California Police Chief- Fall 2013 CPCA_2017_Winter Magazine Final | Page 11

The legislative process itself sets a series of hurdles for each measure. First hurdle is a committee hearing to decide if the policy makes sense, then an appropriations hearing to decide if it’s worth funding, then a group vote – after that, the bill switches Houses and the process happens again. At each step, there’s an opportunity to push for amendments or outright kill the bill. Deciding if and when to negotiate is arguably a more important discussion than taking the initial position. As such, a tremendous amount of calculation goes into these decisions. There are two main reasons we decide to negotiate on a bill: 1) we agree there’s a problem to be addressed, or 2) we realize we can’t stop a bill from becoming law. The latter of those two always leads to a tougher decision. Discussions about negotiating a bad bill typically center on whether to take a philosophical stance regardless of the consequences, or try and salvage the best possible outcome to protect the public and make our jobs a little easier. A perfect example was SB 54, the “Sanctuary State” bill from this year. After gathering intel from every possible source – Governor’s office, law enforcement groups, Senate and Assembly, etc. – and evaluating the political context, vote records and draft amendments, it became abundantly clear the potential for the bill to be signed was too high for us not to engage. In this case, since SB 54 was such a high-profile issue, the final decision involved our Execu- tive Committee and entire Board of Directors. Ultimately, we were successful in getting our amendments adopted, and agreed to take a neutral position (despite political pressure on CPCA to support the bill). Without knowledge of that back story, most on the outside couldn’t see why CPCA would remove our opposition; but knowing it was a deliberate action taken after hours of conversations, ne- gotiations, and successful compromise that considered all factors involved, sheds light on that decision. Throughout the year, CPCA sends updates to keep our members informed of our legislative positions, but it’s often hard to convey, in short, all the details regarding any specific issue. I hope that by providing insight into our process, you’ll at least rest assured that every legislative decision CPCA makes is a thoughtful and calculated effort to do what’s best for our members and the communities we are all sworn to protect. To that end, I would be remiss to not acknowledge and thank my vice chairs, committee members, and CPCA staff for their countless hours of work and dedication – it truly makes a difference in the out- Proudly serving public safety, law enforcement and corrections agencies with leading edge civil and criminal justice technology solutions for public safety, investigation, corrections and monitoring, including: Emergency Response XCAD, RMS, XMobile Incident Management Information Management Investigation Inmate Self-Service Biometric Analysis Monitoring Sr. Account Executive Tonette Chatman [email protected] SecurusTechnologies.com comes we face every day. ■ WINTER 2017 | California Police Chief 11