by Mitch Pomerantz
Preparation and surprises. Those two words summarize the commencement of the new year for me as Chairperson of the CCB Governmental Affairs Committee.
First for the surprises.
Having been essentially absent from the California legislative scene for a few years, I was surprised to read so many wholly unfamiliar names while reviewing
the roster of Assembly and Senate members for this legislative session. Term limits, even with recent voter approved tweaks, have truly meant significant
turn-over in the legislature. It also means that we, as advocates representing a very small minority - within the broader disability community (not to
mention society as a whole) - must continue to educate California’s 120 elected representatives nonstop!
My other surprise while glancing through the names of Assembly members was to see the name of an old colleague of mine from my working days with the City
of Los Angeles: Reginald Jones Sawyer (D-59). Reggie (we knew each other well enough for me to still call him that), as it turns out, is in his second
term in the Assembly. He and I have already spoken and I am hoping that this connection will bear fruit for our advocacy efforts during the next two years.
Now for the preparation.
In my previous column, I mentioned our three legislative initiatives we were working to have introduced this year: the In-Home-Supportive-Services (IHSS)
reader bill which would add reading assistance to the required services available to blind consumers of IHSS; amending language to the statute governing
the State Price Schedule which is utilized by the Department of Rehabilitation to provide assistive technology and other training services to clients;
and amendments relative to the State Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind. While President Thom no longer chairs this Committee, since he resides in Sacramento
and I do not, he has done a good deal of the necessary leg-work in an effort to obtain authors to carry our various legislative initiatives. I’ve done
much of the phone work: making appointments for Jeff, writing follow-up emails and letters and other ancillary activities.
This past week (it is February 15 as I write this), Senator Isadore Hall (D), introduced SB 199, our IHSS reader bill. He authored the same proposal last
year while a member of the Assembly. The bill already has one co-author in the Senate: Jim Beall (D-15), and four sponsors in the Assembly: Tom Lackey
(R-36), Freddie Rodriguez (D-52), Susan Bonilla (D-14), and Marie Waldron (R-75). If you happen to reside in the districts of any of the above-named legislators,
a thank-you call and/or email would be appreciated. Clearly the bill already has bipartisan support, but we need buy-in from the Department of Social
Services as well as the Governor.
As I indicated last time, our proposed guide dog legislation will not be introduced until 2016. Our proposal to amend the State Price Schedule statutory
language is still being “shopped” to various members of the legislature. One obstacle we face is that there are limits to the number of bills a given legislator
may introduce and we’re approaching the deadline for introducing new legislative proposals. I’ll report on developments in future columns.
This coming Friday (Feb. 20), Donna and I leave for the American Council of the Blind annual “triple header” in the Washington, DC Area: the ACB Board
of Directors meeting, the gathering of affiliate presidents and the Legislative Seminar. It is this latter event for which I’ve also been doing some serious
preparation over the past few weeks. There are nine of us going to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Feb. 24th including two very sharp first-timers: Tamara Kearney
from the Silicon Valley and Patricia Bogard from the San Diego Area. Others trekking to our Nation’s Capitol include: Ardis Bazyn, Vincent Calderon, Charles
Nabarrete, Richard Rueda and Jeff Thom. The nine of us will be meeting with aides for the 53 California members of Congress and our two Senators to discuss
ACB’s legislative agenda for 2015. I will report in detail on this effort in my next column.
