Summary:
On March 17th, 2014, State Assembly Speaker John Perez(D-AD53) announced
sending SCA-5 back to State Senate citing the lack of support of the bill in
current form and the request of the bill’s author, Ed Hernandez(D-SD24).
The original bill was passed strictly along the party line because of
Democrat Party held the two-thrid of seats (super majority) in the Senate on
1/31. As of today, Democrat Party doesn’t hold super majority in State
Senate due to two members of its caucus are on discipline leave. So
effectively SCA-5 is dead in current legislative session until new State
Senate and Assembly takes effect in 2015-1016 session.
SVCA Analysis:
The result of sending SCA-5 back to State Senate effectively announced the
death of SCA-5 in current legislative session. Let’s give everyone working
hard in last one month a well deserved congratulations and everyone needs to
take a short break.
But as the title says, the ghost of SCA-5 is still looming large on State
Capital, because there are certain sectors of politicians in our government
are firmly believe in the spirit of SCA-5 and like to use social engineering
to “encourage, support and defend voluntary and mandatory affirmative
action measures aimed at enhancing equality in employment, education, and
business opportunities. Education is just the first step to achieve its long
term goal. So the battle is over, but the war is not finished.
Based on current situation, while we continue being vigilant on any movement
of SCA-5 and keep our pressure on elected officials, we will put more
effort to the elections this year (6/3 Primary and 11/4 General). The
following are the immediate work we will focus on:
1) Actively join in a few selective local elections (state senate, state
assembly and city council), in both primary and general elections
2) voter registration drive and voter education
3) voter turnout drive on both in person and mail ballots
We are open to work with anyone who put their “no-on-SCA5) into action and
fully believe in providing equal opportunity to everyone as long as they
have the ability and determination, regardless of their background, groups,
party affiliation.
Appendix: Elected officials and candidates’ stand on SCA-5 as of March 17th,
2014:
State Assembly:
1)Republican Assembly members: based on the promise of Assembly minority
leader, all of the GOP caucus members plans to vote No on SCA-5. A few of
GOP assembly members made public statement against SCA-5.
2) Ed Chau (D-AD49): The first assembly member to officially announcing
against SCA-5 in current form, and ask for amendment before consideration;
3) Sharon Quik-Silva (D-AD65): officially declare against SCA-5 at this time
, privately sending email to community members to clarify she is against SCA
-5 in current form
4) Joan Buchanan(D-AD16): announced privately in a meeting to group of over
twenty community members she will be abstain from SCA-5. Her own words: “I
have always been a believer of making informed decisions based on data.
Based on my research, I will not vote for SCA-5”
5) Phil Ting(D-AD19): announced on Chinese newspaper support SCA-5(at least
its spirit), but ask for amendment
6) Paul Fong(D-AD28): privately sending email to community members to state
he is against SCA-5 in current form, but never made any official
announcement and refused to meet community even when the community presented
him thousands of signatures (including over one thousand signatures of
registered voters from San Jose City Council District 1 which he will seek
the seat for in Nov election). And further his apprentice and heir-apparent
Evan Low made a public TV appearance to support SCA-5 (see below)
State Senate:
1)Ted Lieu(D-SD28), Carol Liu(D-SD25) and Leeland Yee(D-SD8) . The three
Asian American State Senators voted YES on 1/30/2014 on SCA-5. In past few
weeks, they publicly changed their stand after hearing the community input
and ask for Senator Hernandez to withdraw the bill even though they don’t
have the voting power anymore. Particularly Senate Ted Lieu publicly
announced his motivation to vote YES for SCA-5 and also announced he changed
his mind after the community input and will vote No if the bill comes back
to Senate.
Federal Congress:
1) Judy Chu(D-Congressional District 32, California): publicly announced her
opposition to SCA-5, together with Ed Chau. Federal Congress has no
oversight of SCA-5 since it is a state legislature
2) Mike Honda(D- Congressional District 17, California): publicly announced
his opposition to SCA-5 on 3/17/2014 and ask for expanding public education
to provide more opportunities. Federal Congress has no oversight of SCA-5
since it is a state legislature
SVCA
http://www.mitbbs.com/article0/SanFrancisco/34151435_0.html