Assemblywoman Betsy Butler addressed the Pacific Palisades Community Council last Thursday regarding a variety of state issues. Butler, who currently represents the 53rd Assembly District, which stretches from Marina del Rey to Torrance, is competing for the new 50th Assembly district seat against Republican Brad Torgan and Democrats Richard Bloom and Torie Osborn in the June 5 primary. Born and raised in Sacramento, Butler comes from a politically diverse home. ’My father’a huge Republican, my mother’a huge Democrat,’ she said. ‘We had lots of fun at the dinner table every night talking about all kinds of things.’ Butler believes it was those dinner-table discussions that encouraged her to go into politics. She was elected to the State Assembly in November 2010. The issue of elder care and protecting seniors resonates personally with Butler, whose late father dealt with Alzheimer’s disease the last 17 years of his life and whose mother is an active 85. She is working on three bills this year to address those issues. Since entering the Assembly, Butler has focused on improving access to services for veterans by providing access to veteran courts for those who commit minor crimes. There are 14 veteran courts in the state, including one in L.A. County, but she would like to see one in every county. In addition to providing court services, Butler wants to make sure the state is ready for what she calls ‘a massive influx’ of veterans in the state. the state. ’There are 230,000 California veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ she said. Upon completion of their deployment, these soldiers will likely return to California. Butler wants the state equipped to provide services to veterans coming home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and mental, addiction and anger issues. Another of Butler’s concerns is the health and safety of California’s 400,000 farm workers, who are still at risk even after the state issued heat-illness regulations in 2005 to protect outdoor workers. ’Since 2005, 16 people, that we know of, have passed away due to heat exhaustion,’ Butler said. One of the 16 who died was a 17-year-old girl, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, who was two months pregnant. ’When she died her body temperature was 108 degrees,’ Butler said. The assemblywoman is carrying a bill that would codify into state law the existing regulations, ensuring that agricultural employers provide shade and water to their workers. In addition, the bill would give employees the right of legal recourse when employers fail to comply with the law. Addressing the economic crisis and cutbacks taking place across the state, Butler assured the Council that she is doing her part to make things better. ’I am working really hard to make sure that we restore funding to the things that are important to us here,’ she said. ‘For me the number one priority is education.’ This means Butler is working to get Governor Brown’s new initiative on the ballot and passed in November. His tax-hike measure is designed to raise money for education and lessen cuts to public safety. ’We have a tight timeline [mid-May] to get it registered for the ballot,’ Butler said. In addition, she is supporting The Middle Class Scholarship Act, a plan that could help families who make less than $150,000 a year by cutting tuition at California’s public universities by two-thirds. Approximately 150,000 CSU students and 42,000 UC students would qualify. To pass the plan requires a two-thirds vote in each house, and it would be paid for entirely by closing the $1 billion corporate tax loophole that allows out-of-state corporations to elect to lower their California tax bill. In the question phase of the evening, Councilmember Barbara Kohn asked Butler what could be done to keep the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) strong as legislatures attempt to weaken it. CEQA is a statewide statute passed in 1970 that makes environmental protection a mandatory part of the decision-making process by state and local agencies. The statute requires state and local agencies within California to follow a protocol of analysis and public disclosure regarding environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts. Agencies must identify mitigation measures and alternatives by preparing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Butler said CEQA is ‘imperative’ to keeping California beautiful and that streamlining Assembly bills so that they are more effective is one way to address the issue. This year Butler is attempting to marry jobs with the environment, even though early in her career she was told that she had to choose one or the other’jobs or the environment. ’I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I believe that we are getting to a place where the environment and the labor movement can work together.’ The environment has always been a priority for Butler. Prior to her election to the Assembly she worked for the Environmental Defense Fund and the California League of Conservation Voters to protect people from toxic polluters. A native of California, Butler was born in Sacramento and graduated from San Diego State University and from the Executive Program in Management at UCLA. She has been a resident of Marina del Rey and the South Bay area for more than 20 years and has been involved in local grassroots organizations to promote green and responsible development.
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