Legislative Advocacy and Issues

AB1400 Report to the CDR State Council

June 1, 2003
By Pat McPartland, CDR Legislative Coordinator

AB1400: Action Needed

We have good news and bad news on AB1400 (Wolk), the CDR-sponsored bill on housing accessibility. The good news is that on May 22, it passed the full Assembly and moved on to the Senate. The bad news is that most Republicans voted against it and reportedly there were negative comments from Republican legislators in the session. AB1400 is opposed by the California Building Industry Assn (CBIA), a very powerful organization, and also by the CA Property Owners Assn.

We need to work hard if we are going to get the bill through on the Senate side. The first committee AB1400 will go to in the Senate is the Housing and Community Development Committee, which is chaired by Senator Denise Ducheny of San Diego. (The hearing date is not yet set). She is a Democrat but reportedly she works closely with CBIA. She will take some convincing to be on our side. And the bottom line is if she isn’t for us, we will not get through her committee.

Our first priority is to mobilize CDR members and other advocates in Senator Ducheny’s district of San Diego to contact her and let her know how important this bill is to us. We also need to contact the other members of the Senate Housing and Community Development Committee, and convince them also.

We probably have about three weeks before the hearing, although I don’t know for sure. We need to start right away so we have time to mobilize a lot of advocates.

Talking points: The chief argument being raised against the bill is that we should wait for the Department of Housing and Community Development to come out with the model ordinance under AB2787 from last year. Our answer is, first of all, that the HCD process may take years and years, and in the meantime disabled people continue to be at a serious disadvantage when they try to buy a home they can use. Secondly, the AB2787 process is directed at housing as a whole, such as “50% of new homes must have zero step entrance”, whereas AB1400 deals with individual transactions between a buyer and seller. Even after a model ordinance is in effect, a particular disabled buyer may still need a custom item to accommodate their particular situation.

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