Political Watch Feb. 14, 2019

• On Feb. 8, U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) reintroduced the Corporate Political Disclosure Act, House Resolution 1053, which was co-authored by Citizen’s Congress Director Bill Ostrander. Campaign finance reform was a major platform in Ostrander’s unsuccessful run against Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham for the 35th District state Assembly seat in 2018, when the bill was first introduced. The legislation would require publicly traded corporations to disclose political expenditures through the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to their shareholders and the general public. “Shareholders deserve to know exactly where their money is going when they choose to invest in a company,” Carbajal said in a press release. “For years, Congressional Republicans have blocked the SEC from shining a light on the political contributions that shareholder funds are supporting. That must change.”

• Twenty-seven senators and 75 representatives, including California Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein and U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), cosponsored legislation introduced on Feb. 8 to protect national monuments from attempts to shrink or eliminate protections on the presidentially-designated land. The bill is a response to the Trump administration’s recent efforts to decrease the size of more than two dozen national monuments, including the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and possibly open up the land to further mineral extraction. The ANTIQUITIES Act of 2019 officially declares Congress’ support for the 52 national monuments designated between 1996 and 2018 and states that presidential proclamations designating national monuments are valid and can’t be reduced or diminished, except by an act of Congress.
• Recent legislation introduced by state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) calls for a “master plan for aging Californians” as well as for the governor to appoint an “aging czar” to lead a 15-member task force that would work with stakeholders and state agencies to identify policies and priorities to prepare the state to deal with its aging population. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the state’s older population will nearly double by 2030. “California’s aging population is growing quickly and living longer. Without adequate services and planning, many of our state’s older adults face a risk of becoming homeless or losing access to essential care,” Jackson said in a press release. “We cannot afford to leave our aging adults behind.”

• On Feb. 5, Alzheimer’s State Advocacy Day, Assemblymember Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) introduced the Alzheimer’s Healthy Brain Initiative (AB 388), which would direct the California Department of Public Health and local jurisdictions to plan and prepare for the Alzheimer’s crisis by bringing public awareness to the early signs and symptoms. “In California, Alzheimer’s disease is the third leading cause of death impacting millions of lives throughout the state, but less than half of all Californians affected have been formally diagnosed by a clinician. Although the onset of Alzheimer’s cannot yet be stopped or reverses, early detection and diagnosis can make it easier for patients and their families to manage the disease,” Limón said in a press release.

• In a formal letter submitted to the U.S. Department of Education during the last week of January, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) warned that U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposed changes to Title IX would undermine protections and cause harm to students and survivors. “ Betsy DeVos’s proposed changes to Title IX set our country backward and undermine the progress we have made to protect all students from harassment and assault. The draft regulations will jeopardize the rights and safety of student survivors while discouraging others from reporting abuse,” Jackson said in a press release. “These changes will put countless students in danger by disregarding their trauma and putting them face-to-face with their attacker.” μ

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