As you know, the regular legislative session ended on August 31.  All told, lawmakers approved 873 bills that have yet to be acted upon by the Governor, who has until Sept. 30 to act on them.  Of course, that assumes that the Governor actually receives the bills.  Due to the Governor’s threat that he will veto any legislation that reaches his desk for the budget, the legislature is holding bills back from the Governor through a little-known process called “enrollment.”  The enrollment process follows the final vote where it is proofread for accuracy and then delivered to the Governor.  The legislature controls the enrollment process and can hang bills up there somewhat indefinitely.  With no end in sight on the budget impasse, questions are now being raised about how long the legislature can hold the bills in enrollment.

One section of the state Constitution states, “The Legislature may not present any bill to the Governor after November 15 of the second calendar year of the biennium of the legislative session.”   But the Constitution also states that the Governor must act on bills before Sept. 30, or else they automatically become law.  Of course, the Governor cannot act on bills that have not reached his desk.  

Here are some of the potential scenarios if the budget impasse goes much longer:

·         Some members of the Schwarzenegger Administration are saying that any bills he receives after Sept. 29 are automatically dead.

·         Experts who work for the legislature are speculating that they have until Nov. 15 to send bills to the Governor because the legislature did not technically adjourn on August 31, it recessed. The constitution says the Legislature can remain in session until Nov. 15 – which means those bills may still be alive at the end of September.

·         Other legislative experts say that if they hold bills past October 2, the bills eventually signed by the Governor would not take effect until January of 2010 instead of January of 2009.

Clearly, the Constitution does not account for this no-man’s-land.  So we are not just in budget-impasse purgatory, we are also in legislative-limbo purgatory.

Just in case the budget crisis is resolved, I have submitted the attached letters for the measures we are supporting that were passed by the legislature.  Here is a quick summary of those measures:

• AB 13 (Brownley) – would require hospitals to adopt a plan or procedure by January 1, 2010 for determining staffing of professional and technical classifications, as specified, and requires the Department of Health Services (DHS) to review compliance and deem failure to maintain, review annually, or comply with the plan or procedure to constitute staffing that has the potential for harm to patients.

• AB 437 (Jones) – rectifies the problems in the Supreme Court Ledbetter decision, which stated that a complaint of unlawful pay discrimination must be filed within 180 days of when the discrimination first occurred.

• AB 507 (De La Torre) – would require proof of workers’ compensation insurance coverage to be available on the Internet.  Providing public access to workers’ compensation coverage will help injured workers, medical providers, employers, and state enforcement agencies prevent fraud in the system.

• AB 1844 (Hernandez) – contains many of the recommendations made by the Governor's Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission, which issued its final report and recommendations in January 2008.  This measure would increase transparency and accountability of pension and other post-employment benefit funding, and enhance the ability of CalPERS to respond to disability retirement fraud.

• AB 1997 (Hayashi) – would require CalPERS to establish the Retired Public Employees Vision Care Program Fund for purposes of providing vision care benefits to local agency retirees and their dependents. The bill would allow local agencies county to contract with CalPERS to provide vision care that is similar to those commonly provided in private industry and in other states.

• AB 2400 (Price) – would require that, prior to closing a general acute care or psychiatric hospital, or eliminating the level of health services provided, the hospital shall provide certain notice regarding those proposed changes to the public and the applicable administering department, in accordance with certain procedures.

• AB 2589 (Solorio) – would require health plans or health insurers to report annually to the governing boards of public agencies that contract to provide group coverage, any commissions or fees paid to an agent, broker or individual, the names, addresses of these agents, fees and individuals, the total premiums paid for all enrollees, an approximation of the number of persons under the contract at the end of the contract year, and a description of covered benefits.

• AB 2969 (Lieber) – would require that any physician who provides utilization review services for injured workers must be licensed in California.

• SB 840 (Kuehl) – the “single payer” bill that would cover every Californian with comprehensive health insurance and give them the ability to choose their own physician.

• SB 1115 (Migden) – would specify that race, religious creed, color, national origin, age, gender, marital status, sex, and genetic predisposition shall not be considered a cause or other factor of disability for apportionment purposes for workers’ compensation.

• SB 1123 (Wiggins) – would enact changes recommended by the Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission. The bill adds other post-employment benefits to the actuarial statement that is required prior to an action by the Legislature or a legislative body to increase benefits. The bill would also require an actuary to be present to provide information at the meeting where the adoption of a new benefit will be considered and would prohibit the adoption of any benefit to be by means of a consent calendar. The bill establishes the California Actuarial Advisory Panel to provide impartial and independent information on pensions, other post-employment benefits, and best practices.

• SB 1146 (Cedillo) – addresses loss of revenues by identifying tax cheats through a tax sharing program between the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) and local cities.  The bill would allow cities to enter into a reciprocal agreement with FTB to share business tax information and ensure that there is a level playing field for businesses.

• SB 1338 (Migden) – would maintain the right of some injured workers to predesignate their treating physicians and see their own doctors should they get injured on the job. 

• SB 1415 (Kuehl) – would require certain health care providers who create patient records, at the time the initial patient record is created, to provide a statement to be signed by the patient, or the patient's representative, that sets forth the patient's rights, as specified, and the intended retention period for the records, as specified in applicable law or by the health care provider's retention policy.

• SB 1440 (Kuehl) – would require health plans to expend no more for administrative costs than 15% of the aggregate dues, fees, and other periodic payments received by the plan for providing health care services to its subscribers or enrollees.  Plans that have been licensed for less than 5 years are allowed to spend 25% on administrative costs.

• SB 1586 (McLeod) – would authorize the board of retirement of San Bernardino County to establish by resolution a fund for the collective investment of assets held by public agencies solely for providing health benefits to former or retired employees of any local public agency and their dependents, as specified.

• SB 1661 (Kuehl) – would provide that an individual shall be deemed to have left his or her most recent work with good cause if the individual’s employment is terminated as a result of the individual’s taking a qualifying leave under the family temporary disability insurance program.

• SB 1717 (Perata) – would restore some permanent disability benefits to injured workers under workers’ compensation.

There were no bills that we opposed that were passed out of the legislature.