• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) plugged her bill, the Keep Families Together Act, in her opening statements as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on July 31 on family reunification efforts as ranking member of the committee. The bill, introduced with 31 other Democrats including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California), would seek to reunify all the children separated from their families from the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy. “I hope the administration officials are ready today to give us the official figures on reunified children and how it plans to ensure that no further infringements on the constitutional rights of the parent and the child to be together,” Feinstein said. “I look forward to the hearing, and to the witnesses, and working with my colleagues to get legislation enacted very quickly.”
• Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) issued a statement on July 27 after a decision by Senate Republicans that blocked years’ worth of documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh‘s career with the administration of President George W. Bush. Harris, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, argued that Kavanaugh’s time a Bush’s staff secretary were “absolutely relevant to his nomination.” “The American people deserve to know the full extent of Judge Kavanaugh’s involvement and influence in critical decisions during those years, including President Bush’s policy decisions authorizing use of torture and warrantless wiretapping, and Kavanaugh’s work on President Bush’s judicial nominations,” Harris said in the statement. “The majority’s opposition to transparency is as new as it is dangerous. When Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated, Democrats worked with Republicans to produce her records for meeting minutes for a board she served on, despite having had a 17-year judicial record. When Justice Elena Kagan was nominated, Democrats worked with Republicans to obtain her full records from her time in the White House.” That same day, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, wrote a letter to the National Archives, criticizing the agency for declining to provide the records to Senate Democrats. “In your letter, you indicate that the authority to make requests under the special access provision of the Presidential Records Act ‘lies exclusively with the chair of the committee,” Feinstein wrote. “Your unduly restrictive reading of the law results in one political party having complete control over what records the Senate will be able to see before deciding whether a nominee should receive a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am shocked that you would provide materials in response to a request from one side and not the other.”
• State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) saw a bill she authored signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on July 18. Senate Bill 1331 will expand law enforcement training to include a “domestic violence lethality assessment, which is a series of evidence-based questions that first responders can ask a domestic abuse victim to determine the risk of homicide, serious injury, or re-assault,” according to a release from Jackson’s office. “Three women are murdered by an intimate partner every day in the U.S.,” Jackson said. “We must do more to help victims of domestic violence access the tools they need to safely leave their partner before it’s too late. SB 1331 will save lives by training law enforcement officers how to identify individuals in serious risk of harm and connect them immediately with effective community-based services.”
• Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton) recognized Grocery Outlet in Lompoc as the Business of the Month for July, and congratulated the business in a July 26 Facebook post. “Owners Aaron and Alix Crocker were also recently recognized by the Lompoc Chamber of Commerce with the Economic Vitality Award and they have donated thousands to local organizations. Stop by their store where they are currently holding a dog food drive to benefit Shadow’s Fund shelter,” Cunningham wrote.
This article appears in Aug 2-9, 2018.