Assembly Arts Entertainment Sports And Tourism Committee

you may begin presentation on AB 1626 All right good morning Thank you Mr Chair and colleagues I want to start by thanking you Mr Chair and thanking the committee for your thoughtful assistance with the amendments I'm pleased today to present AB 1626, which will provide mental health training for youth sports coaches in California. As has been well documented, California is facing a youth mental health crisis. Our young people are experiencing rising rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other mental health challenges. Our youth sports coaches are uniquely positioned to help us address this challenge. They see our kids regularly, help them navigate high-pressure moments, earn their trust and respect, and are often the first to notice when students are struggling. Unfortunately, four in five coaches report feeling less than fully prepared to support student-athletes when they're dealing with mental health challenges. AB 1626 would help to remedy this issue in two distinct but important ways. First, the bill would provide mental health training to high school coaches to empower them to recognize signs and symptoms of common mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal ideation. It would likewise provide coaches with a better understanding of how to refer student athletes to appropriate mental health resources, including school counselors, psychologists, and community behavioral and mental health resources. Second, to help our younger athletes, the bill would require the California Department of Education to develop a model mental health training that could be used by youth sports coaches for both recreational and club sports. Empowering our coaches to better recognize and respond to mental health issues will allow us to better support young people and create safer, more supportive environments for our students. I'm proud that this bill is supported by a broad and diverse coalition that includes the Association of California School Administrators, the California Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, the California School Employees Association, Equality California, the San Francisco 49ers, NAMI California, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurman, and dozens of other educational and mental health advocacy organizations. It has no opposition. With me today to testify in support of the bill are two amazing witnesses, Renata Simrel, the CEO and president of the LA84 Foundation and the Play Equity Fund, and Ron White, chairman of the board and president of the California Youth Football Lines. Thank you and respectfully request your aye vote.

Welcome. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Ward and members. My name is Renata Simrel, president of the Play Equity Fund, and we are proud to co-sponsor AB 1626. I also want to thank Assemblymember Gabriel for his leadership on this very important issue. At the Play Equity Fund, we believe that sport, play, and movement are not luxuries. They are essential to a young person's physical, social, and mental well-being. We often say that play because it matters, and it does, especially when it comes to mental health. Our latest finding from our 2024 Play Equity Report makes something very clear, that access to sport is deeply uneven, and so are the mental health benefits that come with it. Across California, young people who participate in structured sport and play report stronger connections, greater resilience, and a greater sense of belonging. But too many youth are being left out. Only 22% of youth from households earning $30,000 are active five days a week, compared to 50% from households earning over $100,000. And one in three kids are dropping out of sports due to cost and because it's not fun. That absence matters because sports is more than a game. It is one of the most consistent and trusted environments where young people can build identity, cope with stress, and feel like they belong. And at the center of that experience is a coach. coaches are often the first adults to notice when something is wrong. They are in moments of pressure, disappointment, and growth. But right now, most are not equipped with the tools to respond. As the Assemblymember stated, according to our friends at the Aspen Institute, only one in five coaches report feeling highly confident supporting youth facing mental health challenges That is a gap we can and must close AB 1626 recognizes what we see every day that coaches are not just leaders on teams They are the frontline support of mental health. By equipping them with training, we strengthen one of the most powerful existing systems of care already embedded in our communities. If we are serious about adjusting the mental health crisis, the youth mental health crisis to be more specifically, we must meet young people where they are. And millions of them are on fields, courts, and playgrounds. This bill is about ensuring those spaces are not only places of play, but places of safety, connection, and belonging. So on behalf of the Play Equity Fund, I respectfully ask for your aye vote on AB 1626. Thank you.

So, Chair and Distinguished Members of the Committee, my name is Ron White. I'm the President of the California Youth Football Alliance, representing hundreds of thousands of youth student-athletes statewide. Over the years, I've had the privilege of appearing before this very committee multiple times, but none more important than today as the matter before you will have a direct and lasting impact on the young people we serve. California student athletes are facing increasing mental health challenges with rising levels of stress, anxiety, and depression impacting their well-being both on and off the field. Balancing academics, competition, social pressures, and personal expectations places unique demands on these young individuals, making access to timely and trusted mental health support more critical than ever. For many young athletes, coaches are among the most consistent and influential adults in their lives. Coaches build relationships rooted in trust, mentorship, and daily interaction, placing them in a unique position to recognize any signs of early mental health distress. However, most youth coaches across California are not provided with the training or resources necessary to effectively support the mental health needs of their young athletes. This gap represents a missed opportunity to provide early intervention and meaningful support in a setting where it can have the greatest impact. Assembly Bill 1626 directly addresses that unmet need by establishing mental health training for coaches as a critical resource within youth athletics. Through this legislation, California is ensuring that coaches are equipped with the knowledge and tools to identify warning signs, respond appropriately, and guide students' athletes to the help they need. AB 1626 strengthens the capacity of coaches to serve as informed frontline resources, enhancing early detection, improving communication and fostering healthier team environments. This legislation is especially important because it reaches young athletes where they already are on teams, in practices, in competitions and in daily interactions with trusted mentors. It ensures that mental health support is not limited just to clinical settings. but integrated into one of the most influential aspects of a young person's life. AB 1626 provides a practical, scalable solution to growing crisis by delivering critical mental health resources through coach training, helping ensure that California student-athletes have access to informed, supportive adults who can make a difference really when it matters most. For those reasons, we strongly support AB 1626.

I just wanted to thank the author and sponsors for this bill. It's so important that we support our young people through mental health challenges. And I think what you mentioned is incredible in terms of ensuring that we're going to the young people where they are at their competitions, at their sports practices while they're on their teams. As a young person who was in sports, it made all the difference for me. And knowing that I was rarely with my parents because they had to work and I was in sports, my coach was the person who always had my back. So thank you all for this.

Yeah, just obviously to commend the author for addressing an issue that's pretty powerful. We have a lot of difficulty with our young people. A lot of times it's because of the absence of adult supervision and adult influence. And coaches have a way bigger impact that goes way beyond the game that they coach. And sometimes, in many instances that I'm very aware, even in smaller communities, this is a very powerful reality. And so if we arm these coaches and these mentors with a little bit more expertise, I think that you can't go wrong. And it's really a void that is going to be greatly appreciated. by the young people. So thank you for bringing this before us.

Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And again, I just want to thank you and your very able committee staff for the help. We're very excited about that there's so many members that want to address this issue. And I just want to thank my witnesses for their incredible testimony. and I think a lot back to my experience in high school and how important coaches were as part of my life in helping me to survive some challenging years and just the incredible power that they have to impact young people, to help young people, to support young people. That's something that I keep in mind now that I'm a coach and I'm going to fly home today to coach the AAA Phillies in Encino Little League, a mediocre third base coach, but I'm very mindful of the fact that you're going to have a profound impact on these young people. And it's something that I think about a lot when I'm out there on the field. So I appreciate all the kind comments, appreciate the support, and respectfully request your aye vote.

Someone had like, thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members. I would really like to thank the chair and the committee for working with us on this critical issue. I'm deeply appreciative and grateful for working with me on this bill. And I accept the committee amendments. Nicotine use and vaping in my district is a youth public health crisis. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and early exposure increases the likelihood of long-term addiction and adverse health outcomes. If a student turns 18 and hasn't quit smoking, the odds of them quitting in their lifetime is less than 10%. This isn't something that we can wait on. As a mom of teenagers, I fought the vaping crisis with my own children. I spent the last 10 years on the tobacco coalition for my county and served as the 2B tobacco use prevention education director. This isn't just an issue for me. It's personal, and I'm scared for our kids. We don't even have the research to know the full damage that vaping will have on our youth. My home county is one of the highest vaping rates in the state for youth. When we asked the kids how many students were vaping at the school, they almost always said 80%. When we asked the parents the same question they would almost always say 10 to 15 40 of high school kids using vapes have tried to quit in the last year which suggests that many students are struggling with addiction rather than casual use Vaping is highly addictive. Current vapes have a number on them that lists how many hits or puffs are in that device. Typically, they have about 5,500 hits. This is the amount of nicotine that is in 21 to 24 packs of cigarettes, and our kids are finishing these in less than a week. In my schools, almost every kid has tried it and half of them are addicted. When we asked kids that were in our diversion program, I'm repeating, sorry. This is a sad reality nationwide. More than 90% of teens with substance use disorder never ask for treatment. Teens don't know how to seek treatment and very few will ever ask for help. This is truly a crisis and kids in my schools need help more than ever. The biggest barrier to helping students is identifying that they have a problem in the first place. This is why school districts across the state have adopted drug testing programs for their athletes to get kids the help they need. Unfortunately, these programs don't have guardrails for students, and most programs do not test for nicotine. This bill requires school districts who currently have a drug testing program for athletics to also test for nicotine. Assembly Bill 1884 establishes key safeguards for students by clarifying that a student who is tested cannot be subject to criminal or juvenile enforcement, cannot be suspended or expelled for a test, must be provided treatment or diversion program, and test results can only be shared with a parent, a coach, and the superintendent's designee. By identifying students that need help, especially student athletes at risk of physical health issues, this bill will connect more students with supportive intervention and treatment, not punishment. AB 1884 will give parents and schools an additional tool to confront public health crisis that we have and get students the help they need. I respectfully ask for your aye vote and I'm proud to be joined today by Assemblymember Sharp Collins.

we are joined today by Sally Townsend who will also provide testimony. Thank you. Good morning.

Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public here wishing to register support for the bill? Seeing none, I know there's some registered opposition on file. Are there any lead witnesses that wanted to testify against AB 1884? Thank you, and you'll have up to two minutes each. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other members of the public here wishing to register a position of opposition? Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, we'll turn this back to the dais. I'm going to take a prerogative to maybe kick off some conversation because we have some late amendments right now that I know we want to be able to debate and kind of keep in conversation. I first want to thank the author and seem to be joint author for their careful attention and work on this issue. I want to commend Ms. Hadwick as well for bringing this issue because this is exactly the kind of the bill that somebody coming from as a mom, as a local community member, has spent some time and passion really working on this issue. Has personal but also community experience that is really guiding some of the work that she's bringing to the Capitol to try to make a difference for all of our kids statewide. And I want to thank you for really diving into that through that lens. As the bill was in print, I had some deep reservations and some concerns, and I think a lot of them are really overlaid with what the opposition points are coming out as well, too. That something might be, one, a little bit too expansive, the mandates that, you know, otherwise would be in there. One would be both burdensome for a lot of our school districts to accept, I think, you know, as it was in print, but also might have a deterrence effect as well. that would prevent people from wanting to sign up in the first place to do something positive, which is contribute in sports. The second area is, you know, this, I think, you know, your intention to kind of really focus this in on athletic activities. And in fact, wanting to cite this bill as the California Student-Athlete Drug Abuse Prevention Act, I deeply get the connection there between drug or nicotine or alcohol abuse or any substances for that matter and healthy participation in sports. the bill in print was more expansive, or at least it was a little vague by trying to create other extracurricular activities. So if there is a pathway here to be able to have a positive effect on this issue and everything, maybe limiting it to sport activities right now in a way that sort of can test that new paradigm and see if it kind of works. And the third issue is one of a punitive discussion that originally there was text in there that would forbid an individual after a third positive test from being able to participate in sports as well. I feel like that would be very counterproductive to what we'd want to see for the youth's betterment out there because addiction can be real. It can be fast. It can be ugly. And I would not want to see them fall out of a positive opportunity that can help to mitigate the management of that addiction while they are trying to better themselves, get off of the substances, but not have to lose the opportunity. That, I think, would place the youth in a position right now where they've got a void of time. They might be a little bit bummed and depressed about having lost that opportunity, and they might be more susceptible to the addiction and negative activities as well. So we work together as well to have some amendments that I think can help to move this conversation forward, that we're going to make sure something is not such a substantial mandate, but really creates that paradigm for a local school district to be able to have the opportunity, should it actually decide to have a drug testing policy as well, that it would also include nicotine as well as a part of that panel of tests and making sure that we're limiting this to sports activities and that we are not seeing this as something that is going to be a gateway to preventing them from participating in sports for the rest of the season, but rather a diversion program, which is something you champion back in in your home district as well too, I think is a good model to be able to move this forward in conversation but notwithstanding that there are a lot of other points that I think opposition raised that I would encourage you to continue to work with them on because as we had had our discussion too you know my continued fear is that this is going to be something that is going to have some negative consequence before it has a net positive benefit, right? That you're going to have a deterrence from being able to participate in sports at all to begin with and everything. And so So, you know, the double being in the details and trying to get this right, you know, sort of creating that structure that creates that model guidance for all school districts to be able to act on that manages this issue well towards the betterment of what you're trying to seek through this bill. and I believe in that as well too, while mitigating for any unintended consequences that might come from the implementation of this bill is something that I would encourage continued thought and discussion on. But with your acceptance of these amendments, I'm happy to have a supportive recommendation here today. And I'll turn this over to any other committee members for questions or comments, beginning with Assemblymember Gonzalez.

Thank you. Someone McKenna. Yes. Good morning.

So I think there's some confusion of the amendments that were accepted. Can I clarify those? Okay. So we put safeguards up. It is no longer requiring or mandating drug tests. This is only to add nicotine if they already have a drug testing program. So that cost is already, the school is already doing that for this bill. So there will be no additional cost. This is not mandating statewide because- No, we changed it all yesterday, very late. So it also takes the, there is no punishment. They're supposed to seek treatment and connect them with treatment or diversion program. We took all of that out of the bill because of the opposition from it. And so I don't know if it will still be keyed fiscal because of that. We haven't gotten that far because we were figuring this out very late, late afternoon. So if the schools already have drug testing. Then they have to add nicotine Then they just going to add nicotine Yes And then the recommendation is to seek drug treatment And the school not paying for that You guys are just like I mean that comes from your 2B director your public health program They already have them set up in the communities. So, and typically, and I wanted that punishment or whatever that consequence was. I guess not punishment, but whatever that consequence was should be left up to the school and the district and what their coaches and superintendents decide. So we took that entire portion out. So you guys are just adding tobacco, but are the opposition still there, or are they, the school districts, are they still in opposition?

the American Academy of Pediatrics, they're expressing concern about school-based drug testing. Because of trust or why? Because of what they're doing. So our school, they hire it out to a medical company that does the drug testing for jobs and stuff in the community. Most of them are hired out because the school can't, legally, they can't do it typically themselves. But we tried to put up those safeguards. We also have privacy things right now. There is no safeguards for privacy. Our bill says that they can only share it with parent, coach, and the superintendent's designee, whether that's the principal or athletic director, whatever, because I know that was one of the concerns as well. I think coaches and parents think that they're being tested for

Just a little bit. I've raised two athletes myself. My sons played from five years old through college. Athletes are special. We love them. And sometimes, you know... I'm glad we took the suspense, suspending them and kicking them off out of that because they need sports. Sports help children thrive. So with that, thank you for your answer. Thanks for liking.

Thank you. Is there any other committee member questions or comments? Ms. Ortega.

I can. It's fine. What I wanted to say was coming on board now as a joint author, me coming on as a joint author was honestly based upon removing the things that we're already discussing. So that is removing the mandate, that's removing the suspension, and that's pushing people to the diversion programs. Currently in San Diego, looking at San Diego Unified, Lincoln High School, Morris High School and others, we are already doing this. We already have the Stop the Vape campaign. We have partners within our district. So we have some community organizations that are also partnering with us to talk about drug addiction, talk about nicotine, and then, of course, the ways to stop this process. They have relationships with different diversion programs as well. And so students who are currently going down this path have been referred to different programs. And it's not at the hands of the district. We have community partners that have stepped in and they're doing the work to provide the service. The reason why I highlighted these schools is because in my district, that is the urban community. You know, it's black and brown. And this campaign, when I got involved in this, is coming from the basketball coaches, coming from the football coach. It's also coming from from our soccer coaches. And they're all extremely concerned as they've had to revive kids who have collapsed in the middle of games and so forth. So this is a big issue, but it is happening in San Diego Unified. They are addressing it, and they have brought in the community partners to help support the work for what they're doing.

There's always concern. There's always going to be concern, especially when it comes down to equity, when it comes down to the funding part of it. So there's always going to be a concern, and it is important that we do everything we can to obviously provide and find some type of balance to be able to move forward. So just know me sitting here, I will never say I don't have the concern because I do. The question becomes how do we get to that point and make sure that the parents can still afford, make sure that kids still have access, and that they are actually seeking positive support services through the whole process. So that would be us talking to the restorative justice program from the county office event and other options that are available, community schools programs and et cetera, and doing everything we can to partner with them for additional support. So there always have to be equity component in anything that we move forward with. And this bill just adds it to existing schools that are already doing an existing random drug test. So now they have computer systems that they plug in names. It automatically pulls out people. It's not it's I don't think it's quite as biased as it used used to be in most areas. I can't prove that either way. So but it is just to simply add nicotine to the drug testing that they're already doing.

Thank you. So, Member Alwari?

Thank you, Assemblymember. I appreciate that question. Sorry, through the chair. That's fine. And I will be fair, these amendments were just negotiated yesterday as well. So I did want to afford the opposition to state their points, but also recognize that you need time to process these amendments and think about any future improvements. Thank you, Chair. Yes, we are still processing the amendments, but generally we oppose programs like this. that tend to lead with identifying students, stigmatizing students, pushing people away from constructive activities. So generally, we have concerns about drug testing programs like this, even when it's simply just adding on top of existing programs. That being said, I also have concerns. we have concerns with the way that the language may address diversion, you know, and how it might push people. You know, I think the language was push students into diversion, young people. I think that could look very different in a lot of different places around the state. And I think that when we designate, when we leave discretion to designate a wide range of school personnel to know the results of a drug test, it really creates opportunities for students to be marginalized and further stigmatized, and that causes some concerns. Also, the diversion programs. Diversion is used in a lot of different contexts, the word diversion, and it can look very different in a lot of different contexts. Often it is diverting somebody from a negative consequence, giving somebody an opportunity to do something instead of a negative consequence, a punishment or a sanction. That is what it may look like to a lot of students. And so the feeling may be the same. The marginalization, the isolation, pushing them away from constructive mentors may look the same to a lot of kids that are entering that. So that's why we would have concerns. We may have concerns with that. If the chair would like, I'm happy to address some other things that I think might be more constructive in terms of approaches to dealing with vaping and like issues, because we certainly share concerns about vaping, the health impacts, and nobody wants to prevent addiction. Thank you Thank you And just appreciate oh you wanted to share as well just appreciate you sharing on that perspective Thank you Thank you And just appreciate you sharing on that perspective Go ahead Thank you so much So we do share the concerns on the potential for marginalization due to testing in and

Thank you. The motion by Mr. Gonzalez, which I'll be happy to second. I just wanna close and again, thank the author and joint author as well for kind of continued thought and debate on this. Obviously, like, you know, we're balancing, you know, some very thoughtful issues that don't undercut, I think, the ultimate issue that you are trying to solve for here, and that is really to dissuade against any addictive use by our youth as they continue to better themselves and grow into healthy and successful adults. And I think that with that continued conversation, I know this has more committee hearings ahead should it get out of this committee that can afford some more time to digest the improvements that are made here today. and other issues that may need to be worked on going forward as well, which I look forward to maintaining conversation as a part of that as well. Happy to invite you to close.

Secretary, please call the roll. AB 1884, do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Ward? Aye. Ward, aye. Lackey? El Huari? No. El Huari, not voting. Jeff Gonzalez? Aye. Jeff Gonzalez, aye. McKinner? No. McKinner, no. Ortega? Aye. Ortega, aye. Park Silva? Valencia? Spur. Okay, that currently has three votes. We'll hold the roll of the percent members and thank you for the presentation today. I am going to need to go to a committee to present a bill. Hopefully it'll be faster than not faster. Either of you, is anybody here to stay?

Okay, I'll hand the gavel over to Ms. Ortega. I will invite Assemblymember Haney. I'm going to go to the U.S. You are? Okay, so great. So we'll invite Assemblymember Wallace to come up and present his bill. This will be AB 2503, which also has committee amendments. I'll ask the secretary to be able to pass those out. Hopefully I'll be back in time to be able to discuss all of that, but I look forward to your presentation, and we'll see you in a minute. Whenever you're ready, Mr. Wallace.

committee may have. Hi, thank you, Mr. Chair and the committee members. Thank you. I'm Kendra Calderon. I'm the athletic trainer at Rancho Mirage High School. I've been the athletic trainer in the desert for 13 years now. And in those 13 years, I've only had one heat stroke case. This case happened on a Saturday morning after a Friday night game, and he had not properly hydrated and eight. During this time of the year that this happened, our temperatures are about low or high 80s, low 90s for a little duration of our outdoor practice. Through my years of experience, this treatment, this is a testament of how our student athletes acclimatize to our desert. Our acclimatization period has already started for us across the desert. Just a couple weeks ago, we were at 107 degrees and the wet bulb reading was at 88 Yeah and this starts in the spring with our spring practices when temperatures are well into the low hundreds and with no gear and continues into our summer months To ensure the safety of our student athletes, I do follow the National Athletic Training Position Statement for Exertional Heat Illness. In addition, all our coaches are required to take heat illness prevention courses with NFHS. As soon as the athletes show any signs and symptoms of heat illness, they're pulled out of practice and we begin the cooling process right away. This is taking them off the field, putting them in an air-conditioned building and getting them with cool wet towels or putting them in a cold submersion. And then also start replenishing any electrolytes that we have. As Assemblyman Wallace stated, our fall season sports cannot hold practice or competitions right after school like normal high schools with our current guidelines. Our student athletes get out of school at 340. Then they don't start practice till 545, 6 o'clock at night. A lot of students do not have the means to go home and come back, which leaves them stranded at school. Before these guidelines were set into law, there were guidelines that our local community college had set, and we had a threshold of 93.7, and that worked really well for our community. It just shows the capacity that our athletes have for acclimatizing to our desert. Last year alone, we had 15 practices that either were canceled or postponed. By increasing our threshold, we would be able to get half those practices in with different guidelines, thus keeping our student athletes engaged in our after-school programs. Thank you.

Yeah, just very appreciative of the chair and the committee staff's work on getting this bill to a good place where we can move forward and just respectfully request an aye vote at the appropriate time. Do we have a, thank you, do we have a motion?

Well, thank you, Madam Chair and members. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present AB 1954, which is Protecting Access to Reservations, or the PAR Act. Golf is an incredibly popular sport in California, and its courses attract tourists from all around the world. There are more than 220 golf courses in California, which are municipally owned by cities, counties, charter cities, and the state. As part of the publicly owned park systems, these courses operate at below market value and make them maximally available to local residents, seniors, juniors, school athletes, local clubs, and civic organizations. This pricing creates a demand for tee times in California urban areas which are among the highest in the nation AB 1954 is necessary to prevent bad actors from continuing to take advantage of golf course reservation systems for personal gain as well as taking the opportunities from local residents whose taxpayer dollars go towards the upkeep and maintenance of those public and municipal facilities. This bill is addressing an issue being experienced by municipal golf courses across the state where individuals are booking reservations for tee times and reselling them at inflated prices. Some are setting up websites that look like they are affiliated with the golf course where the URL or name is similar, but they do not have any agreement in place with the golf course. AB 1954 fixes this problem by requiring the operators of third-party golf reservation service platforms to have a written agreement with the golf course operators to authorize the listing, advertising, promoting, or selling your reservations for those golf courses. With me today to speak in support of the bill is Craig Kessler, the executive director of the California Alliance for Golf, and Rick Reinschmidt, the golf manager for Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation. Thank you.

Good morning. Rick Reinschmidt, City of Los Angeles Golf Manager. The City of Los Angeles operates one of the largest municipal golf systems in the nation, serving more than one million golfers annually. The mission of our golf program is the same mission we pursue for all the recreational amenities we offer at our public parkland spaces. Affordable, accessible, equitable access. In recent years, we have experienced challenges related to third-party individuals and entities reserving public tee times for the purpose of reselling them at significantly higher prices. This practice restricts fair access and undermines our ability to keep golf affordable and equitably available. In April 2024, we implemented a non-refundable green fee deposit requirement at the time of booking a tee time. Fully funded by our golf patrons and designed to discourage speculative reservations, this measure has restored a measure of integrity and equitable access to our reservation system. However, relying solely on internal administrative measures to counter those seeking to profit from Los Angeles' commitment to affordable, accessible public recreation is not a sustainable solution. Without stronger legal protections, these efforts remain vulnerable. AB 1954 would offer that stronger legal protection by making the unauthorized resale of public golf tee times unlawful and subject to civil enforcement, thereby preserving the integrity of public reservation systems and protecting equitable access for all golfers. This is a tool that only the state can provide, and AB 1954 would provide it. We'd like to thank Assemblymember Ward for his leadership on this issue and respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you.

Serena Scott on behalf of the League of California Cities in support. Morning, Chair and members.

Kevin Fitzgerald on behalf of the Southern California Golf Association in strong support. Seeing no other witnesses in support, do we have any main witnesses in opposition?

I have a hundred and some odd, I think it's 120 golf courses just in my district. and throughout the Coachella Valley, it's significant. We have some public ones, and this is what it's specifically talking about. I might have missed it. I tried looking for it, but I just want to talk about quickly the enforcement mechanism associated with this. So if, from what I'm hearing, the problem is someone's buying up a whole bunch of reservations, tea times, and then reselling them for higher costs. What's the enforcement mechanism in there that this bill talks to? Or is there one already in place?

Civilly, yeah. Civilly, yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate the author for this bill, especially in, we call it, tennis heaven and golf heaven in the greater Palm Springs, Coachella Valley region. And I'm sure everyone over there is paying attention to this. So I appreciate the author. And because of that, I'll be in support. Thank you. Any other comments from members? Seeing none, would you like to close? Thank you. I think very simply at the crux of this bill you know we are seeing an influx of opportunists that are taking over what is meant to be an affordable available opportunity for many of our residents to be able to enjoy the experience of golf And as we are seeing that bad action happening, we have an opportunity to be able to correct the record. This isn't unlike we are seeing, you know, bots and other activities going on in other areas of online sales. but because it is so acute here for the specific issue and pertaining to this committee's jurisdiction, respectfully request your aye vote on AB 1954. That was cute. Do we have a motion or a second? Move. Second. Second. Assemblymember Valencia. Secretary, please call the roll. AB 1954, Do pass to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Ward? Aye. Ward, aye. Lackey? El Huari? Aye. El Huari, aye. Jeff Gonzalez? Aye. Jeff Gonzalez, aye. McKenner? Ortega? Aye. Ortega, aye. Quirk Silva? Valencia? Yes. Valencia, aye. Zburr? We have five votes. We'll leave the roll open for absent members. Thank you. Thank you. two more bills to dispense with today. At the time, just to save a little bit of time, we'll go ahead and open the roll for members that previously missed. We'll go back to the top with AB 1626 to catch any absent members. Madam Secretary. AB 1626 the motion was do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Valencia? Valencia aye. Zver? El Hawari? Current roll is 7-0. We'll hold that open for absent members and AB 1884 Havik with amendments. AB 1884 do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Valencia? No. Valencia no. Okay that is now 3-2. We'll hold that roll open for absent members. And AB 2503. AB 2503 do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Ward? Aye. Ward, aye. El-Hawari? Aye. El-Hawari, aye. Current roll is 5-0. We will hold the roll open for absent members. and I wait an author I don even know I see Surprise people every day Surprise people every day. I heard it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much for fitting me into a narrow window as I step out of my own committee. I am incredibly proud and pleased to present Assembly Bill 2319 today. California remains the center of the global film and television industry, but post-production work, including editorial, sound, scoring, visual effects, and finishing, is increasingly being performed in other jurisdictions that offer targeted incentives. Current law limits eligibility for the California Motion Picture Tax Credit primarily to projects that complete principal photography in the state of California. As a result, post-production work is often moved to competing jurisdictions that offer standalone or more flexible incentives for post-production activity. Some of these states and countries that we are competing with, and quite frankly, we are trailing substantially, include New York, New Jersey, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, all of which offer incentives that allow productions filmed elsewhere to complete post-production locally while still qualifying for tax credits. These policies have led to the migration of high-wage jobs, vendor spending, and related economic activity out of the state of California. Major post-production editorial facilities, including scoring stages operated by Sony, Fox, Warner Brothers, and Skywalker Sound, are generating substantially less revenue than in prior years and face the risk of closure. Economic analysis demonstrates that post-production incentives generate significant returns on public investment through increased taxable wages, local vendor spending, and broader ancillary economic activity. Simply put, without a targeted post-production incentive, the state of California risks losing a critical segment of the entertainment industry's supply chain, even when creative leadership remains based in our state. AB 2319 creates the California Post-Production Tax Credit, a targeted incentive for qualified post-production expenditures performed in California, regardless of where principal photography occurred and subject to program requirements and oversight. This post-production tax credit is not tied to the $750 million budget of the motion picture tax credit that was passed by this legislature last year. I submitted a pending budget request to establish the separate funding for this post credit To be eligible for the post credit the project either needs to be filmed outside of California or be a project that was filmed in California but did not receive the motion picture tax credit A project cannot double dip and receive both credits. As the analysis correctly notes, the bill before us today is a work in progress. I will continue to work with the studios, labor unions, and others so that future amendments will ensure that this post-production tax credit can provide benefits to workers while attracting more post-production work to come to the state of California. With me today to speak in support of AB 2319 is Karen Baker Landers with the California Post Alliance, sponsor of the bill, as well as F. Hudson Miller, president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700. Good morning. My name is F. Hudson Miller, and I come to you as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, the world's preeminent labor union for post-production professionals. We have more than 7,500 members nationally, 6,200 right here in California, which is the heart of our film industry. But our heart is ailing. Economists can rattle off all kinds of statistics. I can share with you the fact that we lost over 6% of our California membership in a single year. But these aren't just numbers to us. These are hundreds of dedicated artists and craftspeople who are no longer confident they can support themselves and their families doing the work they love right here in the state of California, the state that they love. That's why we should follow the lead of other states and establish a standalone post-production tax credit. We loudly and proudly back the concept of this bill. But at the same time, we need to get it right. AB 23.119, or 1.9, as currently written, has no meaningful labor standards. We need language ensuring credits go to supporting middle-class jobs with meaningful health care and retirement benefits. We appreciate that the committee's analysis underscores this need. Right here are more than 1,300 letters our members have sent to this committee. I know they've been arriving in all your mailboxes. Their collective message is, first amend, and then pass AB 2319. Our members work the magic of transforming raw footage into stories that transfix the world. With the help of other stakeholders, we can shape AB 2319 into a law that will keep good union jobs here in California, the state that has been the mecca of filmmaking and moviemaking for over a century. In our business, there's a saying for when something's not quite right in the script or didn't go perfectly on set, And that saying is, let's fix it in post. So let's fix it in post. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Karen Baker Landers. I'm a supervising sound designer. I'm also the vice president of the California Post Alliance. and I worked in the film industry for over 35 years I also a union member And I here today to speak in support of the post community Because post is so misunderstood it's been incredibly underrepresented. It's said that a movie is born three times, when the script is written, when it's filmed in production, and again, when it's, where it comes to life in post. The current 4.0 incentive, which both Nick and Hudson have said, it only covers films that have shot in California. However, films often shoot elsewhere for creative purposes. AB 2319 does complement 4.0 by incentivizing projects that do not shoot here and otherwise did not qualify for the 4.0 program. Because we currently don't have a post-only incentive, California is becoming less and less of a viable option for studios and filmmakers that desperately want to stay here. Projects are going to territories, as Nick said, like New York, New Jersey, Georgia, New Mexico, Spain, Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Australia, all which offer a standalone post-production incentive. This has had a devastating effect on our jobs. My crew and I have to leave California on many occasions to work. A few years ago, it hit me. We've been training our replacements. There's a negative narrative about California, about the film industry, that we've lost our luster, that we're the next Detroit, and I refuse to accept that. I love this state because it's special. California is a vibe. It's a bright light in what can be a very dark world at times. People still come here from all over because they believe this place is magic. It's called California Dreamin'. California has such an incredibly complex and unique mix of voices that need to be heard. The film and entertainment industry gives them that chance. You have one concluding statement. One concluding sentence. We had two minutes. Okay. I know for sure. Well, I'll just say this. One thing I do know for sure is that the world is watching to see what California does next. because they know if we get this right, it's game on for California. Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public here wishing to state a position of support? Please push the microphone, and if you could have your name, organization, if represented, and position. Hi there. My name is Marielle Bounza, and I'm president of the California Post Alliance. I'm also executive vice president of Signature Post, an organization of Post Sound that has been affected. I am in strong and urgent support of AB 2319. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning, Kiera Ross, on behalf of the City of Burbank in support of the bill. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Sharon Miller. I'm vice president of the Editors Guild and professional in the post-production industry for 17 years. I strongly urge support of this bill with amended labor standard language. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Jennifer Freed. I am a small business owner of Trivana Post. We support the post-production industry, and I'm also with the California Post Alliance in strong support and urgency of this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Jason Schmelzer on behalf of California Arts Advocates in strong support. Thank you. Hello. My name is Michael McCusker. I am a picture editor a member of IATSE 700 and CAPA And I am in wholehearted support of this bill Thank you Good morning My name is Trisha Rodrigo. I'm here with IATSE Local 700, the Editors Guild, and I strongly support the passage of Assembly Bill 2319 after it's amended to include strong labor standards. Thank you. Good morning. Mike Ropeson here on behalf of the Walt Disney Company. We know Walt Disney doesn't have an official position on the bill today. Here to speak in support of the bill's passage, and we're meeting with the author. We want to continue to work on language. The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of the industrial light magic, which I think most of you might know is the birthplace of visual effects. And we want to make sure the bill is crafted in a way to – VFX is a major component of post-production. We want to make sure the bill is crafted in a way to best serve the VFX industry going forward. Thank you. Thank you. We have no registered opposition on file, but is there any members of the public here wishing to state a position of opposition? Okay, seeing none, we'll turn this back to committee members for questions or comments. Assemblymember Gonzalez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. When our colleague passed it last year, it was huge for, and I supported him on it, it was huge for California, especially in the Coachella Valley. We get a lot of off-site filming that goes on there across the board through that region, and it puts folks to work. And that's what we want here in California. We're all in agreement with that. The fact that this takes it a little bit further for the post side of things. And also, you know, I think that's part of the good governance side. We've got to continue to massage this all the way through. So I appreciate the author bringing this up. You know, there's a lot of bills this year that talk to actually mimicking what was done last year and then also this year. So because of your efforts and Assemblymember Zabur's effort, we're looking at other industries when we can do the exact same thing. So because of that, we will be in support because this is what California is asking for. It's asking for an affordable California, and it's asking for Californians to be employed. So in a district, in a county that has a 20% unemployment rate, we need jobs, and we need California jobs. So thank you to the author, and for that, I'll be in support. Thank you. Thank you. Any other member questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, I want to also thank and commend the author for initiating this work, and we know that there's some work that needs to be done on this, particularly as it involves making sure that the program, one, like, includes very strong labor standards. I think that's the goal. We don't want to see this ultimately be used for utilization of AI in post-production, but rather this is about keeping our jobs and enhancing our jobs here in the state of California. So we know that's going to be something essential for this to continue to move forward in the process. You know, very supportive, of course, of the work that our committee members, Assembly Members of the Bird, did last year on Assembly Bill 1138. We understand the massive role that post-production does play in not just the lifespan of the movies, the wonderful finished product that we have in editing and sound effects, visual effects, and so much more. So we want to make sure that those jobs, even if something is actually filmed elsewhere, those jobs are retained here as all that film comes back into California and the work is completed for that third version I learned of how actually the movie comes to life. So we want to be supportive of this. Of course, there's going to be a lot of fiscal conversation as well that you're going to have to navigate to. You're establishing a program here. We're improving upon the parameters of that program. And then we're going to have to work on the budget side of things to make sure everything So definitely a lot of work ahead of us, but if you're successful, this can be something that would be very instrumental to being able to keep this subset of jobs here that we very much want to stay here in California and continue to grow in California. So with that, I invite you to close. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll try to be brief. I want to begin by thanking the committee and your staff for your work on the bill. I also want to thank my witnesses for being here today. She's very modest, but Ms. Landers probably didn't mention that she's the first woman to win the Academy Award, not once but twice, for sound editing. And that's the kind of talent that we want to keep in California. I also want to acknowledge Mr. Miller from the Guild. And I would say it's relatively rare to have someone testifying in support of a bill and saying that there are problems that we need to work out. But I bring that up to say they both understand the urgency. This is not a bill that can afford to wait a year to come forward. There are jobs that will be lost and will not be here in a year's time, and this is why this conversation needs to move forward now. The second of three points I want to briefly make, Mr. Chair, is what's at stake. California's share of post-production has fallen from 53 to 42 percent in about a 10 to 15-year span. We're talking about 800—pergive me. We're talking about more than 4,000 jobs lost, $1.63 billion in economic activity lost, $507 million in wages lost. And so the point I will close with, Mr. Chair, is this. This is an issue that's deeply personal to me and to my district. Not a day goes by that I don't talk to one of my neighbors, not in the abstract sense. I mean, like, literally my next-door neighbors who cannot find work because jobs are leaving. This is not something that we can study a year from now. It needs to be acted upon now. You have my full commitment that I will work with every possible stakeholder to develop the very best possible version of this bill because we need something to pass this year. And I'll leave you with this, Mr. Chair. I think that my colleague from Indio said it perfectly. If there was ever a bipartisan issue of this time, it is addressing affordability. It's keeping jobs in our state. I view this as a win that we can accomplish for every Californian because post-production doesn't just happen in Los Angeles. It is across our great state. There are so many good jobs at stake. With that, I respectfully and pleafully ask for an aye vote. Thank you. Is there a motion for the bill? Moved by Mr. Gonzalez. Is there a second? Second by Ms. Ortega. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. AB 2319, the motion is due passed to the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. Ward? Aye. Ward, aye. Lackey? El Huari? Jeff Gonzalez? Aye. Jeff Gonzalez, aye. McKinner? Ortega? Aye. Ortega, aye. Cork Silva? Valencia? Yes. Valencia, aye. Zver? That bill has four votes, so we'll hold it open for absent members. Great. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. And our last bill for the day, but not the least, will be item number two, Assembly Bill 1720. All right. Hold on. I've got to run my next thing. Get situated for a moment. We will be responsibly recited. Hey. And as your witnesses are approaching the bench, you may go ahead and begin your presentation. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members. I want to first thank the chair and your staff for your work on the bill and accept the committee amendments. AB 1720 is the California Fans First Act. This bill will put fans first by protecting fans from excessive ticket price gouging, by capping the resale price of tickets for concerts and other live entertainment events at no more than 10 above face value including fees I don have to tell this committee about how important live performance and live events are for our state. In every corner of our state, these events are generating millions and millions of dollars in revenue, tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs, And they are, even more than that, bringing incredible culture and community and connection to our state. We are the number one state for live events in the country and one of the most important places for generating live events and culture, arts and music in the world. For decades, our residents could access these events that are so important and essential to their lives and their communities in a very simple way. They would line up at the box office and they would purchase a ticket. And when tickets were accessed that way, our residents, our constituents could go to these events at affordable prices. Even some of the largest acts in the world were accessible to California residents when they purchased those tickets directly. But unfortunately, with the transition of ticket sales to online platforms and the rise of ticket scalping, it has become a highly profitable scheme, which is increasingly out of reach for so many of our residents. If we allowed what is happening now online to happen in person, it would be so ridiculous that there would be an outcry to ban it immediately. There is no reason we should allow folks to come forward, buy all the tickets before regular fans could get there. If that happened, if you imagine what that would look like in person, if somebody lined up before you could get there, bought all the tickets, even block the entrances in some cases for you to even get to the box office, and then held these tickets behind their back and forced you to pay four, five, six, ten times as much for the ticket cost if you bought it directly. That would be madness. But that's exactly what is happening right now online. Professional scalpers purchase a large number of tickets the moment they go up on sale and immediately upload them to secondary resale websites. The result of this is that fans are paying an average of 200-plus percent over face value when purchasing these tickets on resale platforms. And 90-plus percent of the tickets that go onto these platforms are being sold by these professional brokers and scalpers. All of us have examples of seeing this in our communities. Nearly every single live performance has egregious examples of this now. In San Francisco, we just had 20 shows from Sam Smith. They reopened. The Castro Theater was an incredible experience for our city. The second these tickets went on sale at an affordable price, $120 for general admission, they were all swooped up largely from the secondary brokers and scalpers. And if you wanted to buy a ticket at that point for any of these shows, you had to go into the secondary market and pay $600, $700, $800. The difference between that $120 when it was sold up front and the $700 that fans were paying That went all in the pockets of these professional scalpers, many of whom are out of state, none of whom have built a venue, none of whom are paying janitors or performers or playing instruments. They've contributed nothing to the actual event, but they're extracting and speculating directly from the pockets of our residents and taking it not only out of the pockets of residents and fans who simply want to see their favorite artists, but they're also not contributing anything to the folks who are making the music and providing for the venues And that hurting the overall opportunity for live events and venues in our state 14 U states including New York Wisconsin, and Washington, have introduced similar legislation as this. Many other countries are already operating with this model. Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Norway have successfully implemented bans or caps on ticket scalping. I want to be very clear that this bill specifically does not apply to sporting events and tickets owned by season ticket holders or licensed holders for sporting events. These are fundamentally different and more of a subscription based model, and it will continue to allow early access for some of those season ticket holders. But by limiting excessive markups, this bill will remove the financial incentive that drives large scale ticket scalping while still allowing everyday fans to resell tickets if they cannot attend and recover their costs. This is incredibly important, not only for our residents, our fans, who simply want to see their favorite artists, a comedy show, a musical, but also in supporting the musicians, the artists, the folks who actually spend their time and energy and resources to make this happen, and ensuring that they have the support and the venues who are struggling as well. And so I'm very proud to have a huge coalition of artists, of recording industry, of independent venues supporting this bill. And with me to testify in support is Joe Rinaldi, owner of Music Box San Diego, and Ron Gubitz, the executive director of the Music Artists Coalition. Thank you. Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair Ward and members. I'm Joe Rinaldi. I built a venue. I'm also the National Independent Venue Association's president for the chapter for California, and I represent 650 venues, promoters, and festivals across the state. Everything that Assemblymember Haney has brought up affects us on our daily, daily operation of these venues. Thanks for the opportunity to speak in support of AB 1720, and thank you, Mr. Haney, for your valuable leadership on this matter. We're currently witnessing a market in failure. The free market, this would be fine if it didn't have this diversion principle of secondary markets taking tickets out of the transaction before the public has access to them, as was described by Mr. Haney. this diversion has negative implications and negative externalities across our business model. We run a business. We host artists. We host customers. We pay with that ticket money the cost of operating shows, the cost of artist fees. And then we try to maintain customer confidence in this transaction. Currently, that customer views this transaction as a bit of the Wild West. we're facing a public relations battle as they think they're buying these tickets at this exorbitant overcharge from us. And it takes some doing to reconvince them that we are not that actor and that actor is a third party. Venues also wind up operating at a fraction of their capacity, even though they've sold every possible ticket because a byproduct of industrial diversion in ticketing is that I might sell 700 tickets and I might only have 500 people come into the venue. Their model does not intend to sell every ticket. It provides us a new challenge that we have not faced you know that we seen the past three to five years that seems like it compounding over time and seems like if we don take action in the immediate we wind up with that being an even greater percentage What's proposed here is a price cap, and it feels to me like a surgical fix to a problem. We have another bill, 1349, that has a whole bunch of symptom treatments that we really support. But in this particular case, if you were to take the profit incentive out of this marketplace at once, you would solve the biggest incentive problem that we have. And that's to take tickets away from customers, put it into a secondary market, and keep it out of our ecosystem that we, you know, as a small business are trying to make payroll with or pay artists with. Thank you for the testimony. Appreciate it. We had two minutes. Please. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm Ron Gubitz. I'm the executive director of the Music Artist Coalition. Our board includes Don Henley, Dave Matthews, Maren Morris, Megan Trainor, among many others. This is the golf bill, but for concert tickets. An artist we work with sold out a 16,000-seat arena in minutes. He was very price conscious. He wanted affordable tiers for people to get in. Months later, the production team, as we laid things out, realized there was about 350 additional seats that they could sell. In a mishap, a mistake, the box office listed them without any announcement on a random Wednesday. No social media, nothing. They were bought up in minutes, and immediately you could find those tickets on a secondary website at double the price. Another manager told me just last week that resellers bought out the entire lawn from an amphitheater and then reset the base price on the secondary market. That is not a free market. That is a market failure where profiteers with no stake, no investment, no contribution to the show are extracting value on the backs of artists and their relationships with fans. You know cuckoo birds? They lay their eggs in another bird's nest. The host bird does all the work. It incubates, feeds, and raises the chick. The cuckoo gets all the benefit. Let's be clear here. The parasitic resellers are the cuckoo birds in this analogy. The relationship between artists and fans is sacred. Think back to your first concert or your first concert with someone special. Why are we letting outside platforms gouge that relationship? Californian Jerry Garcia has said, you need music. I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic and bliss and power and myth and celebration in our lives. And music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it. Well, live music sustains our communities. The people who make the music, the crew and the production, the folks who tend the bar, they should benefit economically from ticket sales, not industrialized resale operations, running an arbitrage game, manipulating demand while artists and venues don't see a penny. Producers and other industries get to set prices, but with concert tickets, we set ours, and we watch others run them up on our fans, profiting off of our art and blocking affordable access to music. Jerry Garcia said we need magic and celebration and bliss, and music does give us that. Concerts give us that. Let's keep the cuckoos out of the nest. Thank you. Is there any other members of the public here wishing to share a statement of or a position of support? Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Jason Schmelzer on behalf of California Arts Advocates and strong support. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members, Shane Gussman on behalf of SAG-AFTRA and our recording artists and support. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members, Carl London on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America in support of our artist partners. Thank you. Chair and members, Alex Torres here. I'm here to read off a quick list of National Independent Venue Association, California chapter members who couldn't be here today. but are in support. The Fox Theater in Oakland, Channel 24 here in Sacramento, a Bruin in venue in Palmdale, register in support for local Sacramento reggae artist Stone Lion. Also on behalf of Kevin Erickson with the Future of Music Coalition, a leading national anti-monopoly organization in support. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Jim Cornette. I am a live music venue operator of Harlow's, the Starlet Room, Cafe Colonial, and the Colonial Theater, and I'm here in support of the bill. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Chaz Boswell. I'm the owner and operator of the Rink Studios here in Del Paso Heights, Sacramento, and I am in support. Thank you. Brennan Knapp with Golden Bear Strategies. I'm here on behalf of a co-sponsor, National Independent Talent Organization. With permission from the chair, can I read a couple of those organizations? Please. Okay. Sound Talent Group, Ground Control Touring, Stuart Ross Management, Realm Artists, Partisan Arts, Mongrel Music, Lucky Man Management, Like Management, Paradise Artists, Ineffable Music Group, and 72 Music Management. Thank you. Thank you. Some more in support. We're waiting for opposition. Okay. If two opposition witnesses want to come up and provide their testimony, we welcome you now. Thank you. Thanks to Chair Ward and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear and present remarks in opposition to AB 1720. I am Diana Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute. PPI urges the committee to reject invasive regulatory price controls in the resale market. The economics are very simple. Price caps will eliminate the only source of competition in ticketing. Driving fans back to Live Nation Ticketmaster, where they have been ripped off by monopoly ticket fees for decades, this will all destabilize the already strained live events ecosystem. Price caps will decimate the reseal market. The market serves as cleanup hitter for the primary market, where we see ticket shortages caused by monopoly pricing, underpricing of tickets, and ticket holdbacks. Resale provides fans with a functional competitive alternative for buying tickets, not to mention putting fans in seats for the benefit of artists and fans alike. All of this will come crashing down under resale price caps. Price caps will bring on significant ticket shortages, drive up ticket prices, guarantee half-full concert halls, and prompt the exit of online marketplaces from the market. Without a resale market, ticket buyers will have two undesirable alternatives. The first is shadow markets, where fans will be subject to fraud and abuse. The second, of course, is that fans will have no choice but to go back to Live Nation Ticketmaster, handing the monopoly even more market power. Finally, any state regulatory system that displaces competition and resale could legally immunize market participants from antitrust liability. This includes Live Nation Ticketmaster, which is currently ensnarled in one of the largest antitrust cases in U.S. history. PPI urges the committee to be skeptical of support for resale price cap proposals, which are running aground in multiple states. Live Nation Ticketmaster supports resale price caps because it protects their monopoly profits Venues support price caps because they are guaranteed continued sharing of monopoly profits with Live Nation under exclusive contracts Artists support price caps because they are guaranteed continued sharing of monopoly profits with Live Nation under exclusive contracts Artists support price caps because their profits come from the primary market. The only group that doesn't support price caps are consumers. For all these reasons, resale price caps will put consumers, artists, and the entire live events ecosystem at more risk. PPI respectfully urges the committee to reject AB 1720. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Robert Harrell. I'm the executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. We're in respectful opposition to this bill. We've worked quite a bit with the author on a wide range of issues and are normally on the same side, but this is one exception. I want to just make a few points, if I could, briefly. My letter went into quite a bit of detail about the history of the monopoly and the lawsuit and what's going on. I'm not going to repeat all that here, but I would just note that when you have almost every single state, after the Trump administration forced out the head of the antitrust division, and apparently, based on open reporting, this case against the Live Nation Ticketmaster monopoly was the straw that broke the camel's back. Within two weeks of that happening, you have a settlement agreement, and almost all of the states, red states, purple states, blue states, that are part of the lawsuit, including California, rejected the federal government settlement agreement with the monopoly. So if you don't think that there's some heavy thumbs on the scale here, you're not paying attention. I think we've lost the forest for the trees here. The problem here is the monopoly and their monopoly power. I hate resale high prices as much, if not more, as the next person. But this is the one area where you don't have monopoly dominance. hundreds of artists represented by the monopoly, venues owned by the monopoly, particularly in the outdoor amphitheater market, which is a big market here in California where that season is very long. The primary ticketing market, 80 percent market share, monopoly, no doubt about it. I know, Mrs. Burr, you spent an hour plus just hearing about 1776 and the other committee. That's all about this kind of market behavior. It is abusive. It is dominant. It is anti-consumer. Two quick final points, Mr. Chair. The amendments to the bill unfortunately make the bill worse, at least on our preliminary analysis of it. How? It's a Christmas tree of carve-outs. And by the way, one of the organizations exempted is FIFA. If anyone is even remotely paying attention to World Cup soccer prices, this is outrageous. To exempt them from this bill is preposterous. Gianni Infantino and his, you know, I can say a couple words, his group of folks at FIFA, what they're doing to the World Cup right now, combined with the current federal administration not even letting the fans in of many of the countries that qualify for the World Cup, to exempt them is just outrageous and preposterous. Finally, I want to close on this note. I'll tell you what's cuckoo. What's cuckoo is having a monopoly secretly want to remove what little competition there is. I have plenty of disagreements with the secondary market, and I've shared that with them on a wide range of issues. But the cuckooness of this whole thing is the market dominance of the monopoly. That's what's wrong. You should reject this bill. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there other members of the public here wishing to register a statement of opposition, a position of opposition? Thank you Chair and members Megan Allred on behalf of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness and opposition Thank you Mr Chair and members Courtney Jensen on behalf of SeatGeek TickPick and GameTime in opposition Thank you. And Jamie Miner passing on the opposition of our colleagues over at TechNet who are testifying in another committee. Thank you. Thank you. Juanita Martinez on behalf of the California Live Events Equity Alliance in opposition. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Sean Ash on behalf of StubHub in opposition. Thank you very much. Okay, we'll turn this back to committee member questions, comments, debates. Assemblymember Gonzalez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First and foremost, I want to thank the author. We've been in direct conversation about this. I've had some opposition groups come and speak with me on this. My question first would go to PPI and the Consumer Federation of California. Did you have the opportunity to reach out to any committee members here to communicate your position? I'm happy to answer that first. No, we did not reach out directly to committee members. We are in broad-based conversations across the U.S. and state houses about ticketing bills, price cap bills, and other consumer protection bills. I will say we have recently completed a very deep dive report on the resale ticket market, and I invite you to take a look at that. I have filed that with the record. I'm happy to answer the question also. We always reach out whenever we can to every member of the committee on any committee where we have a position on a bill. I will tell you CFC, which has a small staff, has a very full legislative package, which has, I think, nine sponsored or co-sponsored bills. And so if we didn't get a chance to meet with you, Assemblymember, I would just like to publicly extend the invitation. I'm happy to talk at disgusting length about all things ticketing and would be pleased to do that with you at any time. Yeah. You know, one of the one of the challenges I look at in this specifically. So I have Coachella, Stagecoach and several other not only, I guess, smaller venues compared to Stagecoach and Coachella, Pappy and Harriet's near the region. So one of the key pieces for me to include AccraSure Arena, which is new to our region, and to the author of AccraSure Arena near my house. There are not only music events there, there are community events there, and there are sporting events there. How would this affect venue ticket holders? This arena hosts a multitude of events, and individuals can purchase tickets on a yearly basis for all events, whether that's a hockey event, and I know you talked about sporting. And I understand that an amendment is being taken today. Would that amendment remove this kind of ticket holders from this restriction? Because this is a complicated, right? It's not just music that we're talking about. We're talking about several different types of events. So I want to know your thoughts on that. I appreciate it. And certainly the large, large majority of venues and independent venues are very strongly supportive of this bill because for folks like in your district who want to purchase whether that a single event for a concert or other event they should be able to do that directly from the venue and support the folks who work there and the musicians who perform there and not have to go through the speculators or the scalpers who are taking a huge chunk of what is being paid for for themselves and not having contributed. In terms of your question specifically, our amendment recognizes that sporting events are different. It's much more reliant on season ticket or seat licenses, which is more of a subscription-based model, very different than if you're going to see a single concert. I'm not familiar with any venues that provide for a subscription-based model for a whole set of events like concerts and such. Right now, we're just exempting sporting events. If a season ticket holder, because they have a seat license, is able to get early access to purchase concert tickets, they would still be able to do that. That's fully allowed under this bill. But what it doesn't allow for is even if you have a seat license and have early access to a ticket, purchase it for $50 and turn around and sell it to somebody else for $500 for a concert. That's not something that's allowed. But I'm happy to talk more about this particular model. likely what happens is they have a season ticket to the hockey aspect of it and then maybe have early access to some of these other events, and they would continue to be allowed to do that. I'd like to continue the conversation specifically about this type of model because it's not, if you will, your standard. But in the region, in the Inland Empire region, we are going towards that model of a more complex venue versus just one specific type. So I'd love the opportunity to continue having the conversation and see how that truly impacts my district and what that means. The second question I have is I understand that the target of this bill is industrial resellers. If a reseller is based in Florida and never physically does business in California and simply buys and sells tickets for events taking place in California online, would the AG have the authority to enforce this restriction on them? Yes, absolutely. This is something that happens in many different areas, either online and not, where the attorney general is required to take enforcement action against companies or operators that are not based in California. This is something that is happening, as I said, all over the world with similar types of models. essentially in order to operate one of these online platforms, you would need to, when this bill is signed into law, upload the original ticket with how much you paid for it and in a very transparent way be able to demonstrate that you're not charging above that 10 percent. If you are doing that, then the attorney general would have no reason to go after you or seek to have an enforcement action. If you're not doing that at scale, that's really the target of what this bill is intended to do to stop what is now a widespread and standardized practice, which is these large-scale brokers, speculators, scalpers, buying a huge number of these tickets and marking them up at, you know, five, ten times as much as they were purchased for and putting them on these platforms. That would be illegal under this law, and they could enforce that even against platforms that are operating out of a different state. Again, I want to thank the author for always being available for conversation. You have proven that in the past and you continue to prove that today and yesterday and in the days ahead and then bringing folks to help clarify the different conversations and to those in the room that have reached out as well to have those conversations. Because, look, I want to enjoy a venue. I don't want to pay an astronomical amount. But I also believe that there should be a secondary market to be able to do those things. But at the same time, I don't want someone buying up a lawn and then a ticket that's $100 is now $300. There should be some of that. So I think there's more conversation to be had with respect to this. And I appreciate the chair's leadership because you're always trying to balance these types of things. And that's important. We can't just, like, throw the hammer down. We need balance. So I appreciate that, and I look forward to continued conversations from all sides. Thank you. Selma Elwari. Thank you. I think I'm a little concerned about what feels like kind of the monopoly side of this in terms of Ticketmaster being able to, I think, have the opportunity to then be the main resellers if we eliminate the secondary market. And so I'm just wondering, especially given what's going on with the ongoing litigation, how you see this kind of reducing competition even further. I think I understand that we don't want tickets to be resold for astronomical prices and we want to protect consumers at the end of the day. But I feel like Ticketmaster then becomes the only kind of space where we're that won't be in trouble by this. Well, let me say one piece and then maybe if the folks who operate the venues again, the venue, independent venue owners, the artists, the recording industry, SAG Afro, all of the folks who really want to make sure that we are supporting not only the people who are making the art, but the folks who own the buildings, run the buildings, the workers and the fans are behind this. And many of them have their own issues with Ticketmaster and Live Nation that's separate from this. A couple of things that I'll say about that. One is Ticketmaster is also a very large ticket reseller. They would also be controlled by this bill. They would no longer be able to resell tickets for over 110%, just like any other platform. So they are also will be limited by this bill significantly in terms of what they will be able to do on resale. The problem that we have of direct, needing to have competition in the direct sale market is still there. And I think for in talking to the venues and talking to the folks who are the artists, they believe that by taking this huge profit motive of the secondary market out of this, that we actually provide more opportunity for competition in the direct sale market, that you're going to find more folks who come in and provide for partnerships, maybe at a nonprofit level or with lesser fees, or venues can then really focus on how to do the primary direct market in a way that breaks up the competition that needs to be there and exist in the primary market. Right now, I know that the focus here, they want to make this about Ticketmaster and the monopoly. We can use our common sense there. How exactly is that creating competition with Ticketmaster and Live Nation on the primary market to allow for folks to jack up prices in the secondary market by buying up all the tickets on Ticketmaster and then going and selling those at three four five times as much They want to be able to continue to sell for a lot more on the secondary market and somehow that's creating competition on the primary market. That doesn't add up at all. So yes, we need more folks who come in and are able to provide for competition in partnership with the venues who are supportive of this in how we provide for direct sales. But that doesn't happen by allowing the speculators to run rampant by making the competition for tickets even more concentrated in the hands of very few and not accessible to fans. So this will require Ticketmaster and Resale to follow these same rules. And for that reason, I think actually provides much more of a fair playing field broadly. But if you want to have the venue, some of whom work with Ticketmaster and some don't. Super specifically, the conversation that I have with customers at the rope line when they're affected by this has nothing to do with antitrust. It has only to do with their experience in trying to navigate the Wild West and get into the venue. There's so many pitfalls that they wind up having to address as they're trying to come through. and I see it five to 10 times a night. These are two separate subjects. National Independent Venue Association met with the AG's office. We're in strong support of the antitrust case continuing. We work diligently on that. It's a priority for us. These are definitely distinctly different issues. We are dealing with a consumer crisis, a consumer confidence crisis, and we have to address that specific aspect of this ticketing diversion. I would just say that in the UK, there was a proliferation of secondary websites that came out after there was a cap on football resale. So more sites came into the market selling at face value, what we would call ethical resale. So we want ethical resale. That is, you know, I have young kids. They're sick all the time. If I have to miss a show, I want to be able to move that ticket and get my money back. There will be, but that has nothing to do with the primary. I would just note that the UK law hasn't taken effect yet. I know this because I'm a member of Newcastle United Football Club in the northeast of England, went to see two matches, and even as a member, could not get tickets. That's a supply-demand problem. I get it. And wound up going to the secondary market to be able to get a ticket to one of those matches. That was just literally a month ago. The other broader point I'd make about Europe, which came up earlier, is that generally speaking, what you don't have, and again, it's not just one country. It's obviously the combined equivalent of the U.S. population-wise. But generally speaking, you don't have one dominant player in the continent. Occasionally in some of the countries you have one bigger player the way that you do here. So the notion that, look, I appreciate, we disagree with Niva on a lot of things. We agree with them when they said, break up Ticketmaster. We agree. Okay, so we agree on that. Most of the things, we have a difference of opinion. And I understand how tough it is for them because they have exclusive contracts with the monopoly. And if you dare cross the monopoly, the federal lawsuit makes this crystal clear. If you dare even think about using another ticketing entity, the monopoly will blackball you. They literally have done that. It's one of the things they're being charged with in the federal antitrust case. So I understand the pressure they're under. I would just finally note a lot of the large venues including those owned by the Monopoly have deals with ticket brokers to sell massive blocks of those tickets So the very thing that's being condemned here is actually being done by the Monopoly to make sure that when the artist looks out at the fans that there's relatively full arena. So that's an underside of this that hasn't been discussed. So there's a lot of aspects to this. It's quite complicated, but what we do know is that monopolies historically don't help consumers. There's not a single example where in the long run monopolies help consumers. And what they're doing here in terms of the applicability, the assembly member's right. This applies to their resale as well. They are the biggest player in resale. Market share is tougher to get in that space. This is what I call a loss leader strategy. It's what Walmart did when they went into communities and lowered the prices, and then all the other small businesses on Main Street had to shut down. And then what happened after that? They jacked them up way high. They are absolutely—it's the monopolist playbook 101. This is the lost leader strategy. I'm not blaming the assembly member. I'm not blaming the venues for that. That is the monopoly that's doing that strategy. Could I add a couple of comments? Do we have time for that? Let me see. Do you have a question for her, Ms. Elwari? Was that a yes or no? I would just like to respond to what we've heard over here, if that's okay. Yeah, so I'm going to respectfully disagree with all of what you've heard here in terms of no relationship between the primary and the secondary market. They are absolutely and extractively linked. The primary market is highly dysfunctional. There is a monopoly sitting in the middle of the primary market, jacking up ticket fees, holding back tickets, underpricing tickets, and the artists are very much part of this. So what we have in the primary market are ticket shortages. Fans can't get tickets on the primary market. So where do they have to go? So they look for the secondary market. If Ticketmaster is supporting price cap regulation, which will create additional shortages in the secondary market, which is not only competitive, it balances supply and demand, and it fills up concert halls and amphitheaters, then what will happen is they will drive all the fans back from a non-functional disappearing resale market. because of price caps, all the way back to Ticketmaster. That's the link that we are not hearing about over here. This is a strategy for Ticketmaster to shut down the resale market, and fans will have no place to go because it is a monopoly. And once they get back to Ticketmaster, they will pay monopoly ticket fees. Thank you. And I'll just appreciate your response, Assemblymember, to my question. I think that's what I was worried about is like that Ticketmaster will be the only place that you can buy the ticket and resell the ticket. And so then they'll just keep going higher and higher. But it's helpful to hear your perspective and to hear you all as well. And some of the practices that we want to stop that Ticketmaster may be engaging. And you heard that there are some places that have deals with ticket brokers where they're allowing exactly what Robert just described. these huge bulk buying of tickets and these early deals to allow the speculation to happen on secondary markets, well, that would now be illegal under this law. So there are some things that we're doing that really break down those type of practices that we want to stop, whether it's happening from secondary brokers or from some venues. But again, I would listen to the small venues themselves. I would listen to the artists themselves. And I bet if you stopped in that line and talked to actual fans about this, they would also agree. we are all seeing this firsthand and understand it When we get in this conversation about monopoly it getting away from I think what is our common sense which is this practice should not be allowed And it not supporting affordability and it not supporting these venues or the musicians Thank you. Assemblymember Zabur. First of all, I want to thank the author for bringing this bill. I read all of the letters on both sides, obviously. And, you know, I think obviously there's a, you know, when I was reading the letters, it was all a lot about the antitrust lawsuit. I sort of see this as just sort of a separate issue, frankly. It's, you know, it's something where we've got the small venues are asking for the small venues, obviously, want more competition in the primary market. And I don't think that this prevents that from happening. this is dealing with something where you know you've got secondary folks coming in buying up tons of tickets and then jacking the prices up and I just sort of see putting some limit on that is something that is pro-consumer and it's something that the you know it's a sort of a separate issue than how you have more competition so that the venues and the artists actually have more competition in the primary market and who they contract with and so I just sort of see them as separate issues I think this is a consumer protection issue it makes it less likely that you're going to have someone come in and buy up half the stadium and then just jack ticket prices up. And so with that, I will support the bill today. Thank you. Any other member questions or comments? Mr. Ortega. I just had a quick follow-up question in terms of the exemption for the FIFA. Can you talk to us a little bit about that and why they were exempted? This is really about live events and live performances. And so we committed to exempt all sports. So their athletic events are not included in this bill. The focus is really on how this is impacting live music, live performance. Great. Thank you. Well, I want to thank the author for kicking off this conversation because I think it responds to something with your intention of really what so many consumers, what any one of us in this room probably experiences. We're trying to access the best show that we would want to go see, but you run right into that wall of, you know, the tickets were barely available. If they can even like, you know, get them on the first, second of all and immediately have to go. And somehow some other sophisticated technology was able to get them and immediately inflate the prices right now. This isn't anything new. This has been going on for some time. And so we know that there's a need out there or a hunger out there for some kind of solution. And, you know, it's it's just deeply unfair because we don't want to go back to the old system that we grew up in, where you basically had to go down and camp out the night before and get in line. That was fair, but it was incredibly inconvenient. Now we have a convenience right now, but it's being perverted. And there's been a shift of really financial gain, not towards the artists or those that serve those venues, certainly not, you know, towards the benefit of the consumer, but really towards some third party out there that has developed that system, which is just extracting money. And all this comes on the back of consumers. I would echo the comments of Senator Zabur as well, because I've been taking very critically this issue of monopoly challenges that are out there right now, which are under investigation, which are being vetted and should be vetted right now. And I see that as relevant for conversation, but distinct from, I think, the solution that you're trying to be able to put here. And I'm really trying to think through that lens of maybe theoretically, economically, theoretically, whether or not this is actually in play here. And I'm having trouble actually landing on that as much as I'm studying that issue, because when you have the initial ticket that's being operated through. a Ticketmaster or Live Nation venue that was originally purchased there. And then ultimately somehow somebody, something is grabbing it and reselling it over, over here. They're kind of out of the equation at that point and to a degree. And so then it's been sort of like linked that, okay, if this were to pass and everything was sort of being driven back to only a Ticketmaster sort of style, uh, site, that that would leave an opportunity then for inflated, really monopolistic control over those ticket fees and prices. It's going to enhance prices. And as I talked to some that had come in to sort of vet this through me, a couple of sort of examples come to mind. One, yes, it's not in effect yet in the UK, but it is in effect in the country of Ireland. Is that correct? And so we're not seeing half full venues and inflated prices there like I'm believing that we're seeing. the intent of what we're trying to see, which is not to allow this sort of backdoor channel for excessive inflation of the ticket values. And if I'm a consumer, on some level, like, I don't want to pay $1,000 for a $100 ticket. I want to pay $100 or something in the ballpark of $100. So if that gets inflated to $110, I'm much happier than if something gets inflated to $1,000 because a system is in place that allows that to be captured for something that is sold out. it's about the total price right there. And so we're trying to be able to see, is there a model out there? We're not reinventing the wheel here. We're trying to take a model that is starting to show some positive effect elsewhere and see whether or not it's something that could be of a positive effect here for California opportunities as well. And I think it deserves more thought and study, no doubt. But I think that we're trying to reflect that through the work of 1720 here is to really sort of test that question about whether this can work here as well. so you know it also was raised as well I don't want to leave the conversation without mentioning some of the unfairness arguments that were brought up by some of the current resale markets if you're SeatGeek or Vivid Seats or others out there as well about transferability and knowledge right that how do you actually know what the fair market ticket value is what the original ticket value is the price that somehow there's also a monopoly of information there that only Ticketmaster knows I just did a quick search to see what journeys come into town in a week, and I was curious what the fair market value of those were. And it was easily able to be pulled up through some kind of search engine here about what that fair market value ticket price should be. And I'm not to say that this is evolving technology, but somehow there's going to be a quickly evolving status of that information, the ability to access that information. So getting it right so that there's a fairness in there, because I had heard the argument that somehow we would be shut out, others would be shut out from the competition. We want that competition out there for the secondary market to be able to have options, to be able to keep prices competitive out there, no doubt. There are other sites in the country of Ireland that are acting as secondary markets. So somehow it's working for them. But yes, other major ones that we know here in the U.S. have pulled out of those markets. And so for me, there is a disconnect here, but I wonder if that disconnect is going to be solved with the continued evolution of technology that is out there right now to make sure that you can access that information, that you can apply it to your prices, so you wouldn't run afoul of the restrictions of this bill or the consequences of this bill. That's something that we also don't want to see happen as well. So I think that this is a conversation that can evolve but as fast as technology is evolving it might even be solvable in the lifespan of this bill for all we know So I do believe for the merits of what you trying to achieve here that we want to test that question and ultimately to bring it full circle for the benefit of consumers here in California, knowing that we have their back for some kind of a standard that's really going to try to put a handle around these inflated prices, I think is going to benefit more for access to the shows that they want to be able to see. So I'll be supportive of the bill today. I want to thank you for your hard work and your continued work ahead, I think, with all of our stakeholders, and I invite you to close.

AB 1720, do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Ward? Aye. Ward, aye. Blackie, El Huari, El Huari, aye. Jeff Gonzales, McKenna, Ortega, aye. Ortega, aye. Oh, Mr. Gonzales. Jeff Gonzales, no. Jeff Gonzales, no. Valencia, yes. Valencia, aye. Zabir, aye. Right now that is a 5-1. I want the bill to be out. We'll hold the roll open for absent members. Thank you all very much. And at this time, I'd like to call committee members back to room 444. We'll take two passes through our file for those who are here and want to get all their votes on record. Maybe we'll go back to the top. And begin with item number one, AB 1626. Madam Secretary, when you're ready. AB 1626, the motion is do pass as amended to the assembly committee on education. Zver? Aye. Zver, aye. And the bill is out. It's a zero. Next, item number two. We just heard, so we'll hold on that. Item number three. AB 1884 the motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education Ms Burr Ms Burr aye That's 4-2. I will remain on call for absent members. AB 1954, Ward, do pass to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. I'll go to the next question. Burr? Yes. Burr, aye. Currently at... Who's this? . . AB 2319, do pass to the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. Ms. Burr? Aye. Ms. Burr, aye. El Huwari? Aye. El Huwari, aye. That's currently at 6-0. We'll hold the roll up in for absent members. AB 2503, the motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Ms. Burt? Aye. Ms. Burt, aye. That's 6-0. We'll hold the roll up and perhaps some members. Thank you. Thank you. We'll reopen the roll then for AB 1720, item 2. AB 1720, the motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. Lackey? Not voting. Lackey not voting Thank you That will remain on call 5 Item number 3. AB 1884, the motion is do pass as amended to the assembly committee on education. Lackey? Aye. Lackey, aye. 522 with one member not voting and one absent. AB 1954 the motion is do pass Assembly Committee on privacy and consumer protection. Lackey? Aye. Lackey, aye. Bill is at 7-0. We'll remain open for absent members. Item 5. AB 2319 do pass the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. Lackey? Very aye. Lackey aye. Bill is at 7-0. We'll hold the roll for absent members. and item 6. AB 2503 do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Education. Lackey? Being from the desert I'm I. Lackey aye. All right. That is at 7-0. We'll hold the roll up and props to members. Thank you Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Secretary. We will reopen the roll for item number two. AB 1720, the motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. McKinner? Aye. McKinner, aye. That bill has six to one and is out. And item number four AB 1954 the motion is due passed to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection McKinner? Aye. McKinner, aye. Bill is out 8-0. AB 2319, the motion is due passed to the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. McKinner? Aye. McKinner, aye. That bill is out 8 to 0. And number 6. And number 6, AB 2503 will be out 7 to 0. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.