A bill changing the makeup of the Orange County Board of Education — from its size to when it holds elections — survived a key vote last week.
Sacramento Snapshot
Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
SB 907, co-authored by Sens. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, and Dave Min, D-Irvine, passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee last week. It increases the number of trustees from five to seven and moves the elections for board seats from the March primary to the November general election.
The bill’s passage comes after the Board of Education said it struck a deal with Newman’s office to amend it a bit. The board said the agreement was to hold off on adding the two additional members until 2030, after the next census count, and the bill was amended to include that change.
During its July meeting, the Board of Ed voted to stop its lobbying efforts opposing SB 907 because of the changes, although individual members said they still opposed the legislation.
“I was catching the first flight out of John Wayne airport to go up to Sacramento, waking up about 4:30 in the morning these four times. When I say I lost sleep on this bill, I literally lost a lot of sleep,” Trustee Tim Shaw said then, referring to his trips up to the Capitol to argue against the bill. “And not to mention just the turmoil this caused, but having lived this now for the last six months, I mean, it is just clear to me if we don’t do this, (Newman will) just keep the bill the way it is, and I guess we can roll our dice on that.”
Despite the change, Board of Education Trustee Jorge Valdes, who did not vote for the deal, said he still opposes the bill.
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“I continue to oppose SB 907 as an assault on the rights of Orange County voters,” Valdes said. “I continue to investigate with legal counsel the potential for violations of the California constitution.”
While the bill was in the Senate, Newman said Orange County is the only one of four of the state’s largest 10 counties that has a board of education with only five trustees. And moving the election, he said, would also increase voter participation, according to a transcript from CalMatters’ Digital Democracy project.
“The impetus for this bill does not arise out of politics,” said Newman. “Enhancing the responsiveness of a governing body and improving participation in the election of that body are objectively good goals, and that’s what the provisions of this bill seek to do.”
But Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Huntington Beach, has called the bill “pure politics.”
“If it was a good policy bill, it should be a bill for all the counties in the state of California,” she previously said on the Senate floor. “No, it is specifically targeted to Orange County, and the reason is because the opposition has continuously lost elections in Orange County through the Board of Education.”
Shaw, during last month’s board meeting, had argued that moving the election to November would actually decrease voter participation because some people might not fill out the entire lengthy ballot or get overwhelmed by all that’s on it. He also said adding board members could be costly because it would require redistricting, meaning lawyers and demographers would need to be hired.
In the March primary election, incumbent trustees Valdes, Shaw and Kenneth Williams defeated their respective challengers.
When the bill was still in the Senate, Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, who recently switched parties and is now a Republican, was the only Democrat to vote against it.
SB 907 goes to the Assembly floor next.
Senate talks rail ridership
Led by Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat who represents a southern Orange County district, a subcommittee studying the LOSSAN rail corridor — the 351 miles of tracks that stretch from San Louis Obispo County to San Diego County — held an oversight hearing last week. With representatives from Caltrans, the LOSSAN Corridor Agency and the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, the hearing covered environmental concerns, collaboration between rail operators and various agencies and increased transparency about ridership.
Expect the 2028 Olympics, when Los Angeles plays host to the Summer Olympic Games, to change how Southern Californians use public transit, said Darren Kettle, chief executive officer of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority.
“There is no better time for us to have lasting transformity, a true legacy in moving people into rail, than a success in LA28 and moving people for those games because the number of people who are going to have to take public transit,” said Kettle. “It’s our time to shine, and we have to put a service out there that does shine, and I think it will completely change the landscape of how Southern Californians look at being able to use public transit and specifically rail.”
But the other piece is providing a service that fits with commuters’ schedules and travel plans, said Kettle.
“What we heard from people that may take the train is, ‘We need service that meets our needs,’ and currently we’re not,” said Kettle.
Ways to improve that, he said, include adding trains on schedules and to destinations that commuters need and implementing fare structures “that work for people.”
Jason Jewell, managing director of the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, Managing Director, also noted during the Aug. 13 hearing that the agency is coordinating with the Amtrak Police Department on emergency response training to help first responders and coroners deal with rail emergencies, including striking people trespassing on the tracks. The training, Jewell said, will be rolled out later this year.
In other news
• If you’re watching a specific bill, now would be the time to check to see if it’s still alive. Both the Assembly and Senate appropriations committees tackled on Thursday what’s called the suspense file, where bills with a fiscal impact are decided on quickly through votes rather than regular hearings.
The Assembly held about 32% of the bills it had, higher than the average of 25%, according to veteran Sacramento lobbyist Chris Micheli. The Senate held about 34%, also higher than the normal rate, said Micheli.
That leaves more than 500 measures, according to Micheli’s estimate, will now be up for consideration before Aug. 31, the final day to pass bills.
• The Assembly unanimously passed a resolution last week that condemns the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last month. Every member of the Assembly is listed as a co-author on the resolution, representing a “strong bipartisan stand against the disturbing trend of violence in American politics,” Republican Leader James Gallagher’s office said in a news release.
The resolution said the Assembly “condemns the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, and all forms of political violence; and … calls for renewed efforts to foster a political environment based on respectful discourse and nonviolence.”
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