 Pete
Conaty - Legislative Advocate to the California
Legislature;
Member of Post 108, District 11.
Quick Links
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Department of CA Legislative Commission
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Legislative Bills in California
Legislative Advocate - Issues and Comments:
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Capitol Update - Report to the Spring D.E.C. - March
12, 2011
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CDVA Budget for Veterans Services / Situation
looking better
Useful Websites for Veterans Advocacy:
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How to write a letter in support of a bill:
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American Legion Legislative Action Links:
Legislative Bills in Sacramento
For users of the Internet;
The California state legislation has a website for
searching bills: www.leginfo.ca.gov
To
search, select the session, and House of origin, and
type the keywords and author name(s). If you know the
bill, select the session, and House of origin, and type
the bill number to retrieve this information.
An Index is available which lists all bills introduced
in the Assembly and Senate. After going through the
search of the particular state legislative bills, users
are offered the opportunity to make feedback information
or comments regarding the pending state legislation.
Comment on an Assembly Bill
The members of the California Assembly welcome your
participation on their bills. The screens are designed
and will help you to communicate with your legislators
in a way similar to commenting through the mail. All you
need to do is enter your comments - support, opposition,
ideas for amendments - and the Assembly's network will
deliver your comments to the author of the bill you are
interested in.
For more links to the California Legislature: Visit
our Legislative Commission Page
Pete Conaty
Department of California
Legislative Advocate
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American Legion: CDVA Budget for Veterans Services /
Situation looking better
As most of you are aware, the proposed state budget for
the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CDVA)
eliminated $10 million for local assistance funding for
Operation Welcome Home which was to have funded County
Veterans Services Offices and Veteran Service
Organizations which was just put into the budget last
year after a hard fought battle.
Recently, I and CVSO representatives met with the
governor’s office to explain the Local Assistance
Program (sometime referred to as subvention) and believe
that we were able to make the case to the Governor’s
office that the $10 million funding should be restored.
CDVA has also been working on this issue and according
to Acting CDVA Secretary Rocky Chavez, “CDVA’s
mission is advocating for veterans. This mission and
commitment by CDVA is a mission accepted with humility
and executed with élan. I am confident that we can make
this adjustment. As many of us know, budget decisions
are about priorities and I can assure you that the need
of returning veterans is a top priority to this
administration”.
California’s recent budget submittal reduced General
Fund expenditure for outreach to the recently returning
Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, this
proposal is just a starting point in a long budget
building process. CDVA is committed to supporting these
returning heroes and feels confident that the reductions
of funds for this outreach can be absorbed by the CDVA
budget. At the time of this writing, CDVA is working
closely with the Governor’s staff to present a plan to
meet the savings required to address the budget deficit
while supporting our returning heroes.
Also, because the Governor has declared a “fiscal
emergency” for the state, he wants a new budget done in
45 days. Therefore it is possible that this funding
issue will resolved very soon. We will keep you posted
as events unfold. I will be drafting a very respectful
letter for your organization to send to the governor
asking that he restore this funding.
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