot of time and energy and they were significant discussions. Transportation -- I have been engaged in what I call the fix it roadshow up and down the state meet with local officials. Business communities, labor. There is an appetite to move forward on this but to get it right. I think we look at a number of proposals. Traditionally and historically you remember Ronald Reagan as governor put forward tax increases when it was necessary for a structure. This should not be a partisan issue. We have always handled this issue in a bipartisan fashion. You do have political and philosophical ideologies that want to oppose increase in revenue. But we also know the methodology for how to fix roles -- rolled is fast diminishing and eight old formula. Left as we use the less resources we have to fix our roles. I believe it is going to take more time. The president of the Senate will be announcing a conference committee of a few of our members in each house to continue to work on this. This will be my top priority. It is one of the governor's priorities up and down the state. What we need is a bipartisan solution here. I think we can get there. People need to realize this is being -- bringing money into their community. We can get there but we have work to do. When you have a significant portion of the legislation of the assembly who are opposed to raising taxes it seems of any kind and you need more revenue where are you going to go for that compromise? I think the dialogue and discussion have to continue. We started back discussion with members of the Republican caucuses. I think there is a desire on the part of some of those members to do something. I think the pressure brought to bear on them from those who believe and know fees and taxes they have to comport with real solutions. The proposal put forward by our Republican colleagues was not a real -- it had components that were real solutions. But overall, they wanted us to use money already being used for other issues which would create a billion-dollar whole in the budget for other services. So where do you want to cut? I think we still have room to discuss and to have a dialogue and I think we will get there. We had a long discussion on the water bond. We thought we would get there before we took the break last year. But we did not. We came back from break and we were almost there. The governor was fully engaged and we got there. It is not mine mindset to give up because we have to figure out how to deal with our infrastructure. And we have the ability to do it. I'm speaking with Toni Atkins. At the end of last month you sent out a letter asking a silly Democrats to hold off their boat until January on replacing US speaker. They did not do that. They have already elected Anthony Readon to take over. Why did you want them to delay that both was my A lot of this was internal working of the assuming that the general public does not exactly get to see. It is really -- what happened was a natural progression was like when I became speaker of the silly. It happened toward the end of the periods in which you knew that the speaker was going to turn out. It is a natural flow and progression. I had asked it to be held off of all of the candidates so we can get the critical work down at the end of session. Everyone had agreed there would be a hold off. On the other hand the progression happened it move for it so it one point in the last two weeks when I realized this is consuming way too much time when our focus needs to be on the legislation that we need to get done. There was so much still to be debated and discussed. Our bills were in procreation's. I basically went forward and said Mr. -- has the vote. Therefore we need to designate the next speaker and move forward. The timeline is still the same, early spring or next year. We will set the time for the transition and vote on the floor of the assembly. In the meantime it allowed us the last week of session to refocus our attention on the legislation. That needed to be done. It took the pressure off of our legislative Democratic caucus and we were able to move forward and get work done. So we will be -- I am the speaker. There is one speaker at a time. I am the speaker and will continue to be the speaker through spring of next year. We will take care of what we need to do on healthcare and transportation. Since your colleagues are really know who your successor is going to be using that undermining your effectiveness in the legislature during the ongoing special session this fall? 3 eight and I have been Anthony Readon and I have been partners. It was seamless. We were able to work in concert to get things done. There is only one speaker at a time. Anthony made that comment at a press conference. He and I are engaged in figuring out when that transition will occur. He was a key person in my leadership team. He was on my leadership team and my campaign seem in the Democratic caucus. I appointed him to be the chair of utilities. He worked on the water bond so I don't anticipate any difficulty in terms of the transition and working together to get things done. As you said, you are turned out of the assembly at the end of next year. There has been a great deal of speculation about your next political move. Many people say it is too late for you to enter the San Diego mayor's race. To you agree? I will tell you while I look at that as an option quite a while ago, I have learned in my time at Sacramento I believe I can best serve San Diego and fight for San Diego in our state capital. I have come to see I can be effective and have relationships and work incredibly well with our governor. With the Senate, Kevin Daly and I have been partners during the budget. So I feel like my place is there. That is where I will continue to focus over the fall and into next year so that we can get things done. I am not done bringing things home to San Diego. If you moved to the state Senate will you wait until 2022 run for that the? I want to focus on finishing the work I have to do. That decision has not been made. I look for to having those discussions at the right time. For now I will focus on what I can get the time I have left. I need to use that time and focus on the job at hand. When I do that the path becomes clear. I've noticed in my time at public office, my path has never been a straight or clear path. When you focus on the job at hand opportunities come and things become clear. So I am going to stay focused. I still have a housing bill I want to get done. It is a two-year bill. When I go back I want to get that done. So I am content to fight for San Diego in my world is speaker. I have been speaking with Tommy Atkins. Take you very much. Thank you Maureen.