ACSOL will lead the next lobbying effort in the State Capitol on March 20 and March 21. The focus of the effort will be pending legislation, including the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 695).
Meetings will begin on Monday, March 20, at 9 a.m. in the ACSOL offices at 1215 K Street, 17th Floor, Sacramento.
Training will be provided and all participants will be divided into teams that include registrants, family members and supporters.
For questions or comments, please contact Carl at cm [at] californiarsol [dot] org.
I wish I could attend. I will pray often during these two days that God will speak through each of you and open the hearts and minds of these legislators to truth and reason.
If Janice or the team can answer this question. I was concerned about the exclusion from Megan’s Law website would be taken away once the tiered registry is implemented in California. So I read the latest SB 695 and from what I read that registrants can apply for exclusions even if they are tiered 2 (if they meet certain requirements). For my situation, I would be place on tier 1 so does that mean I can apply for exclusion from Megan’s website? Currently I am excluded from Megan’s website and would like to keep it that way. Please reply. Thank you.
My Prayers For Relief go with Janice & Company.
I petition The only One Eternal Most High in Heaven be with us tomorrow, May Yehovah shine His face to us & give us peace.
As Yehovah Lives, so should we
I went today, and from my experience it went well….we actually had one of the members of the Senate in person say that he will support (SB695) we was super excited and surprised! We have NEVER had a member bluntly state that in person! Another was also in support as well (at least the safety team member). It shows that just showing up , standing up and speaking up is paying off!!! So all who afraid of being apart of this, don’t just stand by…..show up and stand up for your rights!! Thanks to Janice and her “Go to” attitude!
Good things happened our first day of lobbying! Three years ago the legislator staffs ranged from mostly wary to downright negative.
What a difference 3 years of hard work by ACSOL has made by telling our stories and passing out hard facts! Most of the office staffs agreed that a life sentence for everyone on our one-tier registry is not justice. The staff of the co-author of the bill listened to specific objections we had with the bill and said she would present them to the co-author.
Wish all you guys were here to get a big infusion of hope! Good stuff is happening with our incremental changes work.
@Roger,
Kinda chokes me up a lil to think of hope. Wish I could have been there to witness that. Thanks for being there.
We have just finished two full days of lobbying during which we met in the offices of every member of the Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committees as well as the Speaker of the Assembly. We received positive feedback in almost every office encouraging us to move forward with our support on the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 695). We also described the changes for which we are advocating in that bill. At least 28 people showed up to lobby this week! We encourage you all to join us on April 18, the date on which the Tiered Registry Bill is scheduled to be considered by the Senate Public Safety Committee.
Hey,
For those ofor you asking. There are a couple points that we are asking to be revised. The major points, currently the bill requires you to “file a petition” in order to be removed, rather than automatically dropping people off the list. We prefer it be automatic… But the issue is after you file the petition, it goes to local law enforcement for confirmation and to local District Attorney. Problem is the bill doesn’t have a time frame for the DA to respond by. The fear is you file the petition and the DA could just sit on it for another several years with no response. Other point is if the DA does object, then it goes to the judge and the judge will consider the petition. But the language currently states the Judge may consider “past” and “noncriminal” factors whether to grant the petition. This feels a bit too vague and seems that factors AFTER conviction should be considered rather than past factors. There are a few other points too, but these are the main ones that are concerning.
I’m super jazzed about what happened in Sacramento the past two days! Almost 30 people came to lobby, a third of them new.
I confess I was concerned that making changes to our 70-year-old registry would not be easy for our California legislators to accept. California is stereotypically thought of as liberal, but when you get away from large cities California is often quite conservative. How would they react when we walked in their office and presented our viewpoint?
We split into 3 teams and went to appointments we had previously scheduled with key legislator staff. A few years ago, many of the legislators were negative and didn’t even want to talk to us. Now, they listened to our stories and facts. Most staff had questions, which is always encouraging because it shows they are not just being polite and nodding their heads, hoping we would leave. It was a VERY PLEASANT surprise to find that my team didn’t encounter any overtly negative reaction to the tiered registry. In fact, some said that they definitely liked that it was sponsored and endorsed by key people, and liked how it led to justice for low-risk RCs and would lower costs. COOL!
My team’s last stop was in the office of a legislator who was a worst case for us because their party wasn’t traditionally sympathetic to RCs and are part of the legislature who had battled against RCs. However, his staff listened to us, asked questions, and made some positive comments about the tiered registry bill! WIN!
This change in attitude wasn’t an accident. The anti-RC pendulum has been swinging against us for decades. But during the past few years we have been informing legislators how the registry affects our lives, and we shared RC statistics and facts that California has gathered, showing the lack of effectiveness and justice of anti-RC laws.
My team, especially ACSOL members who joined us for the first time in Sacramento, felt renewed hope that the pendulum has finally started swinging in our favor. Of course, we don’t know what will happen with SB 695, and the road to justice and freedom will be long, but can accomplish amazing things when we stick together.
CALIFORNIAN RC’S: A PRESCRIPTION FOR A MASSIVE TRANSFUSION OF HOPE:
Please join us for the next phase of SB 695 on April 18 in the State Capitol, Room 4203 at 8:30 AM, where we will all speak support for the tiered registry bill to the Senate Public Safety Committee. After Janice speaks, the rest of us will get in a line behind the mic and each of us will just say “My name is _________ from _________. I ask you to support this bill.” Yes, those few words spoken by each of us really do have a powerful impact, especially if we can get 50 to 100 of us to do this!