Sacramento Snapshot: Fate of fentanyl bills wavers in legislature

Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.

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For a bit, it looked like any and all fentanyl-related bills were in legislative limbo.

But after some procedural moves this week, largely led by Assembly Republicans, a few bills could see some movement this year after all.

It started late last month when Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Public Safety Committee, put a hold on fentanyl legislation, saying there were “duplicative efforts” that only offered “temporary solutions.” Instead, he wanted a larger, but later, hearing to address the overall crisis, “not just the criminality portion.”

At the time, multiple fentanyl-related bills — from both chambers of the legislature and both parties — had already been stymied, including an effort from Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, that would have required courts to issue warnings to convicted fentanyl dealers, and if they continued to sell drugs and someone died, they could be prosecuted for homicide.

Public safety committees in the Assembly and Senate are known for becoming a “cemetery” for bills that either create new crimes, enhance existing crimes or result in more incarceration, said Chris Micheli, a veteran lobbyist in Sacramento.

But when Jones-Sawyer set that blanket pause on fentanyl bills, legislators on both sides of the aisle were publicly critical.

Republicans gathered at the California State Capitol Park last week with grieving family members, public safety officials and a large, gray dump truck in the background, capable of holding 28,000 pounds, a symbol of approximately how much fentanyl was seized by California law enforcement in 2022.

“Republicans and many moderate Democrats are mad and are not going to take it anymore,” said Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach. “We have to get legislation through to save our children, save our community from the vile tragedy of fentanyl that we all know clearly, nationally, is an extraordinarily critical problem.”

Republicans were set to try another tactic on Thursday: bring up several Democrat-led fentanyl bills for a floor vote, bypassing the committee and getting legislators on the record.

“A lot of legislators are hearing in their districts about the fentanyl problem with lots of youth dying,” Micheli said. Constituents are “looking for the legislature to step in and do something.”

There was concern about how such a vote could be publicly viewed. So a deal was struck.

The Public Safety Committee will hold a special hearing on a slate of fentanyl bills on Thursday, April 27.

“That is very good news for California,” Umberg said. “We can’t keep our head in the sand. We can’t issue a resolution that says, ‘Hey, listen, we’re not going to deal with this until 2025’ … (and) tell Californians you have to put off dying until 2025 because we haven’t gotten our act together.”

The bills picked for the special hearing this week are:

• AB 33 from Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, D-Bakersfield, creating a Fentanyl Addiction and Overdose Prevention Task Force.

• AB 367 from Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, D-San Diego, adding a sentencing enhancement for adults who administer fentanyl.

• AB 474 from Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez, D-Pomona, requiring California’s State Threat Assessment Center and the Office of Emergency Services to prioritize collaboration with state and local efforts to combat criminal networks trafficking opioids.

• AB 675 from Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, D-Merced, prohibiting the possession of fentanyl while armed with a loaded and operable firearm.

• AB 955 from Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine, strengthening penalties for trafficking fentanyl through social media by making it punishable by imprisonment in county jail for up to nine years.

• AB 1058 from Assemblymember Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, increasing penalties for those who possess large amounts of fentanyl.

“While reasonable people and reasonable legislators might disagree about the right approach to tackle this crisis, reasonable people cannot agree that inaction is acceptable,” said Petrie-Norris. “There is no doubt that this is a public health crisis, and we need to act with urgency to save lives.”

Umberg’s fentanyl bill, with about half of the Senate signed on as co-authors, is scheduled to be reconsidered by the upper chamber’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, April 25.

The ability of Republicans to force the special hearing is rare — both because they used Democrat-led legislation and a larger volume of bills, Micheli said.

But it’s not a done deal. Just because a special hearing has been set, doesn’t mean any of the six bills earmarked for the committee will make it out.

“We’re getting things done, but I feel like we’re at the end of the road when we need to be at the beginning of the road,” said Assemblymember Laurie Davies, R-Laguna Niguel. “We need to make sure these dealers that are dealing poison are going behind bars and the addicts are getting the help they need. That’s what it’s all about. The numbers don’t lie.”

Jones-Sawyer said he still wants to hold a larger, more comprehensive hearing related to the overall fentanyl crisis in addition to this week’s special one.

“I wanted to hear all fentanyl bills at a later date to ensure we could have more stakeholders in the room and give space to allow victims’ families sufficient time to be heard beyond the boundaries of the customary bill hearing,” he said. “This is exactly what I will do.”

At her own press conference last week, Petrie-Norris said: “Let’s remember that these are not just numbers and statistics; they’re our loved ones.”

It was September 2020, and Daniel Elijah Figueroa was staying with his grandmother in Long Beach awaiting the start of community college. He checked Snapchat to buy some pain medication.

Figueroa, at 20 years old, died on Sept. 16, 2020, after taking just one of the pills he purchased from the social media site, his family said, that had been laced with fentanyl.

Figueroa’s mother, Perla Mendoza, was one of several family members who traveled to Sacramento last week to implore legislators to end the hold on fentanyl legislation.

“We’re not going to give up,” Mendoza, a Seal Beach resident, said. “You’re going to see me again and again and again and again until some changes are made.”

In other news

• Should California strive to conserve at least 30% of its land and coastal waters by 2030? That’s the intent of new legislation from Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine. The bill, which had a hearing in the Natural Resources and Water Committee last week, is meant to combat the climate crisis and would build on previous executive action taken by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It has a bevy of support from conservation groups, including Sierra Club California, the National Audobon Society and California Coastal Protection Network.

• Two bills from Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, meant to reduce gun violence got the OK from the Senate Public Safety Committee last week. One bill updates required signage posted by licensed firearms dealers to warn of the increased risks of suicide, death and injury during domestic disputes, including unintentional injuries to children, when guns are present in a home. It also includes a number to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The other would only allow for the sale, beginning in 2027, of “microstamping-enabled” pistols and would prohibit their modification. Microstamping imprints unique codes on shell casings that can be used by law enforcement. According to the Brady Campaign, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control and a sponsor of the bill, this would allow law enforcement “to accurately link bullet casings found at crime scenes to the firearm they were discharged from.”

Source: Orange County Register