Crunch Time Begins For California Lawmakers
The California Legislature enters its home stretch Tuesday. Lawmakers have just two weeks left to tackle hundreds of bills before they adjourn for the year – including some that are quite controversial.
It’s finally the time of year when committee hearings come to an end, and all-day floor sessions begin — day after day, until lawmakers adjourn at the end of next week. But they’ve got some big issues to tackle first — none bigger than prisons. Two competing plans propose different ways of responding to a federal court order requiring the state to reduce overcrowding in its prisons.
Other bills the fates of which are still up in the air include fracking regulations, a minimum wage increase, several gun and ammunition control measures, and changes to the California Environmental Quality Act.
And there’s always the chance that brand-new bills will emerge out of thin air at the eleventh hour through the process known as “gut-and-amend.”
