2014-2015 Legislative & Public Policy Clinic – Legislative Projects – Bills Introduced as of March 14, 2015
The Legislative and Public Policy Clinic provides practical skills experience in researching, drafting, and pursuing adoption of California state legislative and regulatory changes. While seeking these changes, students interact with elected and appointed officials in state government, their staff, lobbyists, and public affairs professionals. Students also have an opportunity to develop political coalitions, interact with the media, and advocate for change.
During the second year of the Clinic in 2014-2015, with the guidance of Professor Rex Frazier (McGeorge, ’00) and support from Clinic Assistants Lexi Purich Howard (McGeorge, ’15) and Katherine Williams (McGeorge ’15), students honed their ideas by researching existing law, analyzing the pitfalls, and evaluating potential solutions. They also crafted plans to build support and media coverage, and to anticipate and rebut opposition.
Clinic members in the 2014-15 school year drafted bills, offered drafting assistance, and supported the following five bills in the first year of the 2015-2016 legislative session. Please click on the bill number to navigate to the text of the actual bill.
SB 128 (Wolk, Monning)
Elizabeth Kim, Mary McCune
SB 128 champions for the rights of terminally ill, mentally competent Californians to ask and receive a prescription from their physician to shorten an unnecessarily painful dying process, easing the experience of dying for everyone. Modeled after Oregon’s successful 1997 Death with Dignity Act, SB 128 includes important safeguards to ensure that these decisions made by dying Californians are voluntary and heartfelt.
AB 100 (Alejo)
Raihane Dalvi, Ernesto Falcon, Amanda Kelly
AB 100 creates a privately funded fellowship program for law school graduates, who would then have the opportunity to work within the legislative branch of the California state government. This bill also provides an academic component, which allows these law school graduates to put their law school loans on hold while they are working in the public sector. AB 100 is helpful to the state because it is facing a soon-to-be retiring legal workforce – more than 36% of the state’s attorneys are age 55 and over.
AB 791 (Cooley)
Charles Deyoe, Jason Miller
AB 791 would require that hospitals include patient advanced health care directives in electronic medical records. This bill will replace the antiquated, paper based, advanced health care directive registry currently maintained by the State. AB 791 would allow physicians to access patients’ advanced health care directives in emergency departments and other clinical settings ensuring that patients’ wishes as to treatment are respected.
AB 291 (Medina)
Adam Borchard, Stephen Guichard, Caroline Soto
AB 291 would streamline the filing of notices of determination under the California Environmental Quality Act for multi-county water projects and improve public access to these notices. Currently, agencies approving multi-county water projects face a myriad of different submission requirements from each county, posing substantial and unnecessary logistical burdens. AB 291 will simplify local agencies’ filing of notices of determination and improve public access by making these notices available with the county clerk in the agency’s home county and statewide on the state’s CEQAnet website for the first time.
AB 1200 (Gordon)
Robert Binning, Alexander Khan, Robert Nash
AB 1200 would expand the definition of lobbying to include the process of procuring goods. The effect of the bill would be to provide greater sunshine on an area where significant amounts of taxpayer money is dedicated. In practical terms, it would require those lobbying procurement to report this aspect of their business, as well as require lobbying firms and lobbyist employers to report the procurement lobbying contracts. Twenty-five states, including Arizona, Florida, Maryland, New York, and Texas, currently require lobbyists to report procurement lobbying activity.
Professor: Rex Frazier
Clinic Assistants: Lexi Howard and Katherine Williams