Legislature

With bill deadlines this week, the news coming out of the legislature for patients is mixed.

The hearing for SB 572, that would have eliminated nearly every disciplinary action by the Medical Board for doctors, was postponed. Since this week is the last chance for bills to pass out of policy committees, this scary concept is toast for 2017 unless there’s an ill-advised gut-and-amend later this year.

Democrats in Sacramento are basking in a national spotlight as reporters and pundits pick apart high-profile votes on transportation, cap and trade and immigration and speculate if, and how, they will turn a legislative supermajority into concrete action to resist Trump administration policies. Yet the industries that traditionally rule the roost in the statehouse are not sitting this session out.

This morning, Governor Jerry Brown penned another agreement with yet another country—Scotland—on combating climate change. Then he testified before legislative committees on behalf of SB1, his bill to raise gas taxes at the pump to pay for needed road repairs by $52 billion over ten years, and a Senate panel passed it.