Votes at a glance: Appropriations Committee advances multiple measures including child-passenger safety and health-cost reporting bills

The Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 7 moved a number of bills out of the committee by vote or by consent calendar. Below are the bills discussed briefly in the hearing and the committee actions recorded in the transcript.

AB 435 — Child passenger safety (presented by Assemblymember Wilson): The bill would implement a five-step test for child passenger safety and extend booster-seat requirements and rear-seat seating rules for specified ages. Support from the California Hospital Association was recorded. The committee approved the bill by roll call.

AB 1415 — Office of Health Care Affordability (presented by Assemblymember Bonta): The bill would expand the Office of Health Care Affordability’s data access to include information from health systems and management-service organizations to better identify cost drivers. Supporters included Health Access California and Consumer groups; the California Hospital Association recorded opposition citing at least $1 million in state costs and an estimated need for additional department positions. The committee approved the bill by roll call.

AB 539 — Timely Care Act (prior authorization, presented by staff for Assemblymember Erwin): The bill extends the duration of an approved prior authorization to one year or the course of the physician-prescribed treatment. The California Medical Association was recorded as a sponsor. The committee approved AB 539; the transcript notes Republicans did not vote in the committee action recorded.

AB 1466 — Groundwater disputes (presented by Assemblymember Hart): The bill would require parties seeking adjudication to meet a higher burden of proof and require technical reports from Groundwater Sustainability Agencies to quantify all water users for court consideration. The committee approved the bill by roll call.

AB 1207 — Cap-and-trade price ceiling (presented for Assemblymember Erwin): The bill would set the cap-and-trade price ceiling to correspond to the social cost of carbon as assessed by the U.S. EPA (as stated in the hearing). The committee approved the bill on a roll call; transcript notes the bill advanced with Republicans not voting.

AB 672 — Public employees and PERB notification (presented by Assemblymember Fong for Assemblymember Colosa): The bill would require public employers to notify the Public Employment Relations Board when they file court actions involving statutes PERB administers and would provide PERB authority to intervene in some cases. SEIU California supported the bill. The committee approved AB 672; the transcript records Republicans not voting.

Consent calendar and suspense items: The committee moved many bills to consent and passed a large suspense calendar (the transcript includes long lists of bill numbers moved to consent and placed on the approved suspense calendar). The transcript records that the suspense calendar was “deemed approved.” Specific bills listed on consent and suspense were recorded in the hearing transcript; many were passed with little or no discussion.

Procedure note: Where the transcript recorded initial roll calls that included members not voting, later vote-change entries were recorded for some measures. For a subset of bills the transcript records that Republican members did not vote during committee actions; those items nevertheless were advanced out of committee according to the clerk’s entries.

What’s next: Each bill advanced by the committee will proceed to subsequent floor or policy steps as required under Assembly rules. Sponsors and authors may return with amendments or budget requests as they move through the process.