Legislative Alert – Results from the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Suspense File Hearing – May 25, 2018

john-jennings-430220-unsplash.jpg
Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

Today, the California Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees decided the fate of hundreds of bills in the current legislative cycle. The Appropriations Committee in general is considered a significant hurdle in the legislative process, and bills that are passed from these Committees live to fight another day. The bills that are held on the Suspense File are, for most intents and purposes, dead for the remainder of the legislative session. While there is a process to reintroduce a proposal that is held in the Appropriations Committee (called a “gut and amend”), this process is rarely used and usually comes at great political cost to the organization or interest group that uses this option.

Here’s an update on the most commonly tracked bills in the industry that were heard in Committee today:

AB 1793 (Bonta) which seeks to streamline the judicial process of expunging or reducing criminal convictions and sentences due to Proposition 64 passed out of Committee and now heads to the Assembly Floor.

AB 1863 (Jones-Sawyer) which would allow cannabis businesses to deduct businesses expenses passed out of Committee and now heads to the Assembly Floor.

AB 2058 (Chau) which requires law enforcement agencies to submit annual reports with the number of cannabis-related DUI arrests to the Department of Motor Vehicles passed out of Committee and is now headed to the Assembly Floor.

AB 2069 (Bonta) which would have prohibit employers from discriminating against employees who are treating a known physical or mental disability or medical condition with medical cannabis and has a medical marijuana ID card was held in the Appropriations Committee.

AB 2520 (Cooper) which would have created the California Illegal Cannabis Task Force to review and analyze existing statutes to determine if they adequately address illegal cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, sales, and diversion of cannabis to other states was held in Committee.

AB 2525 (Wood) which required the Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of Parks and Recreation to survey public lands and surface water sources during outdoor cannabis cultivation season to find unlawful cultivation activity was held in Committee.

AB 2641 (Wood) which would allow the Bureau of Cannabis Control to issue a temporary retailer license for cultivators and manufacturers to sell their products at events was passed out of the Committee with amendments and is now headed to the Assembly Floor.

AB 3157 (Lackey) which would have temporarily suspend the cultivation tax and lower the cannabis excise tax from 15% to 11% until 2021 was held in Committee.

SB 930 (Hertzberg) which would create a statewide-chartered banking system to allow California banks to offer basic services to cannabis businesses was passed out of Committee and now heads to the Senate Floor.

SB 1409 (Wilk) which would delete the requirement that industrial hemp seed cultivars be certified on or before January 1, 2013, in order to be included on the list of approved hemp seed cultivars and would also remove the definition “industrial hemp” from the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act passed out of Committee and now heads to the Senate Floor.


Questions about any of the bills mentioned above? Contact us at info@thecannabisfile.com or here.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *