Policy and Advocacy 2023
LARRP is excited to bring you our legislative priorities for 2023! While there are many bills that we have been working on since January, this represents the full slate of LARRP's priority bills at the state and federal level. Each bill mentioned carries with it major ramifications for the currently and formerly incarcerated, and we encourage you to familiarize yourself with this legislation so that as we ask for advocacy and provide opportunities for you to get involved, you can hit the ground running! Your ongoing advocacy efforts help us work on behalf of our community, and we are so proud to bring you our priorities. If you want to participate in the LARRP Policy Team, or want Charles to speak to your team or organizations to present these bills, please let us know by emailing Charles@lareentry.org
Bills sponsored and/or supported by our Partners
Californians for Safety and Justice SB749
I am reaching out because our TimeDone Bill, SB 749 (Smallwood-Cuevas), was just referred to the Senate Public Safety Committee, and we could use your support. This bill will restore the streamlined process for allowing a person with a qualifying felony under prop 47 to petition the courts to have their felony reclassified as a misdemeanor (fact sheet attached).
We humbly ask your organization to submit a letter of support for the bill as soon as possible. Please edit the attached template support letters for your organization and upload them through the Advocacy Portal as quickly as possible. All Letters of Support should be uploaded through the Advocates Support Letter Portal link
Policy Updates
July 1, 2023
State Legislative Update
California is facing a budget deficit of more than 30 billion dollars, leading to many new bills being pulled from consideration, including more than half of the LARRP priority bills for this year, including both of our co-sponsored bills, AB 745 (Bryan), The Reentry Housing and Workforce Development Program, and AB 974 (McKinnor), the Incarcerated Birth Certificate Waiver Bill.
With most of our original work sidelined this year, we are focusing on a number of new bills which aim to improve the contracting, grant-awarding, and payment process for nonprofits and other organizations which engage in business with the state of California. One such bill we are advocating for is AB 696 (Lowenthal) which would provide and accept electronic signatures transmission, and offer the option of payment by electronic funds. The bill would also prohibit a state agency that administers a grant or contract after 2025 from requiring an original print signature on a contract or grant document. By moving toward quicker and more reliable e-signatures, e-verification, and e-payments, CBO’s can spend time on what truly matters, delivering high quality services to the folks they serve. A full list of LARRP’s priority bills can be found here, and this document is regularly updated as bills move through the process.
County Budget Update
We also have many important updates from LA County, as budgetary conversations have been ongoing for the upcoming fiscal year. The LA County Board of Supervisors approved the 2023-24 recommended county budget last week, cementing county expenditures through June 2024. This budget includes a variety of positive reforms, along with shortcomings, for the justice-involved community and criminal legal system. Some highlights of the proposed budget include:
$692 million for the emergency response to the homelessness crisis in LA. This money would fund a 26-person staffing expansion within the CEO’s Homelessness Initiative, service expansions including mental health outreach, and encampment resolution efforts including housing programs (2023-2024 Recommended Budget Press Release, Board of Supervisors Budget Deliberations Meeting 6/26).
$288 million for Care First and Community Investment (CFCI) to rectify racism in the criminal legal system. The Board of Supervisors voted to dedicate 10% of the county’s locally generated unrestricted revenues every year to community investments and alternatives to incarceration by June of 2024, which became the CFCI fund (also known as Measure J) (Budget Fact Sheet).
$80 million for mental health treatment county jails. The majority of this money will support health services for incarcerated individuals through increased funding for Integrated Correctional Health Services (ICHS) (Budget Fact Sheet, Ellis Sheriff). The rest of this funding will go towards moving incarcerated individuals with serious mental health conditions into inpatient mental health facilities as opposed to traditional carceral facilities (Board of Supervisors Budget Deliberations Meeting 6/26, Ellis Sheriff).
Establishing the Office of Constitutional Policing (OCP) for increased accountability and investigations into gang presences within the sheriff’s department.
On the flip side of a few of these promising budget elements, some organizations argue that money could be better spent. For example, $187 million of the CFCI funds accumulated in the past few years have gone unspent, frustrating many justice advocates (Board of Supervisors Budget Deliberations Meeting 6/26). Additionally, although the creation of the OCP would create more law enforcement accountability, the proposed budget also allocates several billion dollars to the sheriff's department and expands the number of sheriff positions (Ellis Sheriff, Budget Fact Sheet). Many organizations advocating for criminal legal and policing reform oppose this decision, as these organizations believe this money could be better spent on violence prevention and public support efforts (Budget Fact Sheet).
An issue LARRP has been pushing for for many years, this year’s budget also did not include allocations to fund the additional beds needed to close Men’s Central Jail, which was supposed to close in March of this year, while devoting over $100 million to renovate and re-open the Los Padrinos juvenile facility (LA Times Editorial Board, Ellis Sheriff).
Major overhaul in the county Probation Department also influences the Board’s agenda. The Board just fired the 9th probation department head in 20 years and passed three motions to improve juvenile justice (Ellis Probation). These three motions are:
- Reduce the number of teenagers in the Probation Department (Ellis Probation).
- Find suitable housing for juveniles released from Division of Juvenile Justice facilities (Ellis Probation).
- Further develop the Department of Youth Development, which could replace the Parole Department in the future (Ellis Probation).
The county will likely incur costs with these changes to juvenile justice, particularly in light of the state recently closing all youth prisons, transferring more responsibility for juvenile justice to counties (Rinker).
LA county is also reckoning with videos smuggled out of Men’s Central Jail showing violence unaddressed by guards and appalling conditions inside county jails. In the Board budgetary review meeting, moments of silence were had for individuals recently killed within LA county carceral facilities (Ellis Sheriff). Board members recognized unacceptable conditions within county facilities, and justice advocates can find both hope for progress and concern for inadequate action within the adopted budget.
March 1, 2023
As we enter March, we are excited to bring some important bills in the reentry sector to your attention as we embark on this year’s policy journey! We have been working hard behind the scenes, meeting with stakeholders, CBO’s, justice-involved folks, and government representatives to understand the political landscape and bring attention to some of the most pertinent issues and concerns facing the reentry community. We will start out with our local efforts. We have been in conversations for some time about a Fair chance Housing ordinance for LA County. A Fair Chance Employment Ordinance was on the BOS agenda yesterday, which can be found here, language which Alex Alexander and Amber Roth, co-chairs of the LARRP Employment Committee worked on, alongside other reentry employment experts, and we are happy to announce it passed with a unanimous vote.
We also saw a unanimous vote on Item 2 from the Board of Supervisors’ Agenda. This motion, put forward by Supervisors Hahn and Barger, outlines specific language to employ folks from disenfranchised backgrounds, including specifically formerly-incarcerated individuals. The countywide workforce agreement lays out specific steps and protections for construction projects to follow, providing better-paying and safer employment opportunities for construction workers throughout the county.
Meanwhile we are also working on securing progress toward a City of LA Ordinance seeking to also establish Fair Chance Housing protections for all residents within the city limits. Over the next few weeks, we will be coalition building around advocacy efforts directed at the LA City Council, so keep your eyes open on our social media channels and email accounts to see where you can plug in and make sure folks in LA have equitable access to housing applications regardless of their background.
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Turning our attention to our statewide efforts, we are proud to announce a number of bills we are signed on to co-sponsor for the year.
AB 974 by Assemblymember McKinnor. This straightforward bill seeks to allow the currently and formerly incarcerated population access to a fee-waiver in order to secure a birth certificate without having to pay the $29 fee that is currently required. Many folks who are justice-involved need access to identifying documents, and the price can be a prohibitive barrier to accessing such documents. If you represent an organization who is interested in signing on to support this bill, you can use this link to sign on. We anticipate this bill to be heard in the Assembly Health Committee in the next few weeks, and will keep you updated on its progress!
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Useful Information:
- Supervisor Holly Mitchell, Justice Deputy- John Matthews, Email- JMathews@bos.lacounty.gov
- Supervisor Hilda Solis, Justice Deputy- Esther Lim, Email- ELim@bos.lacounty.gov
- Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, Justice Deputy- Veronica Pawlowski, Email- vpawlowski@bos.lacounty.gov
- Supervisor Janice Hahn, Justice Deputy- Kyla Coates, Email- KCoates@bos.lacounty.gov
- Supervisor Katherine Barger, Justice Deputy- Christina Mesesan, Email- Cmesesan@bos.lacounty.gov
- Overview of the California Legislative Process
- Legislative Terminology
- How to Find Your California Representative
- The Life Cycle of California Legislation
- For a great resource on the State Legislature follow the latest updates on Bill Watch
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CalNonprofits is working on two budget requests and three state bills that are crucial for nonprofits right now and want to share an update on them as well as other pending state and federal legislation. See them HERE