After sailing through its first policy committee of reference two weeks ago (Assembly Housing & Community Development Committee per a 6-2 vote), AB 1910 was pulled from this morning’s Local Government Committee agenda by its author Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens).
While the reasons for the withdrawal are known only to her, we have reason to believe that she pulled it because it didn’t have the votes to get out of committee today. While it is possible to bring the bill back to the Local Government Committee when it next meets April 20, it’s hard for us to see what can be done between now and then to secure the necessary votes for passage. “Hard” but certainly not impossible. Thus, we will remain vigilant until the deadline strikes for fiscal bills to pass out of policy committees. That deadline is the end of this month, a month that includes a spring recess. If AB 1910 has not been re-docketed for hearing and approved by then, it is all but dead. But not entirely dead. Remember, it is always possible to pull the end of session shenanigan affectionately known as “gut-and-amend,” in which a live bill is stripped of all content (gutted) and refiled with totally unrelated content (amended) at the close of session. Is that a likely possibility in the case of AB 1910? No; its failure to escape the Appropriations suspense file as AB 672 in January combined with its failure to pass out of Local Government as AB 1910 would make that highly unlikely. But “highly unlikely” is not impossible; thus, we’ll remain vigilant until the 2022 legislative session closes August 31. This bill is simply too important to do otherwise.
We will be sharing more, much more, in the coming days and weeks. For today, let us just close with a heartfelt shout out of recognition and appreciation for all the allied organizations (state and national), all the golf clubs, and all the thousands of individual SCGA members who took the time to write formal opposition letters, pen E-mails, and make phone calls to legislators and policy committees. The game’s leadership organizations issued great policy, technical, and legal arguments contra AB 1910. That’s all well and good. But golfers showed Sacramento that every District in the state is filled with golfers who care enough about the game to act when confronted with a bill as ill-conceived as AB 1910.
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