The following is an announcement from the Libertarian Party of California Legislative Committee:
The California legislature continues to exploit the pandemic to expand the State and local government’s power, spending, and bureaucracy.
AB 1797 will expand the vaccine registry to allow schools to track a student and their family’s covid vaccine status or availability, potentially opening doors for discrimination against students who have not received one. The bill is estimated to add $1.2 million in General Fund spending over three years and will be ongoing. It will also incur unknown expenses to local school districts, health departments, and other entities estimated in the hundreds of thousands. According to the author, this information is already collected and available in county and state data systems.
SB 1479 will continue Covid testing in Schools by forcing all California school districts to create a Covid-19 testing plan that meets state requirements. According to https://legalinfo.legislature.ca.org the bill lacks specificity on what the requirements would be, making the costs difficult to estimate, but is believed to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Children have been the least susceptible to the virus, yet have been the heaviest impacted during the pandemic and this bill is building new bureaucratic administrative positions on the backs of their suffering.
This legislation creates redundancy, unnecessary spending, and another layer of governmental surveillance while continuing to promote fear in the Golden State, but we have a chance to stop these bills now while they are still in Committee.
The Libertarian Party of California urges the Assembly Appropriations Committee to vote NO on AB 1797 and encourages Californians to voice their opposition to this bill via public comment no later than Wednesday May 18th by emailing approps.committee@assembly.ca.gov for the hearing on Thursday May 19th, live streamed at https://www.assembly.ca.gov/todaysevents, where public participation is encouraged.
The offices of the Committee Members are also available for comment by phone:
- Chris R. Holden (Chair): (916) 319-2041
- Frank Bigelow (Vice Chair): (916) 319-2005
- Isaac G. Bryan: (916) 319-2054
- Lisa Calderon: (916) 319-2057
- Wendy Carrillo: (916) 319-2051
- Megan Dahle: (916) 319-2001
- Laurie Davies: (916) 319-2073
- Mike Fong: (916) 319-2049
- Jesse Gabriel: (916) 319-2045
- Eduardo Garcia: (916) 319-2056
- Marc Levine: (916) 319-2010
- Bill Quirk: (916) 319-2020
- Robert Rivas: (916) 319-2030
The Libertarian Party of California urges the Senate Appropriations Committee to vote NO on SB 1479 and encourages Californians to voice their opposition to this bill via public comment no later than Wednesday for the hearing on Thursday May 19th, live streamed at https://www.senate.ca.gov.
The offices of the Committee Members are available by phone:
- Senate Appropriations Committee office: (916) 651-4101
- Anthony J Portantino (Chair): (916) 651-4025
- Patricia C Bates (Vice Chair): (916) 651-4036
- Steven Bradford: (916) 651-4035
- Brian W Jones: (916) 651-4038
- Sydney Kamlager: (916) 651-4030
- John Laird: (916) 651-4017
- Bob Wieckowski: (916) 651-4010
Your voice can make a difference!
