Together, Assembly Bills 266 and 243, along with Senate Bill 643, were dubbed the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act — the culmination of an unprecedented effort to “draft regulations for an industry entirely from scratch,” as Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, put it, according to the influential Smell the Truth blog.

“Patients will still need a doctor’s recommendation to use cannabis, and can have caregivers. But the state will do away with collectives and cooperatives in favor of licensed, background checked, commercial growers, distributors and sellers. The laws call for 12 types of state industry licenses, and dual local and state licensing. City and counties can ban medical cannabis activity, or tax it.”

Brown was widely expected to sign the bills. According to Courthouse News Service, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, observed that his administration was “highly involved in shaping” the legislation. “We take that as a very good sign,” he said.

Winners and losers

Despite liberalizing the state’s marijuana regime, the new rules would bar felons convicted of drug crimes from starting pot businesses. That measure, which law enforcement groups required for their support of the bills, has raised fresh concerns among some pro-legalization groups. “With few prospects of other employment and a potential ban from the legal pot market,” the San Francisco Chronicle noted, “felons may choose to sell it illegally, activists say.”

According to the relevant bill’s key language, the state’s new “licensing authority may deny the application for licensure or renewal of a state license” should an applicant already possess a “felony conviction for the illegal possession for sale, manufacture, transportation, or cultivation of a controlled substance.”

Last year, the Chronicle noted, “felony marijuana arrestees in California were 31 percent white, 39.5 percent Hispanic, 18.5 percent African American and 11 percent of some other demographic, according to the ACLU.” This July, meanwhile, latinos passed whites as the largest ethnic group in California — 14.99 million to 14.92 million, according to the Los Angeles Times.

A divided community

Some activists have found a much different sort of reason to file a lawsuit against the legislation: its constitutionality. “The American Medical Marijuana Association has announced that it is filing a lawsuit over the violation of Prop. 215 by the California Legislature and Governor Brown,” as The Weed Blog reported. “The recent adoption of the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act attempts to modify a voter initiative, Prop. 215, something specifically forbidden by the California constitution.”

But, in general, Golden State pot advocates appeared heartened by the legislative overhaul. Importantly, lawmakers endeavored to encourage small growers willing to play fair — and discourage large-scale corporate participants. As The Weed Blog observed separately, “growers using the ambiguity of the state’s current lack of regulation as a cover for grey or black market production will probably find their wiggle-room decreased.” On the other hand, “‘Big Marijuana,’ that favorite bogey-man of prohibitionists, doesn’t fare so well. There are constraints on vertical integration within the industry, and the licensing scheme foreseen is tilted toward small and medium producers.”

Federal fault lines

California’s giant leap forward on standardizing marijuana regulation played out against the backdrop of a fractious debate among Republican candidates for president gathered in Simi Valley. Disagreement has emerged in the wake of President Obama’s willingness to let states depart to a degree from the strictures of federal drug law. “The West’s experiment with legalization — so far, a major boost to Colorado’s tax revenue — has been treated with benign neglect. Just three months ago, the administration lifted a public health review requirement that had prevented some research into marijuana’s medicinal properties,” the Washington Post noted. But laws such as California’s could wind up on shaky ground: “A new president could reverse all of that with a pen stroke.”

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A strong majority of Californians say they support tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions and more ambitious renewable energy goals to combat climate change, according to a statewide poll released late Wednesday.

Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said global warming is contributing to California’s ongoing drought. About half said global warming is a “very serious” threat to the state’s future, according to the poll, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based nonpartisan research center.

“At a time when many Californians are making a connection between the current drought and climate change, there is strong support for expanding the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s president, in a news release.

Results of the survey — titled Californians & the environment — are based on phone interviews with 1,702 California adult residents from in July.

Of those who took part, 44 percent said they were registered Democrats; 28 percent were Republicans; and 24 percent independents or decline-to-state voters, according to the institute.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said they believe there’s a connection between the drought and global warming, while 28 percent said they saw no link.

Spray irrigation on a field in the Imperial Valley in southern California. This type of irrigation is more efficient than flood irrigation that is popular in this region. Still, in the high temperatures of this desert region a lot of the water evaporates, leaving the salts, that are dissolved in the Colorado River water that is used, on the soil.

The institute has not asked that question in the past, said PPIC spokeswoman Linda Strean.

California is mired in its fourth straight year of severe drought. While not going so far as to say climate change has caused the drought, recent scientific studies have said global warming exacerbates the extreme high pressure systems that block rainfall in the Western United States.

PPIC’s past surveys have found strong support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including majorities across party lines a decade ago who favored California’s landmark emissions reduction law, AB32. That law requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

It was signed into law in 2006 by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“A strong partisan divide has opened up since then,” the institute observed in its release.

Now, 79 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of independents favor the law compared with 46 percent of Republicans, the institute said.

The poll also found that large majorities of Californians favor new, more aggressive goals for combating climate change.

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they support a proposal to require half of California’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2030. And 73 percent favor cutting petroleum use in vehicles by 50 percent.

Those are key pieces of Senate Bill 350, a bill introduced earlier this year by Senate leader Kevin de Léon.

Other findings from the PPIC survey include:

• 88 percent of adults favor building more solar power stations in California.
• 78 percent want to boost tax credits and other incentives for rooftop solar panels.
• 49 percent favor building the Keystone XL pipeline, while 38 percent are opposed.
• 56 percent oppose increased use of fracking to extract oil and natural gas. It’s the highest level of opposition since PPIC started asking about it in 2013.
• 53 percent approve of Gov. Jerry Brown’s job performance, while 47 percent approve of the way he handles environmental issues.
• 39 percent approve of the California Legislature’s job performance.
• 57 percent approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance.
• 29 percent approve of Congress’ performance.

Contact reporter Chris Nichols at chris@calwatchdog.com or on Twitter @ChrisTheJourno

According to the overview, the conference version of the budget “carefully balances the need for additional public investment in child care, education, health care and other programs, with the necessity of maintaining the state’s fiscal stability through increased reserves and debt reduction.” These priorities include actions that will:

• “Benefit educational programs from pre-school through college, through:
  • “Investments of significant resources in early childhood education that will expand capacity, increase rates for services, and ensure a sound budgetary footing for the childcare program.
  • “Increased resources for K-12 education directed to the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula, and more funds for educator training and adult education.
  • “Additional resources and improvements for the state’s higher education programs and segments by adopting greater support services, increasing enrollment slots for California residents, and CalGrant expansions.
• “Improve California’s health care system by increasing Medi-Cal provider rates, restoring most optional Medi-Cal benefits, and adding funding for specific specialized programs.
• “Provide resources for a new state Earned Income Tax Credit, consistent with the governor’s plan, which will provide a limited refundable tax credit for very low-income, wage-earning families.”

As detailed above, the Legislature’s version of the budget allocates total General Fund expenditures of $117.5 billion for 2015-16, which is about $2.2 billion more than Governor Jerry Brown’s May Revise. The budget includes total reserves of $5.7 billion, which includes $4.2 billion in the Prop. 2 “rainy day fund” and $1.5 billion in the regular budget reserve.

According to a prepared statement from the Assembly Democratic Caucus, the conference version of the budget “adds another $700 million over what the governor proposed for schools”:

• “Increases Prop. 98 funding for 2015-16 by $8.2 billion more than was provided in 2014-15 budget.
• “Expands Early Education funding by an ongoing amount of $577 million. In the budget year, the total cost will be $409 million, this includes:
  • “$148 million for preschool and quality rating activities within Proposition 98.
  • “$261 million for child care and preschool programs outside of Prop. 98.”

California community colleges and state universities will also receive increased funding:

• “Increases funding for the CSU by $107 million, an increase of $70 million over the May Revision. This increase will grow to about $150 million over the next few years, allowing CSU to increase enrollment and speed graduation times.
• “Provides $25 million increase for the UC, but makes the funds contingent upon UC increasing enrollment of California students by 5,000 over the next two years, capping enrollments of out of state students and only using state financial aid for in state students.
• “Increases the Cal Grant B stipend by $150, increases the number of Competitive Cal Grants awards by 16,000, eliminates the planned cut to Cal Grants for non-profit colleges, and funds the Middle Class Scholarship to cut tuition by 20 percent for CSU and UC students in the 2015-16 year.
• “Provides major increase for Community Colleges including a $38 million Cal Grant B increase for Community College Students.”

Regarding health care, the new budget will restore 5 percent of the “AB97 Medi-Cal rates cut for dental care immediately and the rest of Medi-Cal services on April 1, 2016.” In addition, funding has been allocated toward Medi-Cal services for children, regardless of immigration status. Previously optional Medi-Cal benefits have been restored, and Developmental Disability Services rates are increased by 5 percent for targeted services and 2.5 percent for all other services.

Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said in a prepared statement:

“Our legislative budget is on time, balanced, and great news for schools. Our budget includes $5.7 billion in reserves, about $1 billion more than the governor’s May Revision reserves, and an additional $760 million in debt payment, along with targeted investments to ensure economic growth and the well-being of our residents. This budget increases access to higher education for California students, adds childcare options for working families, creates an earned-income tax credit for working people, and provides help for Californians dealing with the drought.”

Despite the fanfare, Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-San Dimas, urged caution in a release earlier this week:

“This budget deal negotiated by the legislative Democrats uses revenues projections that are higher than the governor’s May revenue projection by $3.2 billion. This is a risky move. I am afraid legislative Democrats want to spend money that may not exist and that once again will push our state into budget deficits down the road.

 

“Senate Republicans continue to press for a responsible, balanced budget. However, the ball is in the hands of the majority party in the Legislature, the Democrats. They can join the governor and Senate Republicans to continue to rebuild the Golden State’s financial health or they can continue to spend money we do not have, which ultimately would put our state financial outlook at risk.”

Both houses will vote on legislation reflecting the committee’s decisions, Senate Bill 69 and Assembly Bill 93, on Monday, June 15.

That hasn’t been immediately evident from the frenetic activity surrounding his final month of campaigning. Using a string of concept-driven political stunts, ranging from free prizes to a masquerade as a homeless man, Kashkari has established a reputation for putting elbow grease into his run for governor.

Yet into the active effort and strident rhetoric Kashkari has added a relatively tongue-in-cheek approach to the uphill run before him. Unusual for a Republican trying to make a name in other states — but not so out of place in California — the combination of smarts, sarcasm and street hustle has inspired the media, if not Democrats, to take a closer look.

A new brand

Interest has swirled around whether Kashkari plausibly can portray a character that many have referenced but few have embodied — a “different kind of Republican,” as The Economist put it. Over the summer, some conservative stalwarts began to notice Kashkari’s recipe for change involved scrambling old battle lines, not simply moving to the progressive left or the pro-corporate center.

In a column hailing Kashkari, George Will depicted him as the heir to Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 famously lost in a landslide to President Lyndon Johnson — yet inspired a conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan president in 1980. “If California becomes a purple state and Democrats can no longer assume its 20 percent of 270 electoral votes, Republicans nationwide will be indebted to the immigrants’ son who plucked up Goldwater’s banner of conservatism with a Western libertarian flavor.”

Goldwater turned his electoral blowout into an opportunity to shift the national Republican Party. Kashkari’s underdog status has afforded a similar opportunity — and the political press has picked up on the strategy. Rather than offering the media a retread of tales of California Republicans’ past, Kashkari has presented a surprising spectacle. Wealthy political novices from business backgrounds, such as Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, have tried to unseat top-tier Democrats before. They failed — leading national political journalists to question why the state GOP was willing to tolerate such a bad investment.

Kashkari, who is not personally short on cash, has raised a far more modest campaign chest. But his small budget has become a buzz-building advantage. Not only has it fueled the kind of stunt-driven campaigning that grabs headlines, it has given state Republicans a feeling that neither donors nor the party have thrown good money after bad. And it has changed the media narrative, differentiating Kashkari from the political losers who have come before him.

The shift hasn’t necessarily played well with Kashkari’s natural allies across the country — Republicans close to Wall Street. After hitting the stump for him in early summer, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie couldn’t find time to share the state with Kashkari in the election season’s final weeks. Rather than a personal slight, however, the decision was strictly business: Christie was dispatched by the Republican Governors Association to help put well-positioned candidates over the top.

West coast credentials

The absence of monied East Coast support isn’t really a disadvantage for Kashkari. Earlier in his primary campaign, he had to shake his political association with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP — the massive 2008 bailout program he was instrumental in designing and implementing under President George W. Bush. Kashkari seems to have determined that the West Coast — not Wall Street or his home state of Ohio — is the most hospitable territory for his brand of Republicanism.

Indeed, the swell of attention surrounding his approach has led some observers to suggest Kashkari could emerge from even a losing campaign as a powerful force in California Republican politics. Asked by the Santa Monica Mirror if he would consider a race for Senate in the years to come, Kashkari was blunt. “In all honesty, I’ve never ruled out any of those opportunities,” he said. Although, he added, he was “100 percent focused on November,” Mirror columnist Tom Elias placed his bet “on Kashkari starting right in on his next effort.”

And whereas he’s running against an incumbent this year, the next California U.S. Senate race is for the seat of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2016. Last month the Chronicle reported:

“Sen. Barbara Boxer says she has yet to make up her mind about seeking a fifth term in 2016, but there’s no shortage of signs that the Democrat may be opting out.

“It’s not just that she has less than $200,000 in her campaign account, compared with $3.5 million at this stage before her last election fight. Some comments from those who know the 73-year-old senator are also telling.

“‘She is not running for re-election,’ said one longtime Democratic fundraiser with deep ties to Boxer, who spoke only on background.”

Of course, she still might run. But if she retires, the open field, combined with Kashkari’s experience with this year’s campaign, could give him a big leg up in 2016.

By Katy Grimes

California could become the next oil boom state. Will Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and a Democratic supermajority in the state Legislature seize the day — and the tax revenue that would come with drilling and fracking? Or will excessive environmental concerns block the development, the jobs and the revenues?

I’ve been saying for months now, if Gov. Brown doesn’t want to go down as the leader responsible for driving the silver stake into the heart of the state of California, he has one option: he can always turn to oil fracking and save the state. Just the mere mention of this dramatic policy change would impact financial markets.

California oil = jobs + tax revenues

California sits on two-thirds of America’s shale oil reserves.  The Monterey Shale Formation is four times the size of the Bakken Shale Reserve in North Dakota, which is now the largest oil producer in the country behind Texas.

Along the Western side of the San Joaquin Valley in the middle of the state, the Monterey Shale Formation encompasses several hundred miles, where water has dried up and unemployment is the highest in the state.

North Dakota has a monthly oil output of nearly 20 million barrels, and accounts for 11 percent of U.S. oil production. But California quickly could produce 15 million barrels a month more using today’s technology. Many experts estimate as much as 400 billion barrels of oil are in the Monterey Shale Formation.

The oil boom in North Dakota spurred the state’s $3.8 billion surplus and is responsible for the declining unemployment rate, currently at 3.2 percent, the lowest in the nation.

California’s unemployment still hovers at 9.8 percent, and is tied for the worst rate in the nation with Nevada. “Over the last 20 years, 3.6 million more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in, and 130,000 more Americans have moved from Hawaii than to it,” reported “Rich States, Poor States,” authored by Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Jonathan Williams.

This is what’s known as a teaching moment.

California has implemented no real reform policies in recent years to promote jobs. Currently, Brown has not seemed to be interested in making any of these pro-growth economic moves as he pushes high-speed rail and the implementation of AB 32’s radical climate change policies.

“However, if Brown merely adopted the tax reform policies of Kansas, California would see immediate improvement in the business sector, job growth and unemployment rate,” I wrote recently.

“Kansas flattened the income tax, dropped three tax brackets to two, lowered the income tax rate from 6.45 percent to 4.9 percent, and eliminated personal income tax for small business owners,” explains “Rich States, Poor States.”

In lieu of the pro-growth policies in Kansas, oil revenues would be fruitful.

Oil jobs

California’s financial house is a mess. But the Golden State is sitting on a lot more oil and jobs than the state has seen in decades.

“Gov. Jerry Brown yields to no one in his enthusiasm for green energy, but he knows black gold when he sees it,” Investors Business Daily recently wrote. “Witness his remarks last Wednesday at an event announcing three new renewable energy projects: ‘We want to get the greenhouse gas emissions down, but we also want to keep the economy going. That’s the balance that’s required.’”

A recent study found that exploiting Monterey shale could generate up to 2.8 million new jobs and add 14 percent to the state’s GDP by 2020, near the peak of production.

The University of Southern California researchers and the Communications Institute, a Los Angeles-based think tank, found those new jobs would include many outside the actual shale formation. But most of the new employment would be near the drilling — in the counties that have some of the highest unemployment in the state.

High-speed rail false jobs

Brown knows where jobs are needed the most, and high-speed rail won’t provide these. Oil can and will do far more for the Central Valley and state than Brown’s train, where the only jobs are going to well-connected union contractors and public relations firms.

If the California Environmental Quality Act can be exempted to build sports stadiums, California’s politicians should use their power for good, and tell the environmentalists to sit back and enjoy the economic oil boom.

By Dave Roberts

Hold on to your wallet — Sacramento may be hatching yet another way to reach into your pocket: a state sales tax on services. Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-El Dorado Hills, has authored AB 1963, which calls for a study of the revenue impacts of a service tax.

Huber said she’s looking for a way to reduce state tax revenue volatility. Boom and bust economic cycles have had state revenues skyrocketing and diving for several decades. But some fear that placing a new taxing tool in the hands of Democrats will lead to increased taxation in this already highly taxed state.

“The bill started out as raising the issue of extending sales taxes to services as a way of diversifying the pot,” Huber told the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee on May 7. “AB 1963 seeks to at least get the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) involved in doing an analysis of California’s revenue system to help come up with a solution on volatility. It is an issue I talk about in my district a lot, about how in California we have these huge peaks and then deep recession on our revenue side. If I were your investment advisor and your investment portfolio looked like California’s revenue stream and was going like this [waves her arm up and down] on a cyclical basis, I would tell you to diversify, that you are too susceptible to risk.”

Fluctuating State Revenue

About half of the state’s general fund revenue comes from income taxes, which disproportionately fall on upper incomes. During good economic times, like the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, income tax revenue flowed like a tsunami into state coffers, accounting for 57 percent of total revenues in 2000-01. But when the bubble popped, income taxes fell to 48 percent in 2003-04 when the bubble popped. During the recession in 1979-80, income taxes accounted for just 37 percent of total revenues.

The other two main sources of revenue are corporate taxes, which also can swing wildly with the boom-and-bust cycle, and sales taxes, which are also affected — people buy fewer cars during recessions — but are generally less volatile than the other two revenue sources, according to the LAO.

Friday’s LAO report on Gov. Brown’s budget revision describes the uncertainty in tax collection: “Economic and revenue forecasting is very difficult now due to a variety of issues, including uncertain federal fiscal policies, difficulties in forecasting recent corporation tax policy changes, the usual issues of stock market volatility, and Facebook. Given these forecasting challenges, state leaders should not be surprised if 2012-13 state revenues end up several billion dollars lower (or higher) than current projections.”

Increasing Revenue by Increasing Taxes

Huber said she’s attempting to find a bipartisan solution to the tax revenue problem.

“The problem we have is a political one,” she said. “And that is generally when the folks on the left talk about our revenue side, it’s to talk about getting more revenue. And the folks on the right, when we talk about our tax system, promise no new taxes ever. And if we can’t get past that political problem, then we can never achieve a solution on our revenue volatility in California.

“So my suggestion is that the LAO look for a way that would be revenue neutral, wouldn’t actually try to increase the pot, but would diversify the existing tax structure so that we could make California’s revenue stream look more like California’s economy. In California right now, our economy is growing to a $2.1 trillion economy and our revenue line has gone down. And that kind of disconnect between our economy and our revenue causes a lot of the huge deficits that you see right now.

“The good years are not so good either. Because when we have those huge peaks in revenue … people tend to spend a lot more, and they build spending in as if that money is going to continue. And then we have to turn around and cut to make up for that. At this point we all generally agree what the problem is. What we don’t agree on is how to get the solutions. So let’s have an in-depth analysis from the LAO and see if we can do something to fix this revenue volatility in California.”

The Argument Against Raising Taxes

Speaking in opposition to a tax on services was Therese Twomey, fiscal policy director for the California Taxpayers Association, who said, “It puts California businesses at a competitive disadvantage. It hurts lower income businesses, families and communities. It also moves jobs out of state.”

Parke Terry, legislative advocate for the California Landscape Contractors Association, is not opposed to the bill, but he is concerned that taxing services will cost the government money.

“Probably the biggest purchaser of construction services in California is state and local government,” he said. “It’s not well known that state and local government currently pay sales tax on materials that go into construction projects, but they do not currently pay sales taxes on the labor component of that construction. So we think the bill, in that context, significantly increases the cost to state and local government.

“When the Board of Equalization looked at this issue about three years ago, they determined that the largest single economic segment in California that would be subject to a sales tax on services is actually advertising and marketing. Just like attorney services, those are jobs that could easily be exported to other states. We are certainly not opposed to looking at it. But we think there are a lot of issues here that you need to consider before you seriously think about expanding the sales tax to services.”

Differing Republican Opinions

There may be some bipartisan support for AB 1963 if Committee Member Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, is any indication. He believes taxing services will help California if overall revenue remains neutral and if exemptions are carved out for business-to-business services and for low-income residents.

“I don’t think Ms. Huber is suggesting just a tax on services in a vacuum, not having lowered the rate to income taxes, to the current sales tax, so you have a lower rate overall,” said Nestande. “This is what all the economists say: we should move to a different taxing system. It’s almost unanimous, at least from the ones I’ve talked to.”

But not every Republican Assembly member is confident that the addition of a new tax in California won’t lead to an increase in overall taxes and more businesses leaving the state.

“The problem that I have since I’ve been here since 2008, the only bills that I’ve ever seen with any kind of change in tax policy, the goal has been to increase revenue,” said Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point. “Businesses are not sure right now if they are going to survive. Studies are all good. But I really do believe that there is going to be leakage just on the mere mention of the possibly of a change in our tax code. Because there’s so much uncertainty. I have a feeling that, when the study comes, we will pick and choose those items that will conceivably generate revenue rather than increasing employment.”

Democrat Legislators Hungry for More Revenue

Harkey’s fears were immediately confirmed by Gilbert Cedillo, D-L.A., who is salivating at the prospect of bringing in and spending more tax revenue.

“I have been here a little bit longer,” he said. “When I got here we had an economy of $1.4 trillion. We were spending about $100 billion on services. That was our budget. Today we are at $2.1 trillion and we spend $85 billion. So, while it may seem that we were going in one direction, the fact of the matter is we have cut 15 percent in taxes. They had gone up above $100 billion, but we are down to $85 billion in services for a state that’s growing. And for a state whose infrastructure that business relies upon is in tremendous need of reinforcement, our waterways, our highways. The entirety of the services that we provide for businesses need upgrades. It needs an educated and stable workforce. So the question for me would be also what is revenue sufficiency.”

Huber agreed that, in addition to leveling out the revenue peaks and valleys, state government needs to bring in more money.

“In revenue neutrality I’m not talking about a spending cap,” she said. “Generally, when people talk about those it’s only enforceable when you have a constitutional amendment. As a budget item, it probably would be gone the very next year. But I’m talking about something that is a rational relationship between the size of our economy and the size of our spending.

“We are not trying to starve the very economy that we would like to see grow. But we are the government and the people who try to make sure there are resources to educate the population, to do the roads and bridges, to have the infrastructure. If we have those additional resources as our economy grows, that makes sense. But having them go down the way they are now with our economy growing, that doesn’t make sense. And that’s the problem we are trying to fix by having this study bill.”

The committee passed the bill 6-0, with Harkey and two others not voting. It will next be reviewed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.