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TO: California Treatment Advocacy Coalition
FROM: Carla Jacobs, Randall Hagar & Chuck Sosebee
DATE: May 31, 2001
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WE ARE APPROPRIATED!

Today the Appropriations Committee mirrored the $35 million allocated to AB 1421 in the Assembly's budget. That is a triumph.

Of all the members of the huge committee (21 members), only one voted against our appropriation (although we are still not sure how many were absent, abstained, or purposefully recorded a "not voting").

The committee did condition the funding on the same level being in the compromise budget between the Governor, Senate, and Assembly--but that is no great loss. We will not get any funds unless that happens anyway. As any sixth grader should know, bills (and that includes their funding) do not become law unless passed by both houses and then approved by the Governor.

Thank you all for working so hard to getting an allocation from the Assembly and AB 1421 into its budget.

Assemblywoman Thomson will now have some leverage with the Senate and with the Governor. Yet--regardless of our success with the Budget and Appropriations Committees -- AB 1421 will die if not approved by two-thirds of the Assemblymembers in the upcoming floor vote.

And that vote before the entire Assembly is coming up soon. We do not know exactly when, but we do know that it will be soon. Any bill that is going to move from the Assembly to the Senate this session must do so by Friday, June 8 -- a week from tomorrow. We trust Assemblywoman Thomson to make sure that the vote happens, but we must help her and AB 1421 win it.

We don't have much time.

Remember that last year AB 1800 was just one vote shy of the two-thirds vote mark necessary for any bill with an allocation attached to be approved by the Assembly. AB 1800 did go on to the Senate (albeit to an ignominious end) because it had failed to win an appropriation. Well AB 1421 did get one--and we must get the support of 54 of the 80 members of the Assembly.

This is--win or lose--our last push in the Assembly. Then it is either onto the Senate or wait for next year.

We can't let up now. Our efforts are for far, far more than just each of us.

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You can find out who your Assemblyperson is at:

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California Treatment Advocacy Coalition
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