Senate Appropriations panel moves nine Assembly bills to suspense file by unanimous consent

The California State Senate Committee on Appropriations moved nine Assembly bills to its suspense file by unanimous consent during a short hearing held in Room 2200 of the 0 Street Building.

Committee members advanced AB 374 (Wen), AB 445 (Aguiar-Curry), AB 606 (Quirk-Silva), AB 681 (Elohari), AB 799 (Rodriguez), AB 879 (Patterson), AB 1009 (Blanca Rubio), AB 1306 (Marisucci) and AB 1438 (Gallagher) to the suspense file without formal presentations or roll-call votes.

The authors for each bill waived presentation, the chair said, and the Department of Finance notified the committee that it did not have files on any of the bills and would not be present. Before the hearing began the chair reminded witnesses to limit testimony to the fiscal aspects of the bills and to avoid lengthy policy discussion; no members of the public spoke on any item.

Most of the items were introduced by the chair by bill number and author; after asking whether anyone wished to testify in support or opposition, the chair called each bill a "suspense file candidate" and, "without objection," moved the bill to suspense. The committee recorded attendance during roll call, including Caballero and Searto.

The panel concluded its agenda after advancing the nine measures and adjourned.

Notes at a glance: all nine measures were moved to the committee—s suspense file by unanimous consent; authors waived presentation and no Department of Finance representative participated.