BPE — 2026-06-22 (partial)

Thank you. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Senate Business Professions and Economic Development Committee. Committee amendments, or sorry, committee announcements. We're going to have 13 bills on our agenda. The following items have been pulled by the author. File item number one, AB 957 by Assemblymember Ortega, and file item number nine, AB 1990 by Assemblymember Gibson. You know, I just want to set the ground rules. There is no clapping. There is no booing. There is no verbal conversation from the audience. The way we typically have it will be the author will be presenting here. We are going to have both two lead support witnesses. Each of them will be given two minutes here at this mic. Two opposition witnesses as well. And Me Too's will come together both in support and opposition of the bill. And in the Me Too's, you will state your name, your organization, and whether you support or oppose. This, typically, we would like for you all to line up pretty quickly and go through it pretty quickly, as we have a number of bills that we have to hear in a lot of discussion. So with that, like I said, file item number one has been pulled. So we're going to move on to file item number two, AB 928, by Assemblymember Rogers, regarding roosters and so forth.

Would you like witnesses at the table?

And we will be timing folks, so I just want to make sure everyone understands they only have two minutes. The Me Too's do not have two minutes. They have name, organization, whether they support or oppose. All right.

Okay, before you begin, I'd just like to establish a quorum. It allows us to vote. So could we get a roll call?

Wahab here. Choi? Archuleta?

Archuleta here. Adagin? Caballero?

Menjavar?

Nilo?

Nilo here. Richardson?

Richardson here. Smallwood Cuevas? Strickland?

Thank you. And with that, you'll have your two minutes.

Thank you. Next speaker, two minutes.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have lead opposition witnesses? Do we have one or two? Two. Okay. Two minutes. Good morning, Chair, members, Noet Bottomall representing California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and opposition of AB 928. The bill will profile communities of color, Latino communities. The rooster represents the symbolic and cultural identity of many ethnic groups. And a new civil law will certainly and unfairly be used to profile Mexicans, Latinos, Asians, and other communities of color. Rural unincorporated communities are home to thousands of migrant and immigrant farm workers and their families. They will be targeted by law enforcement simply by hearing the rooster crowing AB 928 will expand law enforcement ability to issue civil penalties with the lesser standard of proof Under this bill, it is entirely possible that law enforcement may believe that a resident is in violation of the new law, appear at the resident's front door, demand entry and search, causing fear and uncertainty. Should a citation result, then the resident will need to resolve the citation. That's if they can afford to pay the fine. Whether it is resolved or not, it will likely leave a record that is subject to investigation by federal immigration officials. AB 928 likely will result in the immigration official to define and apply the issue of moral turpitude against immigrant communities. A new civil penalty is unnecessary and inappropriate, as the federal administration is looking for creating new laws, redefining laws to use to deny applications, detain, and deport immigrants for civil offenses. It is entirely feasible that the proposed bill may be used against non-citizens and naturalized citizens. AB 928 will likely result in more work for immigration attorneys and accredited representatives to investigate and research on a client's case. Currently, even a traffic ticket, a fix-it ticket, requires more work. Thank you. I appreciate your consideration. Appreciate it. Next speaker, two minutes. And if we can have the Me Too's line up. Good morning. My name is Jesse Ortega. I am CDFA poultry health inspector, a 20-year veteran, and the president of the California Association for the Preservation of Game Fowl. I respectfully appear in strong opposition to AB-928. Let me be clear. Our organization unequivocally condemns cockfighting, animal cruelty, and illegal activity. Individuals who violate California law should be prosecuted. However, we strongly object to the continued characterization of law-abiding breeders, exhibitors, and poultry enthusiasts as criminals simply because we oppose this discriminatory legislation. Our members are engaged in the preservation of historic bloodlines, participation exhibitions, agriculture education, and the responsible breeding and care of the poultry. These are lawful activities and important part of California's agricultural heritage. AB 928 threatens legitimate businesses throughout the state, including feed manufacturers, feed stores, veterinarians, transportation providers, and all other small agriculture enterprises that serve responsible poultry owners. At a time when many small businesses are already struggling, this bill creates additional uncertainty and economic harm. We are also deeply concerned about the disproportionate impact on immigrant, rural, and working-class communities. For many Latinos, Filipinos, Southeast Asian families, poultry, husbandry is a long-standing cultural tradition. For many members of California's monks community, poultry has and also plays an important role in religion and ceremonial practices that have been passed down through generations. Policies that broadly target lawful poultry ownership risk burdening these communities and infringing upon traditions that are central. Thank you. Appreciate it. Please vote no or refrain from voting. Thank you so much. All right, we have Me Too's, so again, please line up, state your name, your organization, and whether you support or oppose the bill. Thank you. My name is Carlos Acosta. I'm with Senator Caballero's district in Fresno, and I oppose this bill. Good morning. Here on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund in support. Sorry, thank you. Hi, I'm Dawn Ward. I'm from Placerville, and I'm just here as a member of the public, and I support this bill. Jennifer Green, Alameda, California, and I support this bill. Lily Kirby, I'm from Sacramento, and I support this bill. My name is Randy Davis. I'm just here myself, and I disapprove of this bill. Hi, how's it going everybody? I'd just like to say that I oppose and a lot of the people here probably don't even... Strictly name, organization, whether you oppose or not. Yes, ma'am, I understand, but you guys all need to understand where we come from. You oppose the bill? I oppose. What's your name for the record? Romero. Thank you. Strongly. Dr. Barbara Hodges, California Licensed Veterinarian, in strong support of AB 928. Thank you. Heather Schroeder, California Licensed RVT for Humane World for Animals. I support. Erica Iverly, I am a resident of Sacramento County, and I strongly support AB 928. Hello, my name is Pam Runquist, and I'm here on behalf of the Humane Veterinary Medical Alliance and more than 100 veterinary professionals in the state who joined with us in supporting the bill. Thank you. My name is Margaret DeMott. I am associated with the Humane World for Animals, and I support AB 928. Joel Ibarra. I do not support this bill. This is illegal entry to properties and it's against the Constitution. Thank you. Roberto Guzman, and I oppose. Thank you. My name is Lee Ramirez, and I oppose. My name is Daniel Reese, and I oppose. My name is Julio Lugo, and I oppose. My name is Adrian Guadiana. I'm with California APG and I oppose AB 928. I'm Vince Bonique and I'm from Sacramento County and member of the APG and I oppose this bill. My name is Nestor Peking and I'm a resident in Sacramento County and a member of APG. Thank you. Hi, my name is Joseph Lentino and I'm here by myself and I strongly oppose this bill. It's unconstitutional. My name is Matthew Fairbank. I'm with the APG and I oppose this bill. My name is Michael Mahoney. I'm in Sacramento, rural Sacramento County, and I strongly oppose this bill. My name is Elvin Salivar, member of APG. I oppose this bill. Emmanuel Acevedo, member of the APG and APA. I oppose the bill. Alfonso Romo from San Joaquin County I am post that view My name is Julian Hernandez from Lodi and I an FFA member and I oppose My name is Nicolas Larios, I'm from Rolanda and I oppose the bill. My name is Jose Moreno and I oppose. My name is Jesus Moreno and I oppose. My name is David Amaya and I support this bill. Roberto Medina, Don Roberto Feed with 140 employees. I oppose this bill. Jaime Tello, Tulare County. I represent myself and I oppose. Miguel Cervantes, Paisela, California. I oppose. Enrique Sanchez with APG. I oppose this bill. Luis Ramos, Yuba City, California. I oppose. I'm Rogelio Sandoval. I oppose to this bill. My name is Sergio Alejandro Jr. I'm from Butte County and I oppose this bill. My name is Sergio Alejandro. Can you repeat that? It's just a little bit louder. My name is Jesus and I'm a member of the APG and I oppose. Good morning, my name is Jose de Rio from Solano Cane, I oppose. My name is Salvador and I oppose. My name is Jesus Perez from Rio Linda, I oppose for this. My name is Alvaro Martin from Campo. I oppose this bill. My name is Juan Ramos. I'm going to be. My name is Edgar Chavez. I'm going to be. Good morning. Dylan Elliott on behalf of the California Animal Welfare Association in support. My name is Manuel. I'm going to be. My name is Owen Ciordia from Sacramento County. I oppose AB 928, direct harassment for all of us. Thank you. Hi, Nicholas Sacken on behalf of Social Compassion in Legislation and our thousands of supporters throughout California in support. Jack Wurston from Nausman on behalf of the County of Monterey in support. Alejandra Hernandez, member of APG, owner of a farm and feed store in Fresno, and I strongly oppose. Good morning, Matthew Seiberling on behalf of the California Agricultural Commissioners and Sealers Association in support. Thank you. Good morning, Bob Gutierrez with San Francisco SBCA in support. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Alejandro Solis on behalf of La Cooperativa Campesina de California and Los Amigos de la Comunidad in opposition, 928. Also here on behalf of Central Valley Opportunity Center, the Center for Employment Training, First Day Foundation, California Human Development, Mothers of East Los Angeles Asian Law Alliance Comité de Acción del Valle, Social Equity of Los Angeles, Wonderwood Ranch, Proteus Incorporated, and Amigo all in opposition. Thank you. Monica Madrid with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in opposition. Emily Ayala with Chirla in opposition Good morning My name is Jorge Antonio Hernandez I with the California Association of Preservation of Gamefowl and the thousands of individuals who couldn make it today In strong opposition. Thank you. Jim Brim with Farmers Warehouse Company. We're a feed manufacturer in Stanislaus County, and we strongly oppose this. Adam Mendoza from Stanislaus County with Farmers Warehouse, and we oppose this bill. I'm Mateo Noriega, and I oppose. Gustavo Noriega with Sutter County, owner of Live Oak Feed and Supply, and I strongly oppose. My name is Gustavo Noriega. I oppose. Omar Moreno, Riverside County. I strongly oppose this bill. It lacks clarity for the enforcement agency and the community. I'm Ronald Lechuga, part of the California APG, and I strongly oppose AB 928. Edgar Garcia, represented with APG. This bill completely targets not only farmers, but also people of color and Hispanics. I oppose. I'm major in Tapia, Madera, California, and I oppose. Catherine Plummer, Exhibition Poultry Breeder. I'm opposed. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Sue. I'm a business owner of a local feast store here in Sacramento County. And at the same time, I'm a representative of our Hmong community, community leaders, and we oppose the Hmong community. We all oppose this AB 928 as it will violate our freedom of religion. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. Members, Doug Houston representing the ASPCA. We're supportive of this bill. Jesse Ortega for Orange County, and I oppose. All right. Do we have any other me-tos? Saying nobody else, we're going to turn it to committee members. Committee members, Senator Caballero. Good morning, Assemblymember. appreciate the work you've done on this bill because you've taken a number of amendments and I guess I just want to preface my comments and I have some questions for you I want people to understand where the bill is now and that we already have a system in place to stop cockfighting. So if you're here because you like cockfighting, I'm sorry, but it's illegal and it shouldn't happen. And the people that set up the fights can go to jail because it's a misdemeanor or felony. The people that go to watch usually get a fine. And it's local enforcement, animal control that does the work. And so animal control has the right to come on property. Now, they have to follow the law, but they have the right to come on property. They have the right to ticket people for either engaging in the fight or for having the birds or for going to or setting it up. And so that's already the state of affairs. And I also want to ask you because it was a subject that was brought up in terms of religious exemptions You've created a whole series of exemptions that I think are important to talk about. And I say this because I represent an agricultural community. and it's different than living in a city. And there are traditions and a lot of the time many of the immigrant groups that come to California live in rural California because they came from a rural community themselves and they understand agriculture and animal husbandry and growing. And but but given even with that, you've got to follow the rules that are here. And there's an exemption from. So let me just say that initially the bill allowed the state to be able to take action and it's been amended. And that amendment fundamentally changes how the bill will operate because it goes back to the locals. So the locals already have this responsibility and they have this obligation. It just sets up another way to be able to identify individuals that may be raising roosters to fight. And so that change means that it's, again, local enforcement using the same tools that they've had before. But they're now looking at the number of roosters that are on the property and how they are housed, meaning whether they're with other roosters or whether they're tied separately and in a confined. So could you talk a little bit about that? And then if you could, the exemptions, because the exemption means that you are not subject to the bill or subject to this oversight. If you're raising the roosters for religious purposes, for educational purposes, please, if you could talk about that. Yeah, no, first of all, I really appreciate the comments and the questions and the conversations that we've been able to have. And I think if you look at the evolution of the bill, I think you'll see where each of these concerns have their fingerprints on the changes. And so the religious exemption one, that's actually a really important one to note. When we first introduced this bill, we really focused more on the number of birds just across the board. And what we heard from some of the religious groups is that they sometimes require more birds than what were actually in the bill. that actually a focus on the conditions where in which we were raising the birds was a bigger indicator on whether or not they were being raised for cockfighting. That you could raise more birds, but if you raise them around hens or if you raise them so that they can free range or if you raise them so that they are living in better conditions, that that was not necessarily an indicator of cockfighting. but that the conditions where in which they're raised, where they're individually tethered or they're in the lock boxes where it's completely dark, that that was an intentional decision that oftentimes was to make them more aggressive for cockfighting. And that as we started working through that to see what the number was, we were talking with exhibitionists and hobbyists to say, well, actually, there are some times that, where you might want to have them individually tethered, breeding purposes, to make sure that they are able to continue the types of species, and that we should build more exemptions into it around that opportunity as well. I think, you know, I mentioned many of the exclusions, exemptions that we have in the bill. I'll just mention some of them again. If you're an ag business, if you're a commercial poultry operation, if you're a hobbyist, 4-H, FFA, If you have untethered birds, if you have specific types of show birds that we worked with the groups, we found that there are specific types of birds that actually aren't good for fighting and don't fetch a high price when they're trying to sell them. Those are exempted. Things like bantams, which are the tiny birds, are not particularly good for fighting. And maybe if that becomes an issue down the road where that's what they're finding at cockfighting, that's something the state could look at. But we found that that's not the case right now. So we exempted bantams, backyard chickens. We made sure that we walked through all of these exemptions working with folks as they came forward. And I actually think if you're interested, I think Beth Wyatt with Animal Control can kind of explain when they do see that conditions, how they're able to evaluate it. Because at this point, it is a way for us to see whether there's legitimate operations. There's certain types of medications that you see with cockfighting that once they actually are able to take a look at the yard, even if they have individually tethered birds, there's a difference between a yard that is raising chickens for the purposes of fighting and somebody who just likes chickens. And I love chickens. We had chickens up until I had my little guy just a couple of years ago. And so I think if you're interested, she can explain that as well. I won't need that, but I think that the important parts of the bill are that you're focused on the breed of the rooster that is used specifically for fighting, as opposed to the show birds, as opposed to the breeding birds, those kinds of roosters, those kinds of things. And then finally, I wonder if you can address the issue that's been brought up by the social justice or immigrant rights groups. Because the reality of the situation is that what you've created is the opportunity to fix a problem if you're in violation of the technical violation. of the structure that you've set up. Can you explain how that works? Because I think this takes care of some of the concerns that have been raised, but right now as we sit here, if there is an enforcement against fighting Cox, that if you're, as I said at the beginning, if you're watching an exhibition, it's a fine. It's an infraction. If you're putting it on, that's where it could be a misdemeanor or a felony, correct? Yeah. And look, this is some of those other amendments that you see in the bill is because we were sensitive to that concern. We only had one group that reached out to us in the first year and a half that this bill has been in print that had concerns around the social justice angle and the concern, particularly in our Latino community about what we're seeing with ICE, we took amendments to specifically address their concerns and they removed their opposition We now have new opposition that came in within the last week We were just hearing this morning that there may be other folks that have some concerns We are more than happy to work with those folks on that That is not the intent of the bill This is its fourth committee hearing It's been in print for a year and a half. So we're working with folks as they come forward. We've reached out proactively to folks. And if we didn't hear back, we assumed that that meant that they were fine with the bill. But we're happy to continue to work with folks when it gets to appropriations before it goes to the floor, if there are some of those lingering concerns. But what we did do in the bill was build in this acknowledgement that the progressive enforcement model that most of us are familiar with with code enforcement at the local level, that it starts with a notice for them to fix it, not a citation. So I heard one of the people in opposition say that you're going to start with a citation. It'll go to the court system. That'll be data that'll be used against people. That's actually not the case. In this model with animal control, they go in and they can give a warning, and we delayed implementation of the bill for a year and a half so that counties can make sure that they are able to educate folks ahead of time. If that doesn't work, animal control does have to go in. They can give the person a written warning where they have two weeks. None of that information on the written warning goes to the courts or gets captured in any way by the court system for immigration purposes. and they have minimum of those two weeks to be able to rectify the situation. That also will be subject to local county ordinances. The counties can write a longer waiting period if they want or curing period if they want as well. And again, just to kind of punctuate the point, every single member of this committee has communities that have more strict ordinances right now. And that concern, if you have not heard it from your constituents that it's currently taking place under your county ordinances, There is no reason to think that adding a state-level bill that is less restrictive than those ordinances should increase those concerns. But we will take that seriously, and we will meet with those groups and try to make sure we rectify that. I appreciate that. I'm going to support your bill today. I appreciate all of the amendments you've taken. They addressed the major issues that I had. And as I told you at the beginning, I'm from rural California. I'm not particularly fond of going after people that are doing legitimate agricultural, that are working on legitimate agricultural issues. But I think you have narrowly, you've worked on the bill to narrow it and to be very specific about what you're looking for, and I really appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, and I'm going to remind people that we have roughly 13 bills today, And so we're trying to keep our comments concise. And Senator Menjivore. Assembly member, going a little bit more on what the senator started, can you walk me through? You started touching upon what happens when first it's a warning, then it's the $2,500. How would one confirm that they, in fact, are violating the law? Yeah, so first it starts with a complaint, right? And that's when animal control can go in there and say, we've got this complaint, can we just see, right? Which they already have the ability to do in every county in the state. If they go in and the conditions show these conditions that we've laid out in the bill about the individual tethering, and in the animal control expert's opinion, this is consistent with what they see in yards specific for game birds, for the sport, they can issue a warning. And as I said it a minimum in the bill of 14 days to be able to cure or rectify that It could be cured by untethering the birds so that then when they come back to look in a couple of weeks the conditions have completely changed It could be cured by giving birds away. It could be cured by changing those conditions. And so at that point, if they've cured it, no citation, no violation. If they have not, then it could lead towards a citation where animal control will go through their progressive enforcement model where it depends on how much compliance, If the person's trying to comply and they just haven't figured out, typically they get a lot more leeway with animal control, with code enforcement to be able to do that. But it's really aimed at when people are notified that they are not in compliance and then they are not taking steps to try to correct that, that's when the citation could come in. Is there in current law now or would your bill allow DHS, anybody under DHS, to enforce this law? There's nothing in our bill related to that. My assumption is it would, and I can check with folks, but my assumption is that it would all be governed by how the counties themselves currently do it, what their code enforcement model is. Some counties, as you know, have very different requirements on public agencies on what data they can and can't share. But with a written warning system, there is no notice of a citation, nothing that gets put into any system that could be accessed outside of the county. Recent opposition today we saw, you know, Charila just came on and didn't be tuned up in opposition. One of your recent supporters are the National Association of Gang Investors, and they work closely with ICE. It's a huge concern that someone is supporting your bill in potential assumption that they're going to be utilizing this to give more ability for them to come knock on people's doors, brown individuals knock on their doors under this umbrella to be able to go inside their homes. Can you speak a little bit more on that? Yeah, and I'm certainly happy, as I said, the opposition, we heard about it this morning. We have not had a chance to sit down with them. We are more than happy with Charlotte to be able to have that discussion ahead of appropriations. I think some of the support for the bill is not even just because of the ability to look at the game yards, but because of the activity that is typically found at cockfighting rings themselves. So you do have some law enforcement support on the bill specifically because they're trying to find tools to address this downstream. When we first introduced the bill, you actually had penalties that weren't just financial penalties that were in the bill. And we took that concern from folks very seriously that it could lead towards or that it could be profiled against, which is why we changed the entire structure of the bill to focus instead on the civil penalties. Is there parameters around how big or small the enclosure? Because it says if they're enclosed or tethered. If someone has over 25 in enclosure but it's a wide enclosure, does that also exempt them? Or how big or small does the enclosure have to be? I don't believe we have that in the bill. I think we left that up to the discretion of the animal control officer based on the conditions that are on the ground. But we're certainly happy to look at that. Okay. So if they're not enclosed, someone can have 100 roosters. Correct. Yes. Okay, so it doesn't limit them, their ability. That's right. Okay. And can you remind me, in L.A. County, what's the limit there? Yeah, so currently in L.A. County, the limit is two roosters on a parcel that's half an acre or smaller and ten roosters on one that is above that half acre threshold. So even if this bill passes, the ordinance that exists in L.A. County is much more... It's been in existence for a while now. That's correct. And it's even stranger. Okay. And because this has been an ongoing problem, Sacramento County actually just passed their ordinance last week So some have been in around a lot longer some not so much But one thing that has been fairly consistent if you talk to law enforcement is that after these ordinances go in place you see less cockfighting busts in those counties So it is working Okay. Thank you, Asamu. Would you like to close? No, I just, I appreciate the conversation with folks. As I mentioned, this is its fourth committee hearing for this bill. We still have two to go, one in judiciary tomorrow, 401 in appropriations if we're able to get that far we are more than committed to working with folks Especially on the concerns around immigration that is not what we're trying to do with this bill We're just trying to give additional tools for our counties to be able to address this the scourge and with that I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you. Do we have a motion? Moved by Senator Caballero. Can we get a roll call vote? Motion is do pass to Senate Judiciary Committee Wahab. Aye. Wahab aye. Choi? No. Choi no. Archuleta? Aragene Carriero Carriero I'm in Javar Menjavar I Nilo I Nilo I Richardson Richardson I small with Cuevas Strickland Strickland no umberg All right that bill is gonna be on call right thank you All right, we're gonna move on to file item number three a B 1199 by Assemblymember Patterson Again, I just want to reiterate to keep our comments as brief as possible as we have a long meeting ahead. Thank you. Whenever you're ready. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair and Senators. I'm here today to present AB 1199, sponsored by the California Hospital Association. AB 1199 simply aligns California law with federal laws that have been in place for quite some times regarding accreditation standards by allowing hospitals to recredential and reappoint medical staff every three years rather than two years. Obviously, with a different process with California than the federal government, it's pretty burdensome. This is a pretty simple common sense change. And I believe with me today I have Vanessa Gonzalez from the California Hospital Association to test fine support. Thank you. You'll have two minutes. Thank you. Good morning. Vanessa Gonzalez with the California Hospital Association, here in strong support of AB 1199. 1199 is a straightforward bill that simply aligns California law with current federal and national accreditation standards by allowing hospitals to recredential and reappoint medical staff every three years instead of every two. Importantly, AB 1199 retains strong oversight and physician competence and patient safety. Hospitals continuously monitor practitioners through peer review, quality improvement activities, and ongoing professional practice evaluations, and they retain the authority and obligation to take immediate action whenever concerns arise. I respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other lead support witnesses? Seeing none, we're going to move on to lead opposition witnesses. Seeing none, we're going to move on to me-tos. Good morning. George Sorries with the California Medical Association in support. Thank you. Do we have any other Me Too's? Seeing none, we're going to move on to committee members. Seeing none, would you like to close? Move the bill. All right. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you. The bill has been moved by Senator Nilo. Can we get a roll call, please? Motion is do pass. The Senate Health Committee, Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Choi, aye. Archuleta? Adagin? Gabriero? Aye. Gabriero, aye. Menjavar? Aye. Menjavar, aye. Nilo? Aye. Nilo, aye. Richardson Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood, Cuevas, Strickland. Aye. Strickland, aye. Umberg. All right. That bill's on call until the other members show up. We're going to move on to our author that is here, Assemblymember Chen, AB 2537, file item number 12. Whenever you're ready. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate your time. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to present AB 2537. I also want to thank Alyssa and your staff and your committee staff for their incredible work in analyzing this bill, and I will be accepting all of the committee's amendments. AB 2537 strengthens public health protections by prioritizing enforcement by Department of Cannabis Control, DCCC, DCCC, against contaminated and unsafe cannabis products. This results in greater enforcement of technical violations by licensed operators, while more serious risks receive less attention. Our bill directs regulators to focus enforcement resources on the most serious threats to public health and safety by defining risk of harm and enforcement prioritization policy. Our bill creates the categories of minor, moderate, and serious violations to ensure that the DCC can prioritize regulatory oversight in a manner consistent with enforcement and prioritization policy. Our bill does not reduce the Department of Cannabis Control's enforcement authority and bolsters legal market integrity and public health protections for Californians. Here with us to testify today, I have Amy Jenkins on behalf of the California Cannabis Operators Association. Thank you. Two minutes. Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Amy Jenkins on behalf of the California Cannabis Operators Association, proud sponsors of AB 2537. I want to begin by thanking the author and committee staff. California has built one of the most comprehensive cannabis regulatory systems in the world, Yet nearly a decade since Prop 64's passage, approximately 60% of cannabis activity in California remains illicit. And that is based on the state's own economic analysis. That means the majority of cannabis consumed in the state is still produced and sold outside the regulated market. AB 2537 is based on a simple principle. When enforcement resources are finite, they should be focused first on the violations that pose the greatest threat to public health, consumer safety, environmental protection, and the integrity of the legal market. Our members fully support compliance and accountability. In fact, they invest significant resources every day to comply with California's extensive regulatory framework. The issue before us is not whether those violations should be addressed. The issue is how limited resources are allocated. Over the past several years, many of our operators have experienced excessive notices to comply and other compliance actions relating to highly technical or administrative issues, camera labeling, name badges not being worn in a conspicuous location. While these issues remain important and should be corrected, they often require substantial time and resources to resolve. AB 2537 does not eliminate the administrative technical violation process. It does not reduce DCC's authority in any way, but it does ensure that, again, limited resources are prioritized to really protect public health and safety, which is, I believe, what the legislature intended when they passed the adult use framework and merged it. This bill provides a transparent framework. We want violations to be directed towards diversion, sales to minors, unsafe products, environmental harms, and other conduct that presents a material threat. For these reasons, we strongly support this bill today in our dry vote. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other lead witnesses? Seeing none, we're going to move on to lead opposition. Seeing none we going to move on to Me Too Seeing none we going to move on to Senator Caballero Thank you very much I have a comment I assuming this is going to require rulemaking It may be that it can be done in an expedited fashion, but if they have to follow the rules, it takes 18 months. So if we make implementation dates too soon, then it doesn't happen. But the other comment in the analysis asks that you continue to work with the stakeholders, and I just want to make sure that you're committed to doing that, to make sure we're including as many as possible. Absolutely, Senator. Thank you so much for your comments. This, of course, also has a mandated annual reporting period, which we'll always be reviewing this to make sure it's more efficient and effective as bringing the stakeholders into the conversation, Senator. That's great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right. Seeing no other comment? Senator Nilo. Just to clarify, this is prioritizing enforcement in the legal market, not in the illegal market, because there was some intent language that specifically, if I understand, specifically mentioned the illicit market. But I think the bill itself is prioritizing actions only within the legal regulated market, or am I mistaken? What it prioritizes, that's correct, enforcement in the legal market, but also the resources, as you know, Senator, are so finite that some of these resources, if taken away and not properly prioritized, will not have the opportunity to go to the illicit market in order to do the enforcement in the illicit market, Senator. Yeah, I'll support the bill. That, of course, is probably the biggest challenge to the entire market as it is. I will not go through my rant about the legalization of marijuana. Again, that cut plenty of coverage otherwise. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to close? I respectfully ask your aye to vote, Madam Chair. Thank you. Could I get a motion? Thank you. Senator Richardson moves the bill. Motion is due pass as amended to Senate Appropriations Committee. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Joy, aye. Archuleta, Adagin, Carriero, aye. Carriero, aye. Menjavar, Nilo, aye. Nilo, aye. Richardson, aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood, Cuevas, Strickland, aye. Strickland, aye. Umberg. All right. That bill is on call. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. We're going to move on to file item number four. Give me two seconds real quick. All right. File item number four, Assemblymember Brian, AB 1349. Again, would like to remind everybody to keep their comments short and concise. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and colleagues. I'm here to present AB 1349, a bill that, among other things, ends the practice of speculative ticketing by requiring that sellers of tickets own or have a contractual right to sell the tickets before listing it on a resale site. Before I begin, I want to thank the committee for all of their hard work and the many phone calls and text messages over this past weekend, including on Father's Day. Every year, fans across – and I'll be accepting the amendment. Every year, fans across the state who are trying to see their favorite artists are deceived by sellers that don't have tickets, don't have a right to sell those tickets, but list those tickets online for sale anyway, at a significant markup. It a harmful practice known as speculative ticketing and it inherently anti In the vast majority of cases the seller does not disclose to the consumer that it is a speculative ticket And when they click buy now, fans aren't actually buying anything, nothing tangible. In fact, unknowingly, fans are making a calculated bet, paying up front, hoping that a bot or a scalper will be able to buy the ticket at some point, a ticket at a lower price that is then reposted for the price that the consumer paid that markup. In many instances, fans are left without tickets altogether. In the most extreme cases, fans show up to venues believing that they had bought a ticket, leaving small venues to clean up the mess when these deceptive selling practices occur. One of my favorite things about presenting this bill is every time I present it, we look up tickets that are for sale today for shows that have not started selling tickets yet. The rapper Rod Wave has tour tickets that will be listing that are on the secondary market for his October 1st concert in Englewood, even though the pre-sale for official tickets does not start until tomorrow, June 23rd. We've had examples of that all year. This bill has had bipartisan support up until now, received over 60 votes in the Assembly. It brought Gavin Newsom and Kid Rock together. President Donald Trump did an executive order around speculative ticketing. And it's not often that the president and I agree on this issue, but as a consumer and as a fan, I know it's the right thing to do. With me to testify are Jim Cornett, the owner and operator of Harlow's, and Ron Gubitz, the executive director of the Music Artist Coalition. All right. Each lead witness will have two minutes. You will be timed. Our Me Too's, again, state your name, your organization, and whether you support or oppose. Thank you, Chair and members. My name is Jim Cornette, and the owner-operator of Harlow's, the Star of the Room, as well as Cafe Clonin here in Sacramento. I represent the National Independent Venue Association of California, which is a trade association representing over 650 venues and festivals. As venues, we sell tickets, we staff the box office, we handle the rope lines, we book and promote the show. We're involved in every aspect, including having to speak to the guests who have bought a fake ticket or an overpriced ticket and aware that they're on a secondary platform. Imponents would have you believe that empowering the secondary market will increase competition. Step up is not our competition. They do not produce shows or support artists. They show up these hearings at consumer groups that will not talk to the independent venues or the artist coalitions. How can they call themselves consumer friendly when they deceive consumers with these deceptive practices? We are now hearing the stories from the ticket buyers of the World Cup. People are getting their tickets canceled or moved to less desirable seating just so brokers can resell them at a higher price. These are the things we deal with on a nightly basis. The opposition to the measure also argues that this proposal strengthens a monopoly hold on the industry, and they have continuously referred to our venues as tentacles of a monopoly. I sit here today as a small business owner representing an organization that is the largest source of competition for a live nation. This bill bans speculative tickets, tickets for sale on a secondary site that have not been assigned seating or put a ticket price to. Consumers are especially at risk because these sites use our venue's likeness. And without disclosures, fans will not know to go to our website where tickets go for a much lower price. AB 1349 helps independent venues protect our customers. It helps fans know that they are buying what they are buying. It helps restore tickets and the ticket buying process. Trust the ticket buying process. I would urge you to listen to the small business that live this every day, not the well-funded interest that profits from the status quo. Thank you Thank you Appreciate it Next speaker two minutes again Thank you My name is Ron Gubitz I the executive director of the Music Artists Coalition We represent artists including Billie Eilish, Megan Trainor, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Don Henley, and we need your help. We got amends yesterday afternoon, and we need to further review them to make sure that they achieve the protections for fans and artists that this bill intended. And so we thank you and look forward to continuing to work with you on that. This is just a sample of posts from users in the past week on the StubHub subreddit. receipts, don't use the platform, and the casual way this company changes order terms contradicts its own representatives and Stonewall's customers who push back is genuinely predatory. Know that their Fan Protect guarantee is worth absolutely nothing when it actually matters. 86% of California voters believe that people or companies should not be able to sell tickets that they do not actually possess. Resellers list tickets they don't have, hoping to grab them later and cheaper, and then pocket the difference, a game of arbitrage. The fan is often the one left holding nothing. Fans can't sue. They're forced into arbitration at an address that has changed, I believe, four times in the last year. And even if they win, a refund does not make them whole. A concert is not a toaster. You cannot return it and get another one. The show happens once in one place at one time. It's ephemeral. When it is gone, it is gone. AB 1349 stops this before it starts. So please vote yes or your constituents and our fans will continue to buy hotels, travel to shows, and find out on the day of that they are locked out because of something that this body could have prevented. Thank you. Thank you. Lead opposition witnesses. You get two minutes as well. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning and members. Robert Harrell, I'm the Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. we are opposed to this bill. Let me just note a couple of things. Number one, the author and I had a good conversation on Friday afternoon, and I'm not complaining that my Father's Day got blown up also, but it did. But that's not the point. So I want to briefly talk about how we got here, very briefly, and then I want to talk about something that has not really been coming up in the hearings on the bill, which is what the bill actually would do and what the actual language of the bill would effectuate. So we got here because we have a monopoly. I sound like a broken record, but let's not forget Live Nation Ticketmaster, which in fairness merged under the Obama administration, ever since then has acted like a monopoly and has used and abused their market power. Don't take my word for that. Take the word of a jury in the Southern District of New York who unanimously found that they are a monopoly, and now a judge early next year is going to get to determine whether you break up that monopoly or what other kinds of things could be done to help consumers in this space. By the way, this is an issue that unites conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill. So this is not a partisan issue, nor should it be a partisan issue. That gets lost sometimes in the conversation here. So I'm going to mention two quick things. One, the World Cup. I would argue that the problem with the World Cup is... It's the very monopoly problem that we're trying to address here. FIFA has a monopoly. It is universal that the prices are outrageous, and those prices are coming from the Gianni Infantino corrupt FIFA itself with monopoly power. Secondly, I heard conversations from the small business venues, and I agree. People showing up with a fraudulent ticket that got it on a fraudulent website, that's not right. Thank you. litigation at the federal level involving ticketing industry. At the same time, the governor has proposed additional resources for the attorney general to continue pursuing antitrust investigations and enforcement actions. For that reason, we believe that ticketing legislation should continue to be reviewed through the lens of how it may affect ongoing litigation and future remedies. As policymakers, we should be careful not to inadvertently codify business practices that are currently being challenged by regulators or undercut the important work being taken by California's AG on behalf of consumers. When this bill was introduced, CLIA was opposed and had strong concerns that certain provisions would reduce consumer control over lawfully purchased tickets and limit the ability of consumers, including seasoned ticket holders, to transfer, sell, and give away tickets they could use. Like others, we received the proposed committee amendments late the weekend and our members are still reviewing the language. However, based on our initial review and today's discussion, we believe the committee's amendments have moved the bill in a more consumer friendly manner. We truly appreciate the dedication and the efforts imposed by the committee consultant and the chair over the weekend. We are particularly encouraged by the efforts to address speculative ticketing and fraudulent activity while preserving important consumer protections. We want to thank the chair and the members and look forward to continuing to work with the author on this very measure. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move on to Me Too's. Please state your name, your organization, whether you support or oppose. In this part, we would like to go very quickly, so please line up. Anytime. Good morning. Ross Buckley on Bath the Sea of Sacramento in support. Good morning. Erin Neemola on behalf of StubHub. We have an OUA position. Appreciate the amendments. Thank you. Madam Chair and members, Courtney Jensen on behalf of SeatGeek and TickPick, also an opposed and less amended position. Thank the author for the amendments. Look forward to continuing to work as we review them. Thank you. Good morning, Michael Zaragoza on behalf of Hispanic 100. We remain opposed unless amended, but thank you for the committee, the work for the committee and thank you for the author on those amendments. Thanks. Thank you. If we can stick to name, organization, whether you support or oppose. Madam Chair, members, James Jack, on behalf of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness, we have an opposed unless amended position that we will be revisiting. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. Jose Barrera, California League of Latin American Citizens. We remain opposed unless amended. Thank you. Alex Torres, in the interest of brevity, on behalf of 20 NEVA venues throughout the state in strong support and sponsorship. Thank you Melissa Cortez on behalf of the San Francisco 49ers Major League Baseball and their five California clubs the Giants the Athletics the Dodgers the Angels and the Padres We all strongly support a ban on speculative tickets. We are reviewing the amendments to ensure they don't restrict our ability to enforce terms and conditions. Again, support or oppose? Let's keep it to that, please. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Diana Ordaz-Charrington, representing Women in Business Connections. We currently oppose unless amended. Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members. Roberto Arnold with the California Multicultural Business Alliance. We oppose unless amended. Good morning, Dr. Tocoy Porter with the National Action Network's Sacramento Chapter. We are currently opposed unless amended. We appreciate your work with the committee and the chair. Good morning, Gemma Gonzalez with California Spanish Chambers of Commerce in opposition unless amended. Thank you. Good morning, Ruben Guerra with the Latin Business Association. We oppose pending amendments. Good morning, Doug Kessler on behalf of Paton 294. We're opposed to that. Good morning, my name is Esther Kessler. I'm with the Central Valley Latino Elected Officials Coalition, and we oppose. Good morning, Chair and Members. Isha Ayar on behalf of the City of Thousand Oaks in support. Good morning, Delilah Clay here providing an OUA position for the California Black Chamber of Commerce. Good morning, Ahmaud Holmes, part of the California African American Chamber of Commerce. We are opposed. That's amended. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, members? Seeing none, Senator Archuleta. I studied the bill, so I'm going to go up on it with the understanding that the amendments, you're going to take the amendments, and then you're going to be working with us, right? Oh, absolutely. The chair and I have had many conversations over the last couple days. Okay, because that was the issue. If you're taking the amendments, if you're not going to take them, if you do, I'm with you. I don't think there was ever a second from the amendments being sent to us where the chair had any doubt that I would take them. Good. I'll move the bill when it's appropriate. Thank you. Senator Caballero. Yes, I want to second that. I'm glad to hear you. I apologize. I was out of the room when you accepted the amendments. But I just want to emphasize that we all got these very, very late. And as you know, language is important, and we want to make sure we get it right. I spent two years of my life that I will never see again trying to do this the last time, and I want to make sure we're getting it right. And, you know, the discussion about the whole monopoly situation is really ancillary. It's front and center, but it's ancillary to this discussion because there are some practices that make it very difficult for people to be able to get tickets and to protect the artists. And so I appreciate you taking on that charge. I've breezed through the language and I expect to see it again the bill again so I'm willing to support the direction that the bill is going in at this time the measure thank you Senator appreciate your accepting those amendments thank you Madam Chair thank you if I can bring up the Dodgers and the 49ers I didn't really get if you were there if the amendments helped with the franchises in California Sure thank you So all of the teams support a ban on speculative tickets There were some concerns with implementation on the bill in print The amendments appear to address all of those However, we are still reviewing those and want to make sure that nothing in the amendments limits or restricts our ability to enforce the team and league terms and conditions. And I'll just follow with the author. You'll work with the franchises here in California to make sure it doesn't disrupt. I'm a big Dodger fan. I work with the Dodgers on anything. Okay. All right. All right. The Giants maybe not. Yeah. Okay. All right. Hey, that's my kind of guy. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify that. We have a motion by Senator Archuleta. Assembly member, would you like to close? Yes. Look, as was mentioned by the Consumer Federation, these issues often bring together unlikely allies. This bill had the support of some staunch conservatives in the assembly, and the author is arguably one of the most progressive members of the assembly. And what got me interested in this topic is that I go to shows. I go to concerts. And speculative ticketing is anti-consumer, period. Irrespective of how you feel about Live Nation and Ticketmaster potentially having a monopoly over primary sales, that's a whole other conversation. Speculative tickets don't exist yet. It's not primary sale and it's not secondary sale. And these deceptive websites say things like, buy now, going fast. They haven't even gone on sale yet. And they're marked up. We made good faith efforts all the way through the process and especially coming to here that I would hope would ally the concerns of many of the folks who have been in opposition. we made heavy concessions because we're coming at this from what we believe is a righteous and honest place and what i've learned through this process is i don't think there's a good actor between the secondary market and the primary market at times the good actors are the fans and the consumers and that's who we should be fighting for and that's who this legislation is fighting for and i respectfully ask for your aye vote thank you we have a motion can we get a roll call vote please motion is due pass to senate privacy digital technologies and consumer protection. Whenever you're ready. Good morning. Thank you, Chair members. Today I'm proud to present AB 1693, which will support the state's diverse brick-and-mortar retail sector. In California, the retail industry directly employs more than 3 million Californians, over 500,000 retail establishments, supporting statewide local economies. This sector is one of California's largest small business employers, providing jobs, career advancement opportunities, and pathways to financial security for entrepreneurs from historically underserved communities and others. Across California, small businesses and retail establishments face unprecedented local permitting processes for tenant improvements that create significant hardships such as increased project costs, delays in business operations, and stagnant economic activity. When unnecessary permitting delays prevent business owners from taking on needed interior improvements to an existing building, it hurts not only the business but also the workforce and the surrounding community Current law creates a streamlined approval process for restaurants seeking these types of projects Establishing a similar model for retail projects will be essential for small businesses to thrive in California. AB 1693 aims to address this by requiring local building departments to allow a licensed architect or engineer serving as a qualified professional certifier to review tenant improvements and ensure these improvements meet all applicable school, building health and safety codes. This bill would require the local building department to approve or deny the tenant improvement permit within 20 business days of receiving the complete application. Additionally, this bill would authorize the applicant to resubmit corrected plans addressing the deficiencies identified in the initial denial, limit the local building department's review of each subsequent resubmission to the deficiencies identified in the initial denial, and require the local building department to approve or denies each subsequent resubmission within 10 business days of receipt. AB 1693 is critical as reducing these permitting delays will promote economic activity throughout the state while maintaining appropriate safety and compliance standards. I want to just say that just last weekend I was actually at a parade in my district at Senator DeRosso's district and I was going down the street and pretty much in every single block there were two, three, sometimes four existing businesses that were basically shuttered and we are in need of having retail folks move in, and this would also help revitalize our communities. So with that, I want to thank you. I respectfully ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time. And with me today in support of the bill is Jacob Brent with the California Retailers Association. Hello, Chair and co-sponsors. I'm Jacob Brent with the California Retailers Association, proud co-sponsors of AB 1693. We thank Assemblymember Zabura for his partnership on this critical issue. The California Retailers Association is the only statewide trade association representing

Thank you. Do we have any other lead witnesses? Seeing none. Lead opposition witnesses? Seeing none. Me too. State your name, your organization, whether you support or oppose. none we're going to move on to committee members. Senator Capayaro. Thank you very much for

the architect has designed the interior and then they certify it themselves? There would be a certification, but in discussions with SEIU and AFSCME, there would still be a review, and it wouldn't be deemed a proof. So the certifier would actually go through and make sure that they were compliant with code, would be certifying code, and would provide the details of what's required so that it would allow for the city or the local jurisdiction to actually review these things more quickly. And then we set up the 20-day timeframe.

Yes, we will look at that issue. I actually – I'm sorry that I wasn't brought up to speed to that question. And what I will tell you is that there's qualifications for the professional certifiers. We will look at actually whether or not we need to do something like that as part of the bill as we move forward. I will tell you that they don't get to grade their own paper. That was one of the big issues that we actually had with AFSCME and SEIU and about it sort of they're not big a review process at the city and it being automatically deemed approved. So the professional certifiers actually do a lot of the work so that there can be an expedited review when it gets to the city. and the city will still be doing a review, and there's not a deemed approval process as part of this bill anymore.

You know. But we may need something in the bill that indicates that, and I appreciate that.

Thank you, Senator.

Okay. I have a similar question. I want to clarify myself. I'm all for expediting the process for any remodeling, tenant improvement. That's very important. Sometimes, as I hear, it takes 20 days to 31 weeks, which is ridiculous. Every city has their financial problem. They don't have any enough plan checkers and actually site checkers. As far as I understand, there are two levels. You submit a design plan for remodeling or tenant improvement. Then that's a plan check, and they have to approve it. And then the contractors will execute and do the remodeling or rebuilding. and then the next step is the city will have to send out the inspectors in the check. Are we talking about all of it or plan check stage?

Plan check stage.

Okay. Okay, so initial question that I hear is that you are not sure that any qualified architects and engineers, they will know what they are doing. That's the reason they are licensed to practice. So on behalf of their customers, they will submit their designs. And you are trying to skip that process of city or county to review the plan

So self-certifying means that I'm an architect. I'm an architect. These are the building code requirements. they certify that it meets this one, it meets this one, it meets this one, it meets this one, that would still go to the city, and then the city would then have to review that certification, and then, you know, a lot of the work would be done ahead of time so that they could actually have an easier way of reviewing it, and then it would require a streamlined review.

You don't submit. The initial problem was that they don't have that time. and for whatever reason, the waiting time is so long, and all the design plan is all drawn by certified architects and engineers. So it's confusing how you're going to expedite the city of staff members.

Okay, they will go through the check boxes that the city officials will know money to.

Okay, thank you.

You know, this is an important, you know, our brick-and-mortar retail economy is really under stress right now, and a lot of, you know, and many jurisdictions are trying to get these retailers allow them to survive and continue to be vibrant in our communities as we're facing losses and we also have a lot of these things that are shuttered and only need interior establishment interior work and so this is something that you know I think we should be doing everything we can to keep you know our brick and mortar retail establishments alive and thriving and this bill moves in that direction so with that I would respectfully ask for your

Thank you Madam Chair and members for allowing me to present this bill AB 1826 I want to take this moment to formally accept the amendments as proposed by this committee. AB 1826 strengthens due process protections for licensed cannabis businesses while it preserves the Department's authority to protect public health and safety. Under current law, when the DCC believes products are misbranded, adulterated, or otherwise unsafe it may issue embargoes, mandate recalls, seize products, and pursue condemnation proceedings. While these actions are essential to consumer protections, existing law provides limited safeguards for licensees. If a product is brought into question, a business may face product embargoes or destruction without timely access to the evidence supporting the action. Cannabis products are often perishable, and inventory can expire or lose market value before disputes are even resolved. Therefore, AB 1826 requires the DCC to provide documentation at the time it issues a notice of misbranding, adulteration, embargo, or recall to ensure proper communication with licensees. I have my witness here today to testify, and its vice president of the California Cannabis Industry Association, Zoe Shriver.

Thank you. Do we have any other lead support witnesses? Do we have any lead opposition witnesses? Do we have Me Too Chair members Alicia Prieg on behalf of Kiva Brands and Kiva Sales and Services in support Amy Jenkins on behalf of the California Cannabis Operators Association in support Good morning. Shanta Pakin on behalf of the Cannabis Distribution Association in support. All right. Seeing no other witnesses, seeing no senators, would you like to close? Okay, and would you like to close? Would you like to speak? Okay, Senator Archuleta.

Yes. We built in someone who's knowledgeable about the process. At this point, we do have an opportunity to do that. But the department has sent people, lower-level staffers, people who handle application work, licensing, who don't know anything about the process or the things that have come up that have triggered any of the enforcement action. So the issue is, again, getting to somebody to listen, and this will open that door. Correct. It requires that person.

Assemblymember, would you like to close?

Thank you. And for clarification, I just want to make sure you are accepting the committee amendments, correct?

Thank you. With that, we have Senator Choi who made the motion. Let's do a roll call, please. Motion is due pass as amended to Senator Appropriations Committee. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Choi, aye. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adeguene? Carriero? Aye. Carriero, aye. Menjavar? Nilo? Aye. Nilo, aye. Richardson? Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Strickland? Aye. Strickland, aye. Amberg. All right. And for clarity, I believe we have absent member Senator Smallwood Cuevas, who does not have anybody that will be serving in her seat for the moment. So I just want to be very transparent with that. We have other absent members, so that bill is on call. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we're going to move on to final item number 10, Assemblymember Carrillo, AB 2166. And if we can have the sergeants call other members to come down.

Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. Marina Espinosa here with the California Housing Consortium. CHC advocates for the production and preservation of affordable housing, and we are proud to sponsor AB2166. Factory-built housing presents the state with a meaningful opportunity to lower construction costs and reduce construction timelines for housing projects. However, there is still some level of reluctance from investors to put resources into factory-built projects due to the perceived risks associated with this product type. AB 2166 plays an important role in promoting growth in the industry, preventing factory closure, and reducing financial risk for development teams. We've heard stories from developers who have had to pivot from factory-built to site-built construction as a result of factories going out of business. In these cases, developers had to absorb significant costs due to factory closures and costs associated with the redesign needed for them to pursue site-built construction. In another case, a developer lost a substantial deposit on a project when a factory went out of business. By creating a financial backstop, the state would accomplish two goals. The state would make it possible for surety companies to ensure more modular factories and protect development teams against factory failure. It would also demonstrate confidence in the industry, which would attract private investment and help promote industry growth. AB 2166 is a critical bill that ensures that factories have a greater level of stability and a steady pipeline of projects I strongly urge you to support this bill today Thank you.

Thank you, Senator, for bringing this forward. I'm a little confused. Why would it be so difficult to have insurance for the construction of the type of housing? Is it a financial thing, a financial backing? Why the insurance? Or is that for the finished product?

What's the insurance issue? Thank you, Senator.

Because there isn't enough production, they don't want to insure this type of housing units. So is this going to go to the insurance commission or committee at all?

Okay. But the product itself, once it's placed on a piece of property and constructed, put together, that's not an insurance issue with them?

I'll move the bill. Thank you.

My concern about the bill is related to Senator Archuleta's questions. If the surety issuers are not willing to finance the risk that you're asking the government essentially to take, it seems to me perhaps this market is a little bit too risky even for the government to take. And for that reason, I think it's at this point probably impossible for us to assess the financial requirements. Now, I know that's an appropriations committee, or that decision is made elsewhere, and this is on the policy, but when there is that much of a question mark as to the viability of the industry, it's more economic costs notwithstanding, we would never be able to experience that if the industry as a whole just can't get off the ground. It just seems to me that the risk that the government would be taking on is too great to overcome the affordability issues that you're trying to address here. I realize that's a comment, not a question,

All right. Would you like to close?

Senator Richardson, sorry. Sorry. So sorry.

that are being pre-made? This type of housing units could be single-family homes, could be multifamily condominiums, ice scrapers, six, seven stories high. Not so much ice scrapers, I take that back, but six stories high. And what we saw when we went to Sweden, that's a way that they're doing very effectively putting these units together up to six stories. And that's just what we're trying to do, again, trying to have a different type of construction methods methods to build the number of units that we need. And I should mention that this is a package of housing models that we're trying to do that came out from that visit to Melmo in Sweden. There's about six or seven other bills that are still going through the process to be able to, again, build the number of units that we need in the state.

All right. We're going to move on to, again, closing.

Thank you. And then do we have a motion? Yes, motion. Senator Archuleta moves the bill. Can we get a roll call, please? Motion is due pass to Senate Housing. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Choi, aye. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adagin? Caballero? Aye. Caballero, aye. Mindjavar? Nilo? Nilo, no. Richardson? Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood, Cuevas, Strickland? Humberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. So that bill is on call. Appreciate it. Again, reminding authors to show up to the committee. And real quick. All right So we going to move on to file item number 13 AB 2667 by Assemblymember Hadwick Assemblymember, whenever you're ready. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Permission to pass around a prop of a vape? Sure, it looks like a Sharpie. Yes, it's a deceptive vape. So you guys can take it out and look at it and inspect it as well. I would not, but it's up to you. I believe in freedom of choice. Thank you so much. And I would like to first thank the chair and the committee staff for working with me on this critical issues. Teenagers and adults in America are buying roughly 12 million disposable vapes per month and four and a half vapes are thrown away every second. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and early exposure increases the likelihood of long-term addiction and adverse health outcomes. As a mom of teenagers, I fought the vaping crisis with my own children. We don't yet have the research to know the full damage that vaping will have on our youth, and rural areas are seeing higher statistics than anyone. In my schools, almost every kid has tried. Half of them are addicted. When we asked kids what the percentage of the school was vaping, they almost always said 80%. And when I asked the parents that same question, they would say 10 or 20 percent. An even more troubling trend is kids are using vapes at school disguised as everyday items like pens, key fobs, chargers, highlighters, and hoodie strings. Some have features intentionally designed to increase dependency and addiction, like built-in video games. These hidden devices make it harder to train teachers and staff on what to look for and stop their students from vaping in class. Even if a school can detect and confiscate these disguised vapes, the school will have no way to dispose of it. As a tobacco use prevention education program director, I had a drawer full of vapes that I could not do anything with because as a school, collecting them, they're considered hazardous waste. While a parent can take a vape to a household hazardous waste facility, a school cannot since it's not considered to be created by a household. When these vapes do make their way to a facility, they're unable to process them cost effectively. A special permit is required to separate the nicotine or cannabis cartridge from the battery and other electronic components. Because some vapes are disguised, some waste facilities will never catch them, such as the Sharpie that's being passed around to you now, leading to battery fires and release of hazardous waste. Disguised vapes are poisoning our kids, causing fires at my small, underfunded waste facilities, and wasting precious taxpayer dollars and additional processing costs. AB 2667 bans deceptively marketed and disguised vapes targeting children that look like a handheld video game, food, candy, school supplies, or clothes. The bill also reduces vape processing costs by allowing household hazardous waste facilities to safely disassemble vapes. And finally, this bill requires the Department of Toxic Substance Control to address the management and disposal of vapes confiscated by schools. AB 2667 will protect kids, support schools, and ensure that hazardous materials are handled responsibly. I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and I'm joined today by the bill's sponsor, John Kennedy, with the Rural County Representatives of California. Okay, you will have two minutes. Thank you. John Kennedy with RCRC. We're pleased to be here today as a sponsor of AB 2667. We're focused on school safety and cost savings for our facilities. As local governments, we're charged with solid waste and hazardous waste management. Local governments operate about 200 household hazardous waste collection facilities. We're seeing more and more vapes. They generally cost us about $3. $150 per five-gallon bucket, we can get about 100, maybe 200 vapes in that bucket. Schools are having incredible problems trying to figure out what to do with vapes and how to properly manage and dispose of them. So this is a three-part bill. First, we're trying to find easier pathways for schools to manage vapes so our facilities can take vapes from some small schools and dovetailing into some federal guidance that's incredibly helpful in that respect. With respect to disassembly, as I've mentioned, these are very expensive for us to manage. If we can separate the cartridge from the rest of the vape, we can fit a lot more cartridges in that five-gallon bucket and manage that for the same cost. And then we want to make sure we're doing that safely, so in consultation with our local Koopas and firefolks. And then finally, on disguised vapes, you've seen the Sharpie vape, there are video game vapes out there. There are hoodie vapes, highlighter vapes, you name it, incredibly creative. We are very concerned not only from the school setting and perspective But also if we can't tell that they're a vape and have embedded lithium-ion batteries in them in our solid waste facilities And our recycling sort lines they could get crushed and catch fire So it's a safety issue for our facilities as well. So for those reasons. We're we're very happy that Assemblymember Hadwick introduced the bill and happy to address any concerns or any other suggestions that may come up along the way Thank you lead opposition lead support any others All right, lead opposition, Me Too's, and this is where you state your name, your organization, whether you support or oppose. No other commentary, please. Thank you. Melissa Sparks Kranz with the League of California Cities in support. Good afternoon. April Robinson with a voice for choice advocacy and strong support. Good morning. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of the California Product Stewardship Council, Alameda Stop Waste, and the Solid Waste Association of North America's legislative task force, all in strong support. Amy Jenkins on behalf of the California Cannabis Operators Association in support. Tony Hackett on behalf of Californians Against Waste and Rethink Waste in support. All right. Seeing no others, committee members? Move the bill. All right. Senator Strickland moves the bill. I do just want to say I appreciate the prop you shared. Now I feel dated because it very much looks like a Sharpie pen. We were trying to figure out where and how you use it, and we clearly saw. I'm surprised Sharpie hasn't sued. I'm sure they're trying. Because it literally says with their logo and everything. So I think that we genuinely all are very surprised. And again, thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you for the students for coming forward as well. With that, would you like to close? I thank you for hearing the bill. It's something that's very passionate to me. I've been on the Tobacco Coalition for 12 years, and it's just scary, and we're failing our kids right now. So this would be a big step in the right direction. So thank you. With that, we have a motion by Senator Strickland. Can we get a roll call, please? Motion is do pass to Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Choi, aye. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adagin? Caballero? Aye. Caballero, aye. Minjivar? Minjivar, aye. Nilo? Aye. Nilo, aye. Richardson? Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood, Cuevas? Strickland? Aye. Strickland, aye. Umberg? With that, that bill's on call. I appreciate it again. We're going to move on to Assemblymember Ward, file item number 7, AB 1793. Again, if our surgeons can make calls to other members to show up. File item number seven AB 1793 whenever you ready Well thank you Madam Chair members I know every time I come over to a Senate committee hearing you like to make sure that we talking about bills that make common sense And so I'm here to proudly present AB 1793, the California Common Sense Act, or CENTS. Now, AB 1793 would legalize the symmetrical rounding of cash transactions to the nearest nickel. I think you all are aware that last year, in 2025, the U.S. meant cease production of the penny, which was a coin first introduced in America in the year 1793. Already, California businesses are experiencing penny shortages, and they're leading to confusion and inconsistency at the cash register. So we're following the same model that was successfully used in Canada in the year 2013 when they discontinued their penny, and several U.S. states have actually enacted policies of symmetrical rounding up or down to the nearest five-cent increment. Symmetrical rounding will only be applied to the total transaction price after the application of taxes and fees, and only the cash transactions, electronic or credit card transactions, will be unaffected. In the absence of clear federal guidance on this issue, this bill aims to ensure a smooth and transparent transition for consumers and businesses alike. And here as a witness in support is Taylor Trifo on behalf of the California Groceries Association. When the time is appropriate, I look forward to your questions and respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you, Madam Chair. members. Taylor Triff on behalf of the California Grocers, we're happy to support this effort and thank Mr. Ward for his work. Following the halt of production and subsequent penny shortages, grocers are left navigating inconsistent and unclear rounding practices at the register, and with food prices at an all-time high, we know that even pennies count. AB 1793 provides a simple, uniform solution by enabling symmetric rounding to the nearest nickel. This ensures consistency and clarity, preventing systematic advantages for either the grocer or the customer. For grocers operating on thin margins, but a high transaction volume standardization is critical. 1793 will reduce confusion at the checkout, improve efficiency, and build trust at a time of transition in our currency. This is a pragmatic framework in a post-penny future, and we request an aye vote. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other lead support witnesses? Seeing none. Lead opposition? Seeing none. One more time? All right. And we're going to move on to Me Too's, both in support and opposition. Ryan Alain, I'm behalf of the California Retailers Association, here to provide my two cents in support of this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other speakers, committee members. Seeing nobody else. Senator Nilo. With apologies, Madam Chair. I have several concerns about this bill. Well, one, with regard to the possibility that pennies may come back, and at the very least, the bill should probably have a sunset. But that point aside, the issue of tradable currency is a federal issue. It's not a state issue, and I really – I kind of don't think we should be dealing with that here. but from a practical standpoint the industry is going to adjust to this they're going to do it on their own right now they're trying to get pennies so that they can make change but I think in the absence of this bill and I won't be supporting it for the reasons I stated we will be seeing prices stated in five cent increments I mean that's the obvious solution when there is no penny So I don't think it needs our government imposed solution along with the complications that the penny may come back and that this really isn a state issue All right Senator Archuleta Yes Assemblymember you had mentioned using a credit card the pennies would be reflective in the credit card, but when you're paying cash, they would make the adjustment and say, don't give me the pennies or I'll give you, we'll round it off. Would you go over that one more time? You understood it correctly. That's right. So a credit card transaction would just go to your credit card statement exactly as it is, say, $17.93. cents. But if you're having that transaction in cash, this would allow the retailer to be able to round up or round down, and the consumer would either round up or round down the change that they get. If you think about it over time, from both the consumer and the retailer's perspectives, this is a wash. Right now, without this clear opportunity, this guidance that we have that would allow for symmetrical rounding right now, this only benefits one side right now. And so we are seeing because pennies aren't available for restocking into your register right now, that that till is always going to be off. Like I said, this is a solution that has been actually already adopted and is under consideration by other states. We would also prefer the federal government have provided this guidance. They haven't. And of course, a lot of merchant's law is embedded within state policy. And so that's why we want to update our codes to reflect the situation. And what about the federal government's comment that we heard? That they were going to be They wanted to make sure that the Treasury had indicated that they were going to leave it up for states to be able to update their laws to reflect the current situation. I would – I mean we're guessing whether or not it would come back. I would say it's highly probable the penny would ever come back because as we know today it costs four cents for every one-cent point material to actually produce. It's not worth its own weight. So if the consumer has a jar full of pennies, they would turn them in to their bank? You could still use it as legal tender today, absolutely. You could turn it into their store or to the bank. This, again, just allows on a going-forward basis because over time and over the totality of all of these transactions, the numbers of pennies in circulation are going to rapidly decline. So we're not actually stopping the usage of the penny? Correct. We're not? No. Okay. With that, I'll move the bill. Thank you. Would you like to close? Thank you. I respectfully would do request your aye vote. I know we've, in common colloquialism, have always really enjoyed this debate and enjoying your two cents, but I think on a going-forward basis, I'm going to round up and say that I really appreciate your five cents on this matter and respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you. With that, we have a motion by Senator Archuleta. Can we get a roll call vote, please? Motion is due pass to Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Abstained. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adagin? Cabrero? Aye. Cabrera, aye. Menjivar? Aye. Menjivar, aye. Nilo? No. Nilo, no. Richardson? Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Strickland? No. Strickland, no. Umberg? All right. That bill's on call until the absent members show up. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We're going to ask one more time, folks. We need Assemblymember Alvarez to present himself. We're going to move on to file item number 6, AB 1720, by Assemblymember Haney. And please keep your comments concise. The absent members on the committee, can we also get them to show up? Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and members. AB 1720 is the California Fans First Act, which will protect fans from excessive ticket price gouging by capping resale prices at no more than 10 above face value including fees for concerts and other live entertainment events at independent venues Live events as we know are vital to California. They generate billions in economic activity, support hundreds of thousands of jobs, and bring culture, community, and connection to our state. California is the number one state for live events in the nation. For decades, fans could access events in a really simple way. They would line up at the box office and buy tickets for some of the biggest acts for reasonable prices or for their favorite local artists at an independent venue in their neighborhood. But the shift to online sales has fundamentally changed the system. Ticket scalping has become a highly profitable industrialized scheme that is pricing fans out of the market and hurting independent venues and artists. If what's happening today online happened in person, it would be absolutely unacceptable. In some cases, it's already illegal. Imagine if you showed up to the box office and the person in front of the line went up, bought all of the tickets before you could get there at a reasonable price you were prepared to pay, and then immediately started going down the line and selling their ticket for five or six times the price that they paid. We would never tolerate that, but it is exactly what is happening today at scale online. Professional scalpers purchase large volumes of tickets the moment they go on sale and immediately list them on secondary platforms. They have no intention of attending the event. They are gambling or speculating on the accessibility of those tickets at a reasonable price and charging fans a lot more, in some cases not selling the tickets at all, leaving theaters partially full even though they've sold most of the tickets. As a result, over 90% of resale tickets are sold by these professional scalpers and fans are paying on average, are sold by professional scalpers, and fans are paying on average over 200% over face value for tickets on the secondary market. We are seeing this everywhere from major arenas to local theaters. We just hosted Sam Smith in San Francisco at the Castro Theater. That was a 20-show residency, and when those tickets went on sale at face value of $120, meant to be affordable for people in the neighborhood and the city, they were immediately sold out. many of those tickets purchased by people who had no intention to go to the event, but instead to relist them at $600, $700, $800, charging a massive markup and putting that money directly in their pockets. That difference does not go to artists, venues, or workers. It goes directly into the pockets of professional scalpers, many of whom are out of state, who contribute nothing to the live event ecosystem. They do not build venues, they do not employ workers, and they do not create art, yet they are extracting profit directly from fans. We know that we also have to address the powerful monopoly of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. That is happening via a court case, and it needs to happen. But a key conclusion of the Assembly Privacy Committee's informational hearing on ticketing was that the current ongoing efforts to break up Live Nation are separate from reforming the secondary market, and both can coexist, and both are needed in order to address the challenges that we're seeing with affordability of tickets and the impact that it has on fans, artists, and venues. This bill, as we know now, is limited just to independent venues that are under 3,000 capacity. This bill is sponsored by those independent venues who want this bill, who desperately need this bill in order to survive, and the artists who perform at those venues. There are more than a dozen states attempting to cap resale ticket prices this year, including New York, Wisconsin, Washington, and Vermont's bill was just signed into law. This is something that we can do for our fans. All of us represent California residents who want to be able to access affordable concerts and shows, but it's also critical in order to to support the independent theaters and artists who actually are performing the work, building the venues, the workers who are there, and not allowing scalpers and speculators to take advantage of this system and exploit it. With me to testify in support of the bill are Ron Gubitz, the Executive Director of the Music Artists Coalition, and Alex Torres on behalf of the National Independent Venues Association. Thank you. You'll have two minutes. Madam Chair and members, Alex Torres here on behalf of the National Independent Venue Association. We represent over 650 independent venues, festival promoters, and nonprofit stages throughout the state. I want to start by addressing a few concerns raised. Why doesn't this bill protect every fan? The answer is simple. We believe it should. We believe fans attending sporting events deserve protection. We believe fans attending concerts deserve protection. We believe every Californian deserves protection from industrial-scale ticketing speculation. But we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The question before this committee is not whether every fan deserves protection. The question is whether we're willing to protect the fans we can protect today. Those fans matter. California's independent live industry generates $18 billion in economic output, supports more than 102,000 jobs, contributes $10.9 billion to our state's GDP, and serves nearly 24 million fans every year. Yet despite that impact, only 31% of independent stages were profitable last year, and scalpers and predatory sale platforms rank among the industry's most significant operational challenges. These are not corporate venues. These are locally owned small businesses, cultural institutions, and community gathering places throughout California. And frankly, we're tired of hearing the narrative that independent venues are somehow doing Live Nation Ticketmaster's bidding. No one has spent more time competing against the corporate monopoly than the venue owners supporting this bill. Many of these same venue owners fought through the California Venues Grant Program during COVID and testified about liens on their homes, mortgages tied to their businesses, and the possibility of losing cultural institutions that define their communities. To now hear these same independent operators are somehow carrying water for Live Nation Ticketmaster is not only inaccurate, it's insulting. Even our members have consistently supported antitrust enforcement against Live Nation Ticketmaster because we compete against them every single day. We support more competition, not less. What's particularly striking is that many of the organizations opposing 1720 claim to speak for consumers and local communities. Yet we continue to have a standing invitation for any of these platforms, associations, or opposition groups to sit with venue owners, independent venue owners throughout California, and hear directly from the people dealing with speculative resale every day. You heard from one of them earlier today in 1349. To date, not one has taken us up on that offer, which begs the question, who are they speaking for? Because they're certainly not speaking for the venue owner explaining to an angry fan why a $35 ticket costs $200. Thank you. Thank you. Any other lead support witnesses? Thank you. I'm Ron Gubitz with the Music Artist Coalition. Next week at Harlow's here in Sacramento, you can see the Dust Bowl Revival Group. Tickets still available direct from Harlow's using the eTix platform are $27.19, including fees. Or you can buy them from Vivid Seats for $51.25. Imagine, as Assemblymember Haney said, a van full of robots cutting in front of every person in line at the box office, buying every ticket, then forcing everyone in line behind them to pay double the price. That is what is happening digitally at scale every single day. The secondary market is a billion a year industry They spent millions here in California to try and defeat this bill and preserve their practice of fleecing customers artists and the entire ecosystem of people who bring music every day into our communities But I believe you all will make the right decision here. I believe you will listen to your voters. MAC commissioned a poll of over 4,000 registered voters nationally and in California. 91% of California voters support ticketing reform legislation, and 91% support capping resale markups. These aren't partisan numbers. It's as close to unanimous as you can get. And while we firmly believe that every fan at every show has the right to the protections of 1720, the bill before you takes a meaningful step forward in protecting fans right now. Your constituents can't afford to continue to have these massive tech platforms and their industrial-scale flippers and brokers continue to rip them off and kill independent music in towns and cities across California. A vote against 1720 is a stamp of approval for your constituents and our fans to get gouged and taken advantage of. An I vote, as the Doobie Brothers sing, is what the people need. We need to listen to your voters, listen to the artists, and listen to the music. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move on to lead opposition witnesses. You will be timed. Good afternoon now, Madam Chair and members. Robert Harrell, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. I'll use my two minutes a bit more judiciously this time. I won't repeat what I said earlier about the history of the monopoly and what's going on with that because I talked about earlier on the Brian bill. The problem for consumers is that it's hard to get tickets. Why? There's obviously going to be a supply-demand imbalance for popular artists. Why? Pre-sales, bots. And the monopoly itself doesn't do a good job about policing bots because they don't want to admit that their cybersecurity is lacking, fundamentally lacking. In some cases, they actually let the bots in, or they know that someone has signed up with multiple accounts, so they don't stop that. By the way, for the NEVA representative, I am happy to meet, CFC is happy to meet anytime, anywhere to talk about ticketing issues. Anytime. I want to make that clear. Were 1720 to become law, the main beneficiary of the bill would be the monopoly itself. How? The bill caps prices and profits for the precious few competitors. Secondary market is the only place where the monopoly has a little bit of competition. Okay. The real objective, it's called a loss leader strategy. They are willing to take a small financial hit on this, and the bill's been limited. And by the way, sports is exempt. The Olympics are exempt. Now that exemption's being expanded. Everything's exempt, basically, except for these 3,000 and fewer smaller. But that's a loss leader because in the long run, what they really want is less competition. Okay. The last thing I'll just note is this is a logistical problem. What is face value? With dynamic pricing and things like that now, it is impossible to determine what face value is. Season tickets, dynamic pricing, that's a logistical problem that this bill can't solve. The Bryan bill was fixable. We appreciate the work of the committee on that. This one feels not fixable. We oppose. Thank you. Thank you. So can I get another lead opposition witnesses? Two minutes. Thank you. Madam Chair and members, Delilah Clay here on behalf of the California Live Events Equity Alliance. We are a consumer-facing organization made up of fans, consumers, and equity groups across the state, and we respectfully oppose AB 1720. We appreciate the author's focus on ticket affordability. However, as the committee analysis recognizes, there are important questions about whether resale caps address the actual drivers of high ticket prices. CLIA members believe that AB 1720 will be more harmful to consumers than it will help AB 1720 focuses on the symptom of high ticket prices in a segment of the marketplace but does nothing to address the underlying causes of that problem As noted in the analysis ticket prices are driven by many factors, including scarcity, venue capacity, inventory allocation, dynamic pricing, not just resale activity. A price cap does not curb consumer demand. CLIA believes addressing broader marketplace concerns and increasing competition for ticket sales is the most effective method for decreasing prices. AB 1720 also does nothing to reduce the monopoly that dominates the primary ticket market. In fact, it could ultimately reduce consumer choice by strengthening Ticketmaster's monopoly control. In Ireland, price cap restrictions caused major secondary market places to disappear from the market. Consumers didn't stop wanting tickets, they simply moved to unregulated channels. Fraud has increased, while Ticketmaster's market share has grown to well over 95%. While AB 1720's piecemeal approach, sorry, with AB 1720's piecemeal application and the lack of information sharing between platforms, it will be hard for consumers to know what tickets are subject to price caps and whether they are in fact paying the right amount for a ticket. Lastly, we are still in the middle of the ongoing lawsuit where the biggest primary seller, Ticketmaster, was found to be a monopoly. California and 30 other state AGs are now involved in the remedies phase. We expect that will have a major impact on ticket changes. So with that, we ask for a no vote. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other speakers? Me too. State your name, your organization, whether you support or oppose. Thank you. Michael Zaragoza on behalf of Hispanic 100 in opposition. Good afternoon. Isha Ayer on behalf of the city of Thousand Oaks in support. Erin Niemela on behalf of StubHub also in opposition. Courtney Jensen on behalf of SeatGeek and TickPick in opposition also expressing opposition for game time. Thank you. Juanita Martinez on behalf of the California Black Chamber in opposition. Estella Castor representing the Central Valley Latino elected officials. We also, I forgot the word, we object. Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Diane Ordaz-Cherrington representing Women in Business Connections. We oppose this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Tocoy Porter, National Action Network, Sacramento, is what I represent. We oppose this bill. Roberto Arnold with the California Multi-Ultra Business Alliance, and we oppose this bill. Doug Kessler representing Platon 294, I'm sorry. We oppose. Jemma Gonzalez with California and Hispani chambers of commerce in opposition. Thank you. Jose Barrera, California League of Native American citizens in opposition. Dr. Ruben Guerra, chair of the Latin Business Association and we oppose. James Jack on behalf of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness in opposition. Governor Ed, owner of Harlow's, the star of the room in Cafe Colonial, and the president of the California Capital Venue Coalition. We are in support. Ahmad Holmes representing the California African American Chamber of Commerce We opposed Jennifer Aguilar on behalf of the Cinema Association We want to thank the author for working with us on amendments to exempt movie theaters Thank you Seeing no other speakers, members of the committee, Senator Nilo. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the reasons stated by the opposition, but there's a much more simple reason why this, frankly, won't work. And that's because this is just simply price controls, and price controls never work. If a ticket is being offered for $30 but there are a bunch of people willing to pay $100, there's going to be a black market that will circumvent this. I'll guarantee it. So I just artificially regulating ticket prices just by setting arbitrary prices or limits in a free marketplace just has been proven time and time again it doesn't work. Thank you. Senator Menjivor. Would you like to respond? Yeah, so it certainly works to reduce and control the prices. We know this from the dozens of countries where this has been studied closely, and the prices in those places are much lower. In fact, you've probably heard that people fly to other parts of the world to go see Taylor Swift in countries that do have these types of controls because it's way more affordable. There is a black market currently. This is not creating a black market. In fact, much of the system works much like a black market as it is because folks are being tricked and sold secondary tickets that actually they could get for cheaper if they bought it directly. So there's a huge problem right now with the secondary black market. This actually, for the first time, will give consumers real protections because you will be required to upload the ticket that you purchased that's in the bill and be able to see how much was paid for it and be able to verify that it's real and know that you only should be paying 10% more than what was paid for. None of those protections exist right now. And so the black market as it exists now I think is a lot more harmful, a lot more uncertain, a lot less protective of consumers than what would exist if we were to have this. So certainly there will be folks who try to get around the system, but not to the degree that it is now where it is completely one that is dominated by speculators and by folks who want to flip tickets and trick consumers and force them to pay more. That's what we're trying to address here, and this will help to control those prices, which has been studied in places that have this, and also be able to have those consumer protections. All right. Senator Menchievor. Thank you, Senator. That was a good point because I was going to make that to – If it didn't work, then we wouldn't be traveling to other countries to go see concerts, even with the plane tickets. It would be cheaper than here. But can you explain, there's, you know, some are saying that you're not including the larger venues. But that was against your will. Is that not correct? Yes. It's interesting to me that folks are now saying that somehow this will help Live Nation or Ticketmaster. This bill now only applies to smaller independent venues. It doesn't apply to Live Nation venues at all. We believe that it should apply everywhere. It should apply to larger venues. This is a problem that's happening with independent smaller venues and the larger arenas. In appropriations, these amendments were put in, in part because of this issue of whether applying it to live nation venues somehow helped them. I disagree with that. But they were excluded completely. So the folks who are competing with live nation venues are these independent venues that support the bill at which this would apply to. Those are the competitors to Live Nation venues. They want this bill. So it applies to these smaller theaters who overwhelmingly have been fighting for this bill and competing with Ticketmaster and Live Nation. It doesn't apply to the larger ones. But what we want to be able to do is put this in a place and be able to demonstrate that it helps, that this can work for these smaller venues, of which there are a lot of them. We have about a dozen in San Francisco that this would apply to, for example, and then be able to hopefully expand it to others as well. But it is something that I believe should apply everywhere. In a probes, was the sporting thing also added, or did that come after the Olympics, FIFA, exemption for those? This bill was always for us about addressing the issues with concerts and live performances because of that specific issue. We worked with these venues who focus on that, who aren't involved with the FIFA and Olympics. Do I think that those should have some, as you heard from our sponsor, ultimately have some price controls as well? Yes, they deserve those protections as well. There were some clarifications, I think, on how to define FIFA and Olympics. But this bill never included the sports and was never intended to. There's other issues related to season tickets and those sort of things, which I think we should take on. But at the very least, for these independent venues that are getting screwed over, the fans are getting screwed over. or the tickets are being taken off the markets. In some cases, they sell 80% of the tickets, but their shows are 30% full because the secondary scalpers don't actually sell the tickets. It's a huge problem for these specific venues, and that's what we're trying to solve. It doesn't mean it's not also a problem for FIFA and Olympics and sports, but it's a separate issue that I think deserves its own conversation. My last question is the analysis talked about this arbitrary 10%. Where did you get 10%? So there are countries around the world that don't allow a markup at all, and if you sell it, you have to do it at the face value. We thought that it's fair to have some small markup there so that if you can't make a show, that you can get some recoup of a little bit more than what you paid for it, but take away the huge speculative incentive there. We thought 10% would do that. We're happy to engage with folks if there's another number. Most of the bills that have been introduced around the country also are doing the 10 percent, so it's consistent with what ultimately is going to happen. California should lead on protecting live events and ensuring access for our fans, but there is a reason why there's this push all over the country. And so we set it at 10 percent so that there's a little bit more that folks could recoup if they couldn't make it but take away the real speculative incentive. Madam Chair. Senator Richardson. I'll be real brief. I'm going to support the bill today. I don't normally serve on this committee, so kind of out of the box of participating. But I would say generally regarding this conversation, it sounds a lot to me like what we've been having with purchasing homes, where you have independent, you know, investors can come in and, you know, do a cash offer and people, regular Californians who want to be able to buy a home can't because they're, you know, everybody else is buying them out. So the fact that we've had two bills regarding this same issue today I think really speaks to a bigger discussion that needs to be had of how we would ultimately handle this problem. So congrats to the author and the previous author of their work. But to me it really seems like this is a bigger issue that needs more thought and more discussion to get us ultimately where we trying to go Thank you All right Would you like to close Sure. Again, thank you for the engagement on it. This is a real serious issue. It's been studied extensively. It's a conversation happening all over the world around it. And right now the system is benefiting the speculators, benefiting the folks who want to make a profit and gamble off of these tickets. and the fans are getting screwed, artists are getting screwed, and venues are getting screwed. I will say this bill is triple referred. So for those of you who are sort of, you know, on the fence or such, I would ask for your consideration to allow us to continue this conversation after today and allow us to continue to work on this. I know it would next go to judiciary and privacy, and we really want to be able to continue this conversation. And again, this is independent venues and artists desperately, desperately begging for this, and it only applies to their theaters. I think it's something that would help to solve the problem, and California really needs a solution to, I think, what we all recognize is a huge issue that's affecting all of our constituents. So with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you. Can I get a motion? Senator Menchievoort moves the bill. Motion is due pass to Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection. Wahab? Aye. Wahab, aye. Choi? Aye. Choi, aye. Archuleta? Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Caballero? Aye. Caballero, aye. Mindjavar? Aye. Mindjavar, aye. Nilo? No. Nilo, no. Richardson? Aye. Richardson, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Strickland? No. Strickland, no. Umberg? Not voting. 6 to 2, that bill's out. I'm going to lift the call for all votes for all absent members with file item number 1 being pulled. So file item 1 was pulled, file item number 2, call absent members, please. Bushes do pass the Senate Judiciary Committee. Current votes 5-2. Archuleta. Adegeen. Aye. Adegeen, aye. Smallwood Cuevas. Umberg. Aye. Umberg, aye. File item number 3. Or, sorry, that bill is 7-2. That bill is out. Yeah. Item number 3, AB 1199. Motion is due passed to Senate Health. Current votes 7-0. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. All right. That bill is 10-0. That bill is out. We're going to move on to file item number 4. Assemblymember Bryan, AB 1349. Motion is due passed to Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection. Current vote is 5-0. Troy, Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Menjivar? Menjivar? Aye. Menjivar, aye. Nilo? Smallwood Cuevas? Umberg? Not voting. Okay, that's not 6-7. 7-0. That bill is out 7-0. File item number 5, AB 1693. Motion is due pass to Senate Judiciary Committee Current vote 7 Adagin Aye Adagin aye Menjavar Aye Menjavar aye Smallwood Cuevas Umberg Aye. Umberg, aye. That bill is out 10-0. We've already done file item 6, so we're going to move on to file item 7. Motion is due passed to Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. Current votes 5-2. Choi? Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Smallwood Cuevas, Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. That bill's out 7-2. File item number 8. AB 1826, motion is due pass as amended to Senate Appropriations Committee. Current vote 7-0. Adegeen? Aye. Adegeen, aye. Menjivar? Aye. Menjivar, aye. Smallwood Cuevas, Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. 10-0, that's out. That bill's 10-0, that bill's out. We're going to move on to file item 10. AB 2166. Motion is due passed to Senate Housing. Current votes 5 to 1. Adagine? Aye. Adagine, aye. Menjavar? Aye. Menjavar, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Strickland? Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. 8 to 1. 8 to 1. That bill is out. We're going to move on to file item number 12. AB 2537. Motion is due passed as amended to Senate Appropriations Committee. Current votes 6 to 0. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Menjivar? Aye. Menjivar, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. 10 to 0. That bill's out. 10 to 0. We're going to move on to file item 13, AB 2667. Motion is due pass to Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. Current votes 8 to 0. Adagin? Aye. Adagin, aye. Smallwood Cuevas? Umberg? Aye. Umberg, aye. That bill's 10 to 0. That bill is out. We're going to move on to file item number 11, AB 2386 by Assemblymember Alvarez whenever he's ready. This is our final bill. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, committee members. appreciate the opportunity to present Assembly Bill 2386, which creates a responsible supervised pathway for qualified internationally trained physicians to serve California communities that face severe physician shortages and lack of access to culturally and linguistically competent care. You may be familiar with this. California is facing a significant physician workforce crisis, particularly in primary care and in underserved communities. I first read about this through the the UCLA policy report a little less than a year ago, and that's how I was interested in this, started to do more research, found out that more than 11.4 million Californians, that's over a quarter of our state population, lacks adequate access to physicians, and by the year 2030, in just a little less than four years, we will need an additional 8,243 physicians to meet just the basic healthcare needs of our communities. The shortage is especially acute in communities like the ones that I represent where patients face long wait times, language barriers, and difficulty finding providers who understand their culture and their background. Assembly Bill 2386 responds to that problem by allowing qualified trained physicians to serve patients and communities where the need is the greatest. The bill does two things primarily. First, it creates a pathway for physicians who have successfully served under the licensed Physicians from Mexico program to apply for full licensure after meeting additional requirements and demonstrating a record of safe effective practice Second part of the bill is that it creates a provisional licensure pathway for qualified internationally trained physicians who are in good standing have completed postgraduate training or have significant practice experience abroad and meet exam and language proficiency requirements and practice only under supervision within approved sponsoring entities The bill does not waive patient safety standards, and it does not create an immediate, unsupervised pathway to independent practice. Applicants would have to meet defined statutory requirements, practice under supervision, and remain subject to the medical board for oversight and discipline. This has been a process with a lot of input, one of the most input that I've received on any of my bills, and we have taken that very, very seriously from all stakeholders, particularly concerns raised by the California Medical Association and the Medical Board of California around patient safety, training standards, supervision, and program integrity. We have been in productive dialogue with everyone since the bill's introduction. Actually, before the bill's introduction last fall, we began these conversations. And recent amendments were intended to address concerns with the bill's prior approach by adding a clear framework for determining whether an internationally trained physician has sufficient postgraduate training or practice experience to apply for this license. We've also accepted numerous amendments suggested by multiple folks, the medical board and others, including changes intended to strengthen applicant screening, good standing requirements, supervision, sponsoring entity accountability, and patient safety protections. I think there's probably some more work to do here, but we remain committed to continuing to work with all the stakeholders, the medical board, CMA, and others as the bill moves forward. We're also happy to continue working with the California Academy of Family Physicians. We had a conversation with them just last week on how to appropriately account for training that may not come through the ACGME accredited residency, which I know is a priority for them. While recognizing that many qualified physicians trained outside the U.S. have meaningful clinical training and experience that should be considered. At the same time, California cannot study this issue indefinitely, as some have suggested, while underserved communities continue to struggle with access to care. 27 other states have passed similar bills already. And we are confident that California can also find a way to expand access to care in a responsible manner that protects patients, maintains appropriate standards, and gives qualified physicians an opportunity to serve in communities of need. Now I'd like to turn it over to our testimony. Dr. Elin Shapiro, who's here to testify, he's Medical Affairs Officer for Altamed. and Lawson Mansell, who is Senior Policy Analyst with the Niskanon Center. Two minutes. Thank you so much. Good morning and evening, Chair Dr. Wahab and members. My name is Dr. Ilan Shapiro. I'm a community physician, Chief Medical Health Officer for Altamad Health Services, and most importantly, an international medical graduate. I know firsthand how difficult it is to be an international trained physician, to navigate a system without a clear pathway, even when they have the training experience and commitment to serve the communities that we are now trying to achieve. We know that California does not have enough physicians, especially in primary care underserved communities. At the same time, many highly trained, international trained physicians are already living in our communities, working below the level that can actually be serving our community. That is an on-tabbed workforce here in California, and we cannot overlook that part. EBIT 2386 offers a responsible solution. It transcends the existing licensed physicians from Mexico program by giving participating physicians a pathway to continue serving communities that rely on It also creates a structured pathway for international trained physicians from other countries to practice in California. The bill maintains high standards. It requires rigorous credential verification, supervised clinical practice, competency-based evaluations, and compliance with nationally recognized standards. This is not a shortcut. It's a structured pathway that supports both workforce expansion and patient safety. For this study, it should not delay action. California's existing programs have been evaluated, national standards already exist, and more than 20 states have adopted similar pathways. It is the time that California can actually follow suit. For Fair Qualified Health Center patients, this matters because access is not just about number of doctors. It's about the providers who understand their language, culture, and live experiences. Thank you. I respectfully say aye. Ask for an aye, yes. Two minutes. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Wahab and members of the committee. My name is Lawson Mansell. I am a senior health policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. My colleagues and I have been providing expert technical assistance to legislators across the country working on licensing pathways for internationally trained doctors. I'm here to testify in support. AB 2386 creates a pathway for internationally trained physicians and grants permanent licensure to the physicians currently in the Licensed Physicians for Mexico program. This legislation is sorely needed. as experts predict that California will need an additional 10,500 primary care providers in the next four years to meet the demand for care. Rural communities, the Inland Empire, and the San Joaquin Valley bear the heaviest burden of the shortage. Still, California requires internationally trained doctors to repeat their residency here before obtaining full licensure. This unnecessary duplication prevents qualified doctors from contributing to patient care. As a result, many trained doctors are forced into positions well below their expertise or unable to practice at all. The existing Mexico program shows that this model works, allowing AB 2386 to build on a track record of demonstrated success. An independent UC Davis evaluation found that participating physicians integrated well into community health centers, expanded access to care, and improved patient trust. Twenty-seven states, including neighboring Oregon and Nevada, have adopted similar pathways in recent years. California is in a unique position to implement this law with limited administrative burdens. The credentialing and oversight systems built for the existing pilot program are in place, and the health care facilities that participated know how to integrate these physicians into their care teams. California patients will be better served if this legislation advances. Thank you for your time, and I welcome any questions. Thank you. Do we have any lead opposition witnesses? Lead opposition, only two minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Aaron Bone with the Medical Board of California. We do agree that we need more qualified physicians. However, this bill jeopardizes public safety by unacceptably reducing licensure requirements. Under current law, the board is heavily dependent upon accepted organizations that provide reasonable assurances that physicians are appropriately trained in accredited programs. Under this bill, the board must accept medical training and licensure standards from all around the world. In addition, the bill provides a licensure pathway without any formal medical training that is equivalent to that here in California. The amendments last week, unfortunately, removed authority that the board could have used to help verify the quality of that training. AB 2386 relies upon a sponsoring entity and as little as one supervising physician to ensure that these licensees are ready for independent practice. But the bill does not provide appropriate standards to help ensure that they are competent to practice on their own There are also no requirements that the supervisor must meet to qualify for this vital role The board authority to approve a sponsoring entity was also struck from the bill last week Regarding the Physicians for Mexico program, the board does believe that those pilot program physicians should be able to obtain ongoing licensure. Unfortunately, as currently drafted, the bill erodes the benefits of this successful program and departs from normative licensing requirements. We ask that the requirements to pass the USMLE and obtain ECFMG certification be put back into the bill, and further amendments are needed to ensure that these physicians continue practicing in the underserved communities associated with the original purpose of this program and in a manner that is aligned with their training, certification, and experience. Senators, this bill should not be approved today. These matters require far more time to study and get right. Instead, the board asks for resources and a mandate to consult with experts in the medical regulatory field, patient advocates, and the broader health community, so that way the board can recommend whether or how to offer full licensure to internationally trained physicians in a manner that balances access to care. Ask for a no vote. Thank you.

Me Too's in support and opposition. State your name, your organization.

Thank you.

Johnny Vineda on behalf of the Latino Coalition for Health California Campaign for More Doctors for California Association de Migrantes Guatemaltecos Los Angeles the Central American Advocacy and Resource Center in support

Vanessa Cajina on behalf of the California Academy of Family Physicians. Regretfully, in opposition to the bill in print, appreciate the author and all of his work on this, but really can't see that residency and supervision are the same.

Andrea Mavisca on behalf of CPC Advocates, proud co-sponsor and support.

Kevin Guzmano to California Medical Association. We're opposed unless amended.

Rosa Fernandez representing San Benito Health Foundation, the organization that brought the first two physicians under the Mexican bill, and we are in strong support.

Angelica Rojas from San Benito Health Foundation, former patient and daughter and granddaughter of farmworkers I support.

I'm supporting my partners over there. Thank you. I think I got it all wrong.

We're not asking for testimony. We're asking for your name, your organization, and whether you support or oppose.

So you support. Appreciate it. Thank you. Committee members, would you guys like to speak? Senator Richardson.

Thank you. Senator Brejavar.

So we are allowing them to continue more than the three years that is currently allowed. They have to do – it's after six, right, because they have to do – They would be able to pursue a full licensure after six. That is correct. And the current bill.

So there's some truth to that. We believe that the experience that the doctors would have had during that term would have been significant enough to demonstrate their ability to serve patients with obviously the supervision that's required and obviously being under the ability to be overseen by the medical board. And so we believe that that experience suffices, I guess, would be the best way to describe it to allow that to be sufficient to allow them to pursue this permanent licensure.

They would be able to receive permanent licensing to serve. That's correct.

We tried to take some from what we thought were the best practices and apply it to here. If you want to ask more specifics about other states.

It would be an expansion, and you can speak more to that. Yeah, so the bill would mirror what 25 – so there's 27 states that have really similar pathways. Twenty-five states have permanent licensing pathways for internationally trained doctors who did their postgraduate training overseas and practiced, licensed overseas, and then moved to the United States. This bill would do a very similar thing. And so as long as they had a certain period of, in this case, it would be six years of postgraduate practice, then they would be able to, in this case, come to California and practice Monday. So it does not list schools to your question, I think. Yeah, but it does not specify the schools. It would bypass the list that is currently in the program. Yeah, so it's the amount of years that they were practicing overseas already.

Can I elaborate a little bit on that? Because I was stuck on that as well. and I think we were trying to figure out is there a universally accepted pathway to achieve what we thought was the correct amount of competency. There is no internationally approved licensing type of approach, and so we felt that once you are practicing six years after that, having practiced in good standing and meeting all the other requirements, was the best we could come up with in terms of the amount of experience that could qualify you to be a physician here under this program.

They may or they may not. That is true. They may want to stay. That is correct. But they may choose not to. And also the intention in like a lot of states, for example, Illinois has passed this, and they already had 450 applications that have been started and has only been active for less than a year. And so, you know, the idea is that there's a lot of physicians currently in California that likely have done this, have this experience, but are unable to practice medicine and are instead practicing below their expertise.

No. The 30 people is for the Mexico program. Oh, but the worldwide would be an endless amount of people from any country. Correct. Correct.

So an applicant has to obtain their educational commission for the worldwide part, the foreign medical graduate certification, and they have to have passed steps one and two for the licensing examination. What's the part that is missing that you believe that they're bypassing? It's the postgraduate training requirements, Senator. So one of the licensing changes and the lack of connection to an established accrediting body that is certifying the quality of that training.

I think so. So one thing that happened several years ago was that the board – the law was changed, and the board is largely accepting of medical education, so medical school from nearly any school around the world. But what changed at that time was to require up to 36 months of postgraduate training that was done in an accredited training program. And that is the normative requirement right now for somebody to obtain ongoing permanent licensing authority is that 36 months of accredited training. And we put a lot of trust. The board, by law, puts a lot of trust into those accrediting agencies to give us assurances that they have passed muster and they are ready to train – excuse me, ready to practice independently. And that is absent from this bill.

So, yes. So under the prior version of the bill, the bill said that the board would have had responsibility to determine whether or not their training was substantially equivalent to the training of that accrediting body. It also would have required them to have 36 months of training, and now it's as little as two years, 24 months of training under the bill. So we asked questions about well, what does this look like? What does this process look like? How are other states doing it and the response to that was that was removed from the bill the board authority What was in the bill is what was represented by the folks who do this work from a national perspective

That's for the Mexican program.

That's for the World Wide 2? Yeah. If I may, Senator, the bill states two years of training or six years of practice. It's neither.

Because two years is a lower threshold. The distinction is whether it's ACGME accredited training or just...

I think I'm more confused, but yeah. I'm going to move on.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So workforce shortages are pervasive throughout our economy in California, I think, and the rest of the country. So is there not a shortage of physicians around the world, or are they plentiful in other countries?

Remember, Alvarez, I like and have great respect for you, so don't misunderstand this statement, but we had a physician shortage long before H.R. 1. I know we like to blame a lot of stuff on H.R. 1. I'm not a big fan of what's going on in D.C. either, but let's focus on our own problems. And this, I think it's an important question as to whether there's a shortage or surplus of physicians in other countries. because it could be that there is a shortage in other countries that are like ours developed industrialized countries that are not growing in population and in fact have an older population growing significantly faster than younger population creating that imbalance, and yet there might be not a shortage or even a surplus in physicians in third world countries where the population growth dynamics are quite different and the training for physicians might be quite different. In other words, we may be attracting physicians from other areas where we would have the biggest challenge of guaranteeing the quality of the physician, the standards notwithstanding. I guess I could summarize it briefly in saying perhaps we are focusing more on quantity than we are on quality, and that's what concerns me here, particularly if we don't have the information about the shortage or surplus of physicians in other countries, And to the extent that there's both, where are they? And therefore, from what countries would we tend to be recruiting physicians? And from what countries would we not? Because they also have a shortage. So it just seems to me we need a lot more information.

Thank you. And obviously there's a need, Assemblymember, in my community, and whether it be Oakland, whether it be East Los Angeles, Compton, Watts, Willowbrook, wherever. The Latino community is all over the state of California. And have the confidence in your physician and nurses and anyone in the medical field to communicate with. It's so, so important. Trust is so important. And obviously you're trying to fill the need. So my only question I have is are the doors going to open completely? Are we accepting 30 or 50 or 100 per year, or what is there a limit that you're putting on this?

So with that, I'm going to move the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, all the senators, for providing their input. I will say I have learned a lot about this going back to last fall before we introduced the legislation. We have had multiple conversations. Those continued up until last week. They will continue to address some of the concerns. It's been hard to balance. People push in one direction and then somebody else doesn't like it and then you go in that direction. So it's been challenging, but we're trying to get to the right place. We hope that we will, and we appreciate your confidence in our work to do that. Thank you very much.

Aye.

No.

Aye.

Aye.

Cabrero?

Cabrero, aye.

Aye.

Nilo?

Nilo, no.

Aye.

Aye.