CA Holds First Legislative Hearing Tomorrow
On the eve of the California Legislature’s return to Sacramento for public hearings on the state’s COVID-19 response, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego) announced the creation of a second Senate committee to focus on the state’s COVID-19 emergency response.
The Senate’s new Pandemic Emergency Response Committee is tasked primarily with reviewing the state’s response to the COVID-19 health crisis and with making “findings and recommendations for future preparedness if the coronavirus returns later in the year, or if the state faces a subsequent pandemic.”
On April 16, a new Senate budget subcommittee on the COVID-19 response formed by Atkins last week will hold its first hearing on how state funds have been spent in response to the pandemic. The special subcommittee will meet in the state Capitol, marking the first legislative hearing held in the Capitol since both houses of the legislature recessed in response to the pandemic.
On Monday, April 20, the Assembly begins its own oversight hearings on state spending in response to the COVID-19 crisis, with the recently formed Assembly Budget Subcommittee 6 on Budget Process Oversight and Program Evaluation, also set to meet in the Capitol.
The special committee announced today will be chaired by Sen. Lena A. Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and vice chaired by Sen. Patricia C. Bates (R-Laguna Niguel), and will include Sens. Andreas Borgeas (R-Fresno), Anna M. Caballero (D-Salinas), Bill Dodd (D-Yolo), Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), Brian W. Jones (R-Santee), Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), Thomas J. Umberg (D-Santa Ana) and Scott D. Wiener (D-San Francisco).
