State legislators act on several bills affecting courts, lawyers

Several bills of interest to attorneys and judges were on the move on Wednesday, two days before the end of the 2017 legislative year.

Collective bargaining for Judicial Council workers

The Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security voted 6-1 to accept Senate amendments to AB 83, a bill to give collective bargaining rights to non-managerial Judicial Council employees.

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar measure last year. In his veto message for AB 874, Brown said the Ralph C. Dills Act wasn’t “the proper law” to apply. This is the 1977 law allows public employees in California to unionize.

The new bill instead offers rights “that parallel those in the Dills Act,” but which would exclude Judicial Council employees from any changes or court decisions related to the Dills Act. AB 83 also maintains a provision from the earlier bill that allows the Judicial Council discretion to exclude up to one third of its employees.

Therapy dogs

By a 66-0 vote, the Assembly approved AB 411, a bill that gives courts discretion to allow children and other vulnerable witnessed to have a therapy dog in court.

The California Public Defenders Association, the ACLU, and other groups opposed the bill on the grounds that it would prejudice juries against criminal defendants. The vote Wednesday concurred in Senate amendments allowing for jury instructions to be used to avoid this issue.

The bill’s author, attorney and Assemblyman Richard H. Bloom, D-Santa Monica, urged his colleagues to “ruff in the amendments” during his floor speech. Bloom is an attorney.

Fines and Fees

A last-second effort to give driver’s licenses back to about 200,000 people won’t get a legislative hearing.

Sen. Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, introduced SB 237 on Friday by putting new language into an unrelated bill. It would have restored licenses to people who lost them due to an inability to pay traffic fines and fees.

The bill sought to help those who weren’t able to take advantage of an 18-month amnesty plan that ran from October 2015 to April. A budget bill passed earlier this year bars the DMV and local courts from taking licenses away from people who can’t afford to pay fines but didn’t help those with current suspensions.

SB 237 needed a hearing in the Assembly Transportation Committee. But a spokesperson for the committee’s chair, Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, said he “has no plans to take the bill up at this late hour.”

Another Hertzberg bill, SB 185, would have mandated courts reduce fines for those who can’t afford to pay. It stalled in the Legislature, but is eligible to be considered in 2018.