Description
NEWS FROM SACRAMENTO
Governor Brown signed 873 bills into law in 2012, and almost all of them became effective on January 1. Another 2,000 new bills will be introduced by the end of February, so CLAC will be busy in the next two months sorting them all out to see if they affect homeowners associations. If they do, we will weigh in to lobby for or against them, or seek amendments to them.
I am is very busy now “meeting and greeting†three dozen brand new legislators and more than one hundred new staff people. Some will be assigned to the Housing and Judiciary Committees in both the Senate and Assembly, so these individuals will become our “lobbying targets†for the next two years as all HOA bills go through these committees. It is very important for us to establish professional and friendly relationships with them right away.
As previously reported, Assembly Bills 805 and 806 do not take effect until January 1, 2014, and this year their provisions must be amended by a new bill in order to accommodate changes which were made by other measures that passed after those two bills were signed. Indeed, as new bills emerge this year and are passed, they too will need to be amended into the new and revised Davis-Stirling Act. It’s a constant “catch-up-word-churn†in the Capitol!
CLAC’s Chapter Delegates will have the new bills in their email boxes within 48 hours of their becoming available to the public. Our two Delegates Michael W. Rabkin, Esq. and Judy Campion, CCAM®, AMS®, PCAM®, and other Chapter Delegates statewide, will analyze the bills and recommend a position for CLAC to take. Once the position is formally adopted by all the Delegates, I will commence lobbying and reporting back to the Delegates and Legislative Action Committee Chairs so they can share the “intel†with you at your monthly events.
Please stand up and be counted when we need your help at the grassroots level. Lobbyists count on their members to help them as they attempt to secure their legislative goals. That’s where you come in. If we need your help, we will issue an email alert explaining what to do. By signing up to receive our “CLAC-TRAC†email alerts and responding as soon as possible, you will help us secure language changes in bills, defeat bills and even pass bills.
One final note, with so many new legislators wishing to help individual constituents, we expect to see a number of bills that cater to one, anomalous circumstance in that legislator’s district. Many times before, such bills have caused huge problems for the remaining 47,000 HOAs in California, and it takes a lot of effort and resources to alter them or even kill them. Our job is to educate legislators about HOAs, and not be afraid to stop their bills if they aren’t beneficial to us.
We encourage you to stay in touch with CAI-CLAC by following our blog, checking out Chapter events on Facebook and signing up for CLAC-TRAC email blasts on our Web site www.CAICalif.org.
Skip Daum is our advocate in Sacramento. He can be reached directly at caiclac@aol.com
