California Police Chief- Fall 2013 CPCA_2017_Winter Magazine Final | Page 10

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
Inside Look at
CPCA LEGISLATIVE
By Chief Jennifer Tejada,
Chair of the Law and
Legislative Committee
DECISION-MAKING
At some point, you may have asked yourself, “why the heck did Cal Chiefs
take a position on that bill?” Most of our positions make sense; other times
it might not be so clear. Last year, CPCA tracked 360 of the 2,980
measures introduced by the state Legislature. Of those we tracked,
CPCA directly engaged in supporting, opposing, or amending dozens
of bills. The decisions made throughout the year are almost entirely
up to the over 30 members of our Law and Legislative Committee,
who evaluate policy and track the political movements in the Capitol.
To better help understand how those decisions are made, here’s a little insight into our process.
After the deadline to introduce bills for the year has
passed (usually sometime in mid-February), CPCA holds
an in-person meeting made up of volunteers from the
Legislative Committee that are willing to spend an entire
day going over hundreds of flagged bills. At that meeting,
there are three outcomes for each bill we discuss: no-brainer
for support, of-course-we’d-oppose-that, or let’s discuss further.
A lot of the time, we just shake our heads at the failed logic
behind these proposed laws. Bills that need deeper analysis
and full review are added to an agenda for the entire Leg-
islative Committee to discuss during one of our bi-monthly
conference calls.
Every 2nd and 4th Thursday at 2:00 pm, the Legislative
Committee has a conference call. The agenda is set prior
to each call, and background information is sent out for
each committee member to review. The format of the call is
always the same: we get an overview of what’s happening
in Sacramento, then review each measure. For the bills, we
focus on identifying public safety concerns, being sure not
to let personal feelings influence our decisions. Over the
years, this approach has cemented our reputation as the
leading voice on issues of public safety.
Every vote we take on a position is made by a quorum
of committee members, with a majority in favor. Our
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Legislative Committee is chaired by myself, with the
help of two vice chairs; Chief Eric Nuñez (Los Alamitos)
and Chief Dan DeSmidt (Belmont). The current ros-
ter of the committee represents the breadth of CPCA’s
membership – retired, small agency, large agency, rural,
urban, northern, southern, coastal, inland, and even
some Seconds-in-Command. Needless to say, our conver-
sations can get lively from time to time, but in the end,
we always work to find consensus. More often than not,
our decisions are unanimous.
After drafting letters of support/opposition to each
measure the committee has voted to weigh in on, CPCA
goes to work delivering those th