The short report is:  all pro-higher education bills passed out of the Higher Ed Committee yesterday EXCEPT AB 591, which finally passed through at 8PM last night, due to TIRELESS lobbying on the part of Peg McCormack from Butte, who was also one of the authors of the bill.  What a hero!

If you’d like details of how the day(s) went down, read on. 

I arrived in Sacramento at 9:30 Monday night, and by 10pm was helping assemble press packets to hand out at the press conference the next morning.  We had to leave the hotel by 7 in order to get in, parked and to the proper location on time.  That meant only 5 hours sleep.  By 8 am the next morning we (me, CCA District Director David Milroy; Stacy Burks, CWA, Butte; and Robert Yoshioka of CPFA –another author on AB 591- are having breakfast in the basement of the capitol.  David and Stacy to go greet one of our supporters and immediately encounter an angry representative of AFT, who is lobbying against our bill.  We do some organizing for the day, and when Peg shows up, we head up to the press room for Dymally’s press conference.  That is lightly attended, but some very interested reporters asked us good questions and took lots of pictures of us with Dymally up on the podium.

After that, David, Stacy and I lobbied staff members of all Higher Ed committee members.  Getting video of those discussions would have been VERY interesting.  I wonder if staffers would have consented.  Particularly, several of them demonstrated an ignorance of some basic issues about which we needed to educate them.  For instance, Paul Cook's staffer Nicole suggested we negotiate more than 60% work load at the local level.  We were kind of stunned and informed her that the 60% limitation was mandated in the Ed Code, which was exactly what we were trying to change.  Then some AFT/CFT people pulled our sponsor, Dymally, out of a committee meeting and told him that AB 519 would create a two tier system of instructors (this is a false argument, red herring, like we don't have one now)!  He was upset with them about this, and when he spoke before the HE committee, the first thing he said was that he was very disappointed with AFT in their opposition.  David Milroy was one of the supporters at the table, along with a rep from FACCC, and Ron Norton Reel of CCA.

There were more people there to speak in support of this bill than for any other.  At least a dozen instructors came down from Butte, and several of their students.  Four of those instructors also teach at Shasta, so I was pleased to see them.  I was the first in line to speak my support, and when I turned around and saw the line behind me I almost wept.

When the vote came, Portantino yes, Horton no, several others yes, Cook abstains because he's a tenured professor (don't know what difference that makes but I'm going to find out), and Ira Ruskin -- NO.  Dymally was so stunned he just turned around and said IRA!  Ira didn't budge.  We really felt that AFT had gotten to him somehow with some bogus information (for instance, they had told Dymally that CSU part-time people were limited to 60% also – a complete lie).  He was the only committee member whose staff person we weren't able to track down.  Since there weren't enough committee members present at that moment to vote, the bill was “on call.”

David and I stayed to speak in support of the other CTA bills, and our CPFA friends went out to hold their breaths in anticipation while heading home.  Peggy McCormack began another run through the halls to track down Arambula, who needed to vote.  She couldn't find him, so was back in Dymally's office working on a potential press release when I got back and told her Arambula was in the committee hearing.  She dashed off again to try and get a vote out of him (so the bill wouldn't die in committee). 

That was when I had to leave.  Left garage in Sacramento at 5:21, hit my own driveway at 7:44.  That may be a new record.  No news last night before I went to bed, but got this email from Peg this morning: 

"AB 591 got out of Assembly Higher Education Committee about 8 PM last night.  It is now going to Appropriations committee where Assemblyman Dymally will ask for it to be a two-year bill, giving the Select Committee time to hold hearings and time for us to organize toward our goal.  There are some problems that need to worked out with CFT and they have agreed to work with Mr. Dymally to work out the "kinks."

Portantino's staffer told us that if the bill should get stuck anywhere, to come and see Portantino again and he would see what he could do to get it "unstuck."

This was an exhausting day, and totally worth it.  The next job is to track down the members of Appropriation, the Select committee, and anyone else who will be making decisions, and to gain their support.  AB 591 will right wrongs that have been perpetuated for 40 years, and change the lives of all CC part time faculty in the state of California.  We can’t let this one die!