Assemblymember Chris Rogers, who represents California’s North Coast, told the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission that his first legislative session focused on a suite of district-specific bills and on four priorities he described as: addressing poverty, climate change, children, and health.

Rogers said his office sent 10 district bills to Gov. Gavin Newsom this year and that one already signed "was a bill that we did specifically for the tributaries to the Klamath" to preserve tribal voices and balance water uses "for our tribal community, for our fishermen, and for our farmers." He said that measure will remain in place for the next five years while the state develops longer-term regulations.

The assemblymember also summarized a set of immigration-related bills that he said have been signed or were awaiting the governor, including measures that would limit ICE access to "sensitive areas without a valid warrant, such as emergency rooms, hospitals, schools," and a bill to require law enforcement to display badges and identify themselves. "All of those have been signed by the governor, by the way, so far," Rogers said.

Commission members pressed Rogers about remote participation by advisory-body members under the Brown Act and a state bill often cited as SB 707. A commissioner said members in a geographically large county like Humboldt often cannot vote when participating remotely and asked whether state law could be adjusted. Rogers said he did not support SB 707 as introduced because it required new mandates without additional funding and because local jurisdictions would need tools to handle problems such as Zoom-bombing. "The implementation in Santa Rosa alone was about $500,000 a year to be able to do compliance. And with no additional resources from the state, I did have a lot of concerns," he said.

On health-care reform, Rogers said he supports single-payer in principle but that federal approval would be required for California to proceed. He described a parallel, shorter-term agenda of protecting clinic funding and removing pharmaceutical-industry restrictions on a federal discount drug program he said was limiting clinics' ability to serve patients across county lines. "That's a two-year bill we're gonna continue on next year," he said. Rogers also described an idea he and colleagues call a "mix tax" to require large employers who do not provide private coverage to contribute to the cost of employees on public health programs.

When commissioners asked whether Humboldt County’s sanctuary status is at legal risk, Rogers said he expected statewide Democratic lawmakers to defend the status and specifically referenced SB 54 as the state statute that governs interactions between law enforcement and ICE. "I can tell you just based on the sentiment and the temperament of the Democratic caucus in Sacramento, there is no interest in removing SB 54," he said.

Rogers closed by encouraging commissioners to contact his district staff with bill ideas or problems with state bureaucracy; he noted staffer Heidi McHugh is based in Humboldt and Scott Alonzo is his district director.

Why it matters: Rogers described a set of district and statewide priorities that intersect with local concerns raised by the commission — water management in the Klamath basin, immigrant protections and county implementation of remote participation rules — and flagged implementation costs and federal constraints that could limit state policy changes.