How Can I Help: Take Action

Updated: 28 March 2008

Your advocacy is vital. Policy makers often value testimony and opinions from “grass-roots” constituents much more highly than input from professional advocates, corporations or agencies. Your personal story of how a policy or bill would affect you and your loved ones can have the power to enlighten a legislator, alter an opinion, or change a vote. (Click here to find your State legislators and listen to hearings.)

Please support AB 2424 (Beall), the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act Reform Bill

Background: Assembly Member Jim Beall, Jr., on February 21 introduced AB 2424. The State Council on Developmental Disabilities and Protection & Advocacy, Inc., are co-sponsors. If enacted, the bill will update the Lanterman Act to accomplish two major goals:
1) enhance regional center facilitation of the transition from the education system to adulthood and ensure more effective individual and family participation in the IPP process and
2) establish the Employment First Policy to enable and support more adults with developmental disabilities to maintain gainful employment at or above minimum wage. Click here to read the fact sheet published by the office of Assembly Member Beall.

Status: The Assembly Committee on Education will hear and discuss AB 2424 at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, in Room 126 of the State Capitol. The Committee on Human Services will first address the bill on April 15. (exact time and room to be determined) Assembly Member Beall chairs the committee.

How you can take action: Call or write to the members of the Committee on Education and the Committee on Human Services to express support for the bill. Click here for lists of committee members. Click here for contact information on each assembly member.

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To find your Assembly and Senate representatives, click here
• To link to your Assembly member’s website, including contact information, click here.
• To link to your State Senator’s website, including contact information, click here.

You can listen to Assembly and Senate Floor sessions and many hearings online.

January 30, 2008: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on January 10 released his proposed State Budget for 2008-2009, which includes reductions to nearly every state-funded program. Included are cuts to Medi-Cal, SSI/SSP, and IHSS (In-Home Supportive Services). The budget year begins July 2008 and ends June 30, 2009.

In addition, he issued two proclamations:
• Declaring a “fiscal emergency.”
• Invoking a special session of the State Legislature to consider mid-year reductions to the current budget year.

Budget hearings in the Assembly and Senate are ongoing. Some of the proposed reductions also will require changes to existing state laws before they can take effect. For further details, see the Legislative News page. To keep abreast of day-to-day developments and schedules of hearings salient to people with disabilities, visit the CDCAN website.

Tune in to California Legislature hearings
Your computer will need to have:
• A broadband internet connection (cable or DSL)
• A sound card
• Speakers
• Windows Media Player (Click here for a free download.)

Assembly committee hearings:
• Go to the Assembly Hearings web page.
• For a list of scheduled hearings, click on Committee Hearings at the top of the page.
• To hear Assembly floor sessions: click on Floor Session at the top of the page.

Senate Hearings:
• Go to the Senate web page.
• Click on Schedules on the left side of the page.
• Click on Listen on the left side of the page.
• The page will contain links to current floor sessions and/or hearings.
• (You can click on Watch and see broadcasts of all Senate floor sessions, many committee hearings, and many press conferences.)

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