In progress.

Good afternoon.

And welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, November the 3rd, 2025.

They have world call fees.

Supervisor Ferdinando Bass.

Supervisor Alina Tam present.

Yeah, quorum.

Thank you.

Let's move to the federal legislative update from CJ Lake.

Good afternoon.

Emily Baket DeSilva here with CJ Lake.

I mean, you know, still in a shutdown.

I will say uh at this point, uh USDA was able to uh again provide WIC benefits over the weekend from uh the tariff revenues.

So WIC is covered, um, military uh has been paid.

Of course, SNAP, and that's what we're all kind of talking about and trying to kind of parse through what it all means.

Um, so I'll tell you kind of what I know at this point.

Um, you know, again, uh, you know, there were a number of uh states plus DC that sued.

Uh USDA said today that um they will provide partial funding.

Uh it's 4.6 billion, which is partial benefits for the month of November.

They're using the SNAP contingency fund, which they had previously previously said they could not use.

In general, I think it it cost about nine billion a month to pay um to pay out full SNAP benefits.

Um there were a couple documents that were included uh in the decision from uh this afternoon, and I will include those with the notes and Amy maybe can talk about the California state system.

But one of the things, of course, that people are asking is at what point will individuals receive their partial benefits.

And I just don't think we have an answer quite yet.

Over the weekend, I was hearing that it could just be a couple days um for USDA to kind of turn it back on.

I don't think that is the case any longer.

Um it depends on the state's individual systems, some of which are decades old.

Again, I'm not sure about the California system, but in this legal uh document, USDA says it's their understanding is that the system changes states must implement to provide the reduced benefit amounts will take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.

Um again, you know, that was submitted to the courts today.

Um I don't know again if uh with California it can be done sooner, but I just I want to let you know that I think we still meet need more guidance from USDA, uh, but that is what we have seen so far um as it relates there.

Um, also seeing, you know, slowdowns uh at TSA today, uh, a checkpoint, I believe, in the Houston airport.

Uh, they were saying it was like three hours long for TSA.

We're seeing ground stops um over the weekend.

We were seeing it at different airports.

It seems, and again, I hate to say it, but it seems like we're getting to kind of a pressure point this week where people want to reach some sort of deal.

Um, I don't know what that looks like.

I don't know what the off ramp is, but rank and file senators are having conversations.

Republicans and democrats leadership, I don't think is a part of it just yet, uh, but those conversations are happening.

You know, there are elections tomorrow.

Um, people seem to feel like maybe there could be some sort of deal later this week, and then a vote next week.

Um, again, lots of speculation, but it feels like we are getting to this point.

Um, John, did I kind of miss anything on like the big picture stuff?

Uh no, I don't think so in the big picture.

The one thing that I would add is uh so the house is again out of session, the senate is in session, so the ball is still very much in the Senate's court on how and when to end the shutdown.

The president has so far remained broadly out of the picture.

With the exception of last week, he called for again the elimination of the filibuster, which was soundly rejected so far by uh Majority Leader Thune and a lot of ranking member or ranking rank and file members of the Republican Caucus.

Um tomorrow, uh both the Republican and the Democratic Conference and Caucus have their lunch where the rank and file and the leadership get together and discuss strategy for the remainder of the week and the following week.

So we do anticipate that the lunches are going to be very animated as senators kind of understand that they've reached the end of their rope on both sides.

So senators will land sometime today if they haven't already for initial round of votes in the upper chamber where those initials conversations could start.

And then they will likely bleed into tomorrow during the lunch.

So tomorrow afternoon, we could have a better understanding from the Democratic and the Republican perspective of how exactly they choose to move forward.

Emily, you may have mentioned this already, but forgive me if you did.

The conversations on the Democratic and the Republican side for full year appropriations started a little bit more in earnest with uh Senator Collins talking to Senator Thune and some of the more moderate members that initially voted for the CR in March and then uh voted against it most recently has started on the with Mr.

Schumer.

So despite there not being a off-ramp on the CR, um conversations and full year appropriations are beginning on the Senate side.

Now that doesn't mean anything on what the House chooses to do because the House right now is pretty much in lockstep with what the White House wants to do.

Um, but the Senate is looking to open up conversations on fully appropriations.

Um whether or not they can get that over the finish line after they do eventually open the government back up, as anyone's guess.

Um, but there seems to be a hunger on the part of Congress to start legislating again, even with members of the House who are been starting to get a little itchy that they've been out of town for more than six weeks and their constituents are starting to notice them more at the grocery store than uh they usually do.

So happy to answer any questions on kind of where things stand, but the conventional wisdom really seems to be that this is going to be a linchpin week.