Transcript Highlights:

• California currently has the highest poverty rate in the nation at 20.4 percent.
• California currently has the highest poverty rate in the nation at 20.4%, which roughly means that 7
• California is the nation's highest supplemental poverty rate at 17.7%, meaning that nearly 7 million
• We had to pass a big utility rate reform bill last year, but I have another big one this year.
• California is losing our military retirees at a disproportionate rate compared to other states, partly

Committee: Senate Revenue and Taxation

Summary: The committee heard several tax and revenue measures. SB 1277, by Senator Grove, proposed a California Cost of Living Tax Credit modeled on the 2022 middle-class tax refund to provide direct relief to low- and middle-income Californians facing high housing, gas, energy, and general living costs. Supporters said it would help working families, farmworkers, teachers, and others; opponents, including the California Tax Reform Association and the California Teachers Association, argued California already has a progressive tax system, that refundable credits are costly and can be difficult to administer, and that the bill would reduce General Fund revenues and Proposition 98 funding. The bill was held on call after extensive debate and no motion was made at that time. The committee then heard SB 1287, which would create a targeted tax credit to encourage private investment in short-line railroad infrastructure. The author and rail industry witnesses said the credit would support safety, bridge and track upgrades, emissions reductions, freight efficiency, and rural and agricultural supply chains, while opponents argued a direct grant program would be preferable to a tax credit. The bill was accepted with committee amendments and placed on call after a motion to move it forward. SB 1407 would exempt military retirement pay and surviving spouse benefits from state income tax, with the author, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, and veterans’ groups arguing it would help retain veterans in California, support second careers, and keep federal retirement dollars in the state. The California Teachers Association and California Tax Reform Association opposed it as another tax expenditure that would reduce General Fund revenue. The committee approved the bill on a due pass as amended vote to the Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, with several members voting aye and others not voting, and the bill was placed on call. The committee also heard SB 1349, which directs the Legislative Analyst’s Office to review major tax expenditures and evaluate their costs, beneficiaries, and effectiveness. Supporters, including CTA, AFSCME, cities, counties, and many teachers, said the state needs more accountability for roughly $94 billion in annual tax expenditures and their impact on schools and the budget. The bill was moved with committee amendments and placed on call. Additional measures discussed included SB 1078, authorizing Santa Cruz County to seek voter approval for a temporary local sales tax increase to fund health care and safety-net services; SB 1120, extending the California Competes Tax Credit through 2035 and making it refundable for certain strategic industries; and SB 1275, which would convert the state sales tax on vehicle purchases into a deductible vehicle license fee to reduce Californians’ federal tax burden. SB 1120 and SB 1275 both received support from business and industry witnesses, with no opposition testimony noted, and were moved on call or with a due pass as amended vote as the committee continued through the file.

Transcript Highlights:

• Whether it is HIV, our STI rate is the highest.
• I'll leave the committee with this: in 2023, STI rates for youth age 13 to 17 reached a 15-year high,
• We have incredibly high suicide rates.
• And in terms of STI, we have the highest rates of chlamydia and syphilis in 2008.
•   976 WE HAVE INCREDIBLY HIGH SUICIDE RATES.

Summary: The committee first heard HB 245, which would replace references in Florida law to “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material.” The sponsor said the change was overdue and more accurately reflects the criminal nature of the material. There was brief supportive public testimony, no debate, and the bill was reported favorably on a unanimous vote. The committee then took up HB 237 on the use of professional nursing titles. The sponsor said advanced practice registered nurses should be able to use earned academic titles such as DNP or PhD. Supporters testified in favor, there was no opposition or debate, and the bill passed unanimously and was reported favorably. The longest discussion centered on HB 173, which would expand parental consent and access requirements for minors’ medical care, medical records, certain school surveys, and biomedical devices. Supporters argued it restores parental rights and keeps parents involved in children’s health decisions, while opponents—many from medical, mental health, LGBTQ, and youth advocacy groups—warned it could block access to STI treatment, mental health care, crisis hotlines, and confidential services for vulnerable youth, including those in abusive homes. After extensive testimony and debate, the bill was reported favorably on a 19-7 vote. Finally, the committee began HB 327 on uterine fibroid research. The sponsor explained the bill would require health care providers to submit identified data so the Department of Health can build a usable de-identified research database, after prior implementation problems with duplicate or unverified data. A supportive local official testified, and members indicated support as the meeting moved toward a vote.

Transcript Highlights:

• That is because we know that increasing sentence lengths is ineffective at reducing crime rates.
• Just to think of it globally, Washington's incarceration rate is 30% higher than Massachusetts.
• In our case, we're seeing property crime rates increase, but from an economic development perspective
• The sexual abuse-to-prison pipeline is a term that has been used to describe the staggering rates of
• This all increasing Washington's poverty rate, which sits at 10.6 percent and one of the highest rates

Bills: HB1591 , HB2209 , HB2403 , HB2526

Committee: House Community Safety

Keywords: domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, survivor protections, legal remedies, defendants, theft, robbery, sentencing enhancements, criminal justice, property crimes, failure to register, registration requirements, public safety, law enforcement, prostitution, public health, criminal justice reform, community safety

Transcript Highlights:

• Hispanic Education Bureau conducted our first internal study, achieving about a 50% participation rate
• You can see that the belonging rate is higher for both elementary and secondary students.
• the national average: Hispanic Education Act students in all grades have a higher ethnic identity rate
• They may get a 50% response rate in the first month, and they'll report that job figure.
• The monthly rate is picking up to about where it was in 2023.

Transcript Highlights:

• Our overall retention from last academic year, we've had an 85.6% retention rate, which is good.
• Currently, we are at a 92.31% pass rate for all of our students.
• We'll continue to enhance our student support services for high retention and graduation rates.
• So if we were able to double your faculty, for instance, could you double... your graduation rate?
• That is one of the things that added to our retention rate as well.

Committee: House Legislative Health & Human Services Committee

Transcript Highlights:

• from the TDI Commissioner if the proposed rate increases or decreases.
• It previously filed rate by 10%. So it adds in commercial property. Any questions?
• CPS Energy, being a municipally owned utility, is owned by the rate payers. So as the CEO of...
• Which ones are you looking at being the best for the rate?
• rate.

Bills: SB1468 , SB1612 , SB1789 , SB2530 , SB2571 , SB2717 , SB2967

Committee: Senate Business & Commerce

Transcript Highlights:

• </c> advantage in mortgage interest rate advantage in mortgage interest rate associated<01:00:28.799>
• Are you only looking at this rates.
• Representative Sers. death rate is increasing. Um it is I death rate is increasing.
• </c> rate in our agencies. rate in our agencies.
• </c> is at a 20% vacancy rate. is at a 20% vacancy rate.

Committee: House Executive Departments and Administration

Transcript Highlights:

• </c><00:55:39.799><c> uh</c> inflation things like interest rates uh inflation things like interest rates
• </c> not able to agree as to what the rate not able to agree as to what the rate schedule<01:08:49.600
• The federal government sets the Medicare rates. They also set the Medicaid rates.
• The federal government sets the Medicare rates. They also set the Medicaid rates.
• The federal government sets the Medicare rates. They also set the Medicaid rates.

Summary: The meeting began with introductory remarks for new and returning members of the House Commerce Committee, led by Chairman John Hunt. Members briefly introduced themselves and their backgrounds, and several noted the committee’s bipartisan, collegial tone. Hunt explained the committee’s structure and traditions, including the division into three subcommittees: banking and business, consumer protection, and liquor commission matters, with insurance now handled as a single area. He also reviewed basic hearing procedures, including decorum, questions for information only, and the committee’s practice of moving bills through subcommittees before full committee executive sessions. The committee then heard an overview from the New Hampshire Insurance Department, led by Commissioner DJ Bettencourt and staff. The department described its mission as promoting a safe and competitive insurance marketplace and emphasized consumer protection, market competition, and affordability. Officials outlined the department’s responsibilities, including licensing insurers, producers, adjusters, and TPAs; reviewing insurance forms; regulating companies and market conduct; overseeing financial solvency; and investigating insurance fraud. They also noted that the department is self-funded through assessments on insurers, collects premium taxes and fees for the state, and returned more than $2.7 million to companies in fiscal year 2024 due to underspending. The presentation also covered the broader regulatory framework for insurance, including the role of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in promoting uniform standards across states and territories. Officials said New Hampshire licenses about 1,200 insurance companies and roughly 245,000 producers and adjusters, and that the department’s financial examinations are part of an accreditation system used nationwide. No votes or formal committee actions were taken in the portion provided; the session was primarily organizational and informational, with the insurance department presentation beginning the committee’s substantive work for the term.

Transcript Highlights:

• Currently, with this legislation, a 25% invalid rate means that a 75% validation rate is required, or
• Us as candidates, we know what that validation rate is.
• The recreational marijuana had a 64% rate.
• The Seminole gaming had a 47% rate, and Sands Casino Gaming had only a 37% rate.
• And I know we heard lots about the rates... ...medical malpractice rates in this state.

Summary: The Florida Senate opened with prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and several recognitions, including interns, Denim Day awareness for sexual assault survivors, a resolution honoring Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and a memorial proclamation for former Senator Karen Johnson Gendron. The chamber then moved to special-order bills, with senators also briefly discussing the session’s pace and thanking staff and colleagues for their work. The first major bill, on driving and boating offenses, was amended and passed 37-0. As amended, it increases penalties for repeat DUI/BUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide/vessel homicide offenses, and adds notice requirements and misdemeanor penalties for refusing lawful breath or urine tests. Senators also passed SB 306 on Medicaid providers 37-0, requiring Medicaid managed care plans to offer more after-hours and holiday access and ensuring more primary care appointment availability outside regular business hours. The Senate then passed a major condominium and cooperative associations bill, also 37-0, after extensive debate and multiple amendments. The measure extends deadlines for structural integrity reserve studies, adds flexibility for reserve funding and budgeting, tightens rules for managers and inspectors, limits certain requirements to buildings of three or more habitable stories, and extends the rescission period for condo purchases. Senators from both parties praised the bill’s sponsors for years of work responding to post-Surfside safety and affordability concerns. The longest and most contentious item was SB 7016/HB 1205 on constitutional amendment petition procedures. Sponsors said the bill responds to fraud and abuse in the citizen initiative process by tightening circulator rules, requiring faster submission of signed petitions, adding voter notification, increasing penalties, and shifting costs to sponsors. Opponents argued it would burden volunteers and make it harder for citizens to qualify initiatives. The chamber adopted a series of amendments, including changes to the petition-circulator threshold, volunteer protections, submission timing, invalid-signature investigation thresholds, and notice/cure provisions, while debate continued over whether the overall package would protect election integrity or suppress citizen-led amendments.

Transcript Highlights:

• original budget, the governor proposed to cap the inflationary adjustments on the disability waiver rate
• And then lastly, in the last legislative session, the legislature changed SUD rates in a few different
• Certain rates, such as clinically managed low-intensive and high-intensive residential services, were
• of statute, a 3% increase was also approved, and so this proposal just aligns with what the actual rates

Transcript Highlights:

• ensuring that the full funding of its pension system continue and maintenance of a Moody's AAA bond rating
• ensuring that the full funding of its pension system continue, and maintenance of a Moody's AAA bond rating
• And one particular key pivotal person that they worked with was our 15-year liaison to the Moody’s Rating
• that we are seeking and the plans that are in place will maintain the City of Newton’s triple-A bond rating
• Decisions affecting utility rates, long-term investment, and enterprise fund expenditures should remain

Bills: H5426 , H5434 , S3084 , S3087 , S3088 , S3092

Committee: Joint Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government

Transcript Highlights:

• And that is, if a school does not have a supplemental levy, they will use the county's levy rate for
• And you can kind of see the difference in how much they're receiving because they have that levy rate
• When this was passed and created, they used a levy rate, but I don't believe that the legislators at
• the time realized that not every school has a supplemental levy and therefore has a levy rate on the
• And then we went ahead and started paying down our school's levy rates.

Committee: Senate Local Government and Taxation

Transcript Highlights:

• So this bill, Senate Bill 1358, allows administrators who earned proficient or higher ratings in three
• Grover said, it kind of depends on how you rate in your evaluations. But yeah, that's...
• It kind of depends on how you rate in your evaluations, but yeah, that's the gist, as those administrative
• status, many military families land on wait lists, preventing stability, decreasing access to highly rated
• Access to highly rated schools and adding uncertainty to already overwhelming transitions.

Committee: Senate Education

Transcript Highlights:

• Service Law in relation to requiring evidence and consideration of the economic impact of utility rates
• so all it directs the Public Service Commission to do is to consider economic impact when approving rates
• Public Service Law in relation to requiring certain utilities to adopt the common equity ratio and rate
• An act to amend the Public Service Law in relation to periods suspending the operation of certain rate
• relation to the retention of revenues derived from the actual return on equity in excess of authorized rates

Committee: Senate Energy And Telecommunications

Summary: The Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, chaired by Senator Kevin Parker, considered several Public Service Law bills and advanced each one to the Rules Committee after brief discussion and recorded no votes or without-recommendation votes on some measures. The bills included proposals to prohibit utilities from using ratepayer funds for certain activities (1012A), establish minimum standards for payment plans for eligible customers (1327), adjust residential fixed charges (1329), require the Public Service Commission to consider economic impacts when setting rates (1847), require utilities to adopt PSC-authorized equity ratios and returns on equity (1896), create the Rate-Hike Notice Act (5553C), suspend certain utility rate changes while allowing retroactive revenue recovery (5593), allow consideration of non-economic losses in penalty determinations (7165A), change the composition of the Public Service Commission (7328A), and let utilities retain revenues above authorized returns on equity (7693). Members asked questions about who would be affected by the bills, including whether fixed-charge reductions would apply to vacant units or vacation homes and whether economic-impact considerations could affect customers differently depending on where they live; the chair and sponsors generally explained the measures as territory-wide or applicable to all residential customers, with no occupancy or income-based circuit breaker in the text. The committee then heard testimony from Alexandra Fasulo, introduced as an entrepreneur and farmer in Schuylerville, about her concerns regarding the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) and utility-scale solar development on farmland and grasslands. She argued that solar developers were pressuring landowners, including older and lower-income property owners, into long-term leases, that ORES approves most projects despite local opposition, and that the process lacks transparency, with redacted documents and limited public access to information. She also criticized the siting of solar projects on productive farmland and said decommissioning rules could leave equipment buried in the soil. Committee members responded that the Legislature has already taken steps to protect high-quality soils, that ORES was created by statute and operates within the Public Service Department, and that DEC and ORES are supposed to work together rather than ORES superseding DEC. Several senators said they were sympathetic to concerns about farmland and community engagement, but also emphasized the need to expand renewable energy and balance that with land preservation. Members suggested that specific complaints about ORES transparency or solar siting could be addressed through future legislation or by inviting ORES and PSC officials back for further discussion.

Transcript Highlights:

• On page 3 you'll see some of the job titles that have Turnover rates of up to 40 and 70 percent because
• It is actually cheaper just to do a consistent across-the-board pay rate. and keep state salaries competitive
• last question, do you find that this program actually saves in terms the overall usage, utilization rate
• So that group has a show rate for donations. of 90% which if you know anything about that that's unheard
• As it relates to the exceptional item, the decline in the adult smoking rate has stalled.

Committee: House Appropriations - S/C on Article II

Transcript Highlights:

• But since that time, big investments in both just underlying rates, as well as targeted rate increases
• And if we can't get the error rate down in a very fast way, we've got a big liability of At least 173
• Because we're looking at a horrific wildfire season at the rate we're going.
• Rates are highest among Native youth, nearly. 30% followed by African American youth at about 23%.
• Slightly above the national rate, white youth are lower at about 13%.

Transcript Highlights:

• That's normally three times that level in normal times, and it's only gotten down to this low rate in
• So with the insurable or certainly not having sustainable insurance rates.
• So a couple of years ago, DDS did a new rate study, particularly for zero to five early intervention
• What I would say is since 2021, when the rates study, the administration and the Legislature... ...the
• rates.

Summary: The Assembly Budget Committee opened its hearing on the Governor’s 2026-27 budget with remarks emphasizing the start of a months-long process, the need for fiscal responsibility, and concerns about structural deficits, federal funding losses, housing and homelessness, and oversight. The vice chair echoed those concerns, warning against budgets built on short-term fixes and urging accountability. The Department of Finance presented a balanced budget year proposal of about $349 billion in total expenditures, including $248 billion General Fund, while acknowledging a structural imbalance in the out years and proposing a workload budget with limited new spending or cuts. Finance said the budget relies on stronger-than-expected revenues, but also on constitutional obligations such as Proposition 98 and Proposition 2, and on suspending a rainy-day fund true-up deposit to cover a projected $2.9 billion budget-year deficit. The administration highlighted higher education funding, climate and wildfire resilience investments, a new ZEV incentive, added Health and Human Services costs tied to H.R. 1, child care funding, and three tax proposals: third-party delivery tax compliance, a sustainable aviation fuel tax credit, and an extension of the California Competes tax credit. The LAO, by contrast, warned that the budget is “precariously balanced,” cited downside risk from stock market-driven revenues, and urged the Legislature to use reserves, avoid suspending rainy-day deposits, and begin shrinking multi-year deficits sooner rather than later. Member questions focused on wildfire mitigation and insurance, transit and GGRF funding, federal cuts affecting CalFresh and Medi-Cal, the proposed tax credits, homelessness accountability language, and education funding. Several members pressed for earlier partnership on deficit solutions and for more scrutiny of budget choices. The committee also discussed declining enrollment in K-12, community colleges, and CSU, with concerns about whether funding formulas are aligned with actual student demand. No formal votes or final actions were taken in the hearing.

Transcript Highlights:

• The argument being solid waste tax rate.
• <00:52:21.160><c> and</c> rate and rate and um<00:52:22.880><c> I</c><00:52:23.000><c> note</c><00:52
• By reducing the tax from the commercial rate of 17% to the residential rate of 9.75, these organizations
• Um this differences in the tax rates.
• However nonprofit thrift rate.

Committee: Senate Taxes

Transcript Highlights:

• </c> us to increase our water and sewer rates us to increase our water and sewer rates in<00:10:46.000
• 55.440><c> Minnesota,</c> unemployment rate in Wilin, Minnesota, unemployment rate in Wilin, Minnesota
• We are growing at a rate of 18% right now. This project is not just about fixing pipes.
• Um this project rate of 18% right now.
• Water usage rates have increased 126% from $5.92 to $13.40 per thousand gallons of water.

Bills: HF604 , HF1972 , HF578 , HF1951 , HF629 , HF864 , HF874 , HF1155 , HF884 , HF2365 , HF643 , HF234 , HF2655 , HF2637 , HF2535 , HF2530 , HF2344 , HF584 , HF524

Committee: House Capital Investment

Transcript Highlights:

• that this body has that we have rated that this body has rated<02:35:46.560><c> the</c><02:35:46.800
• </c> graduation rate. That's awesome. graduation rate. That's awesome.
• </c> people commit crimes at much lower rates people commit crimes at much lower rates than<04:39:33.439
• So, tax rates that greatly exceed ours.
• </c> A<05:26:41.360><c> rate</c><05:26:41.520><c> that</c> A rate that A rate that is<05:26:43.360><c