Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, November the 10th, 2025.

May I have roll call, please?

Supervisor Fortunato Pass.

Supervisor Pam present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Let's start with day 41 of the shutdown and the federal legislation update.

Good afternoon.

You've got Emily Bacque de Silva and John Assini here with CJ Lake.

It looks like the Senate, they're trying to work an agreement and could vote uh tonight.

I'm hearing as early as five o'clock, which is 30 minutes from now.

If that's the case, I think that's the expectation that the House would vote on Wednesday.

So that's what it's looking like right now.

Of course, anything can change, but it seems like Senators, now that the deal has been reached, want to get out of here and just get it done.

So, you know, Speaker Johnson has already called the House back.

Um, and so I think again, the House votes would be scheduled for Wednesday.

Um, I mean, you guys know last night the Senate voted 60 to 40 um to on a motion to proceed.

Uh eight Democrats joined Republicans, um, you know, Shaheen and Hassan from New Hampshire, Durbin from Illinois, Kane from Virginia, King from Maine, who has um continued to vote in favor, Rosen from Nevada, Cortez Masto from Nevada.

She's another one who's continued uh to support, and then Fetterman from Pennsylvania.

You know, those were the three that were consistently um voting with Republicans on the House Pass CR.

Uh just noting these members are either retiring or are not up for reelection uh in 2026.

Uh it includes a continuing resolution through January 30th.

Um a piece that's interesting is it does include a three-bill minibus, uh, three appropriations bills for FY26.

So it would fund for the remainder of FY26, agriculture, military construction, veterans' affairs, and legislative branch.

Um, you know, on the upside as far as AG, that means if we were to have some other sort of shutdown, SNAP and WIC would not be impacted.

Um I will say also, and I think John and I have talked about this in previous PAL calls when we were talking about the shutdown.

You know, we were saying there does seem to be like if we can get out of the shutdown, there seems to be a desire to pass FY26 appropriations bills.

And so the fact that kind of these first bills will go alongside the CR, I think says a lot.

Um, and so I think it gives us hope that they will pass um, you know, full year bills for the the remaining uh agencies, if not before January 30th.

Hopefully they will get some through um, you know, by January 30th.

Um John, what else?

I mean, those the extenders, health care extenders were also included.

So funding for community health centers, um, uh the telehealth flexibilities.

Um, I'm I know I'm missing a lot, John, but I'll turn it to you.

I mean, those are kind of the big items.

Um, yeah, I mean, the the CR's extensions are basically the same from what they were agreed to in the house.

So there weren't a whole lot of changes.

I mean, the big the big triumph is to your point, the three bill mini bus that was included.

Um you're right to say that they're gonna start voting at five.

They have seven votes scheduled, and the senate's going to be out for the rest of the week.

Senators have already started to book nighttime fights to go back home.

Tomorrow is the Veterans Day holiday.

Um, and then the House will be back on Wednesday for their vote.

We anticipate that will likely pass as some Democrats are probably going to vote for the CR.

Um, of course, Jeffrey's and the leadership team are very upset with the Senate um for compromising last night.

Um, but I think that there's a consensus in the Democratic coalition um that it was a mistake to move forward, but there's also a good number of members uh whose constituents um are from heavily impacted areas where they think that this is something they could potentially vote for.

So it'll be interesting to see what the House vote is.

Of course.

The Senate um has a 60 vote threshold.

The House has only two votes to spare.

Um, so Johnson will need to have near unanimous consent.

Um, of course, there were two Republicans that voted against the CR when it passed on September 18th.

Um, so it'll we'll be watching the House very closely to see if there's any Democrats that go along and vote for the opening government on Wednesday or Thursday.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Supervisor Fortunatabas, questions, comments.

Um I guess we'll wait and see.

Although I do want to note that um I heard that our two California senators were on the no side.

Um, you know, it's frustrating.

I know there's going to be a vote on health care by December.

Um is there, I mean, given that this passed the Senate, is there any movement, any additional movement that you might see at the House regarding health care?

It's a great question.

I I don't think we know the answer, only majority leader foon has agreed to hold a vote in the Senate.

Um I I do know, kind of separate from the subsidy issue, the House and the Senate had been talking about some sort of bipartisan health care package that they wanted to bring up at the end of the year.

I don't know what that looks like at this point.

So, you know, theoretic yes, they could bring something up, but I just don't think the House is quite there on the subsidies.

And in fact, House Republicans oppose for the most part.

Now there are some kind of moderates who um were introducing bipartisan bills with House Democrats to try and get us out of this.

Um, but I just don't know that kind of the impetus is there for the speaker to bring up kind of a standalone vote on it.

But John, please jump in.

Jeffries um may be filing a discharge petition on a bill that would extend the enhanced premium tax credit for one year.

Um it's unclear what vehicle they would use and which bill is eligible to be discharged from committee because it is a kind of an onerous process.

So I I don't have any sort of details on which bill would get discharged, how that would exactly work.

Of course, discharge discharge petition is something that's used typically by the minority.

It very, very rarely gets over the finish line because if a minority party wants to use a discharge petition, they have to get consent from some members of the majority, which undermines the authority of the speaker, which then puts you into a bad place with the leadership of the house.

Um so uh a discharge petition strategy is usually one that does not work, is more to try to put pressure on the majority party.

Um but again, when you're in the minority in the house, there are very few options that you have to sort of make any influence um on policy or any sort of legislation they have.

But that that's kind of one strategy that they're exploring right now.

Again, strategy of last resort.

Um, as Dembly's point, there's no commitment as part of part of Speaker Johnson to include a bill that would extend the enhanced premium tax credits.

Um the other other item is the Senate may also start looking at a tax extenders package.

There was some provisions that were included in the OBBA that already need to be reformed.

Um, notably there was a provision that um changed the way that you could deduct um losses from gambling debt that's supposed to go into effects next year.

So that could potentially see an opportunity for uh for changes in the tax code for your tax extended package, but again, it's going to require bipartisan compromise, um, which will likely mean that they'll have to make some uh income adjustments for who's eligible for the enhanced review of tax credits or other items that may make Democrats uncomfortable.

Because it would be ultimately a step down from what was passed by the Inflation Reduction Act under the Biden administration.

So, okay, uh, maybe just one more question, and this is also related to um to what's happening at the state.

Um, you know, I've been reading the newspaper and reading about uh the federal litigation regarding SNAP and CalFresh.

Um, where are we now?

I think that there was supposed to be something was supposed to be filed by um for Eastern, as I understand it.

Um, but where is all of that?

Can I weigh in, guys, here on the state side?

Sorry, Amy Costa full moon strategies.

I will say earlier this morning, I was going to report our attorney general, uh Rob Bonta had a press conference this morning uh with 23 attorney generals throughout the country uh filing a motion for a temporary restraining order in the U.S.

district court for the district of Massachusetts.

In his press conference, uh the coalition noted that their TRO request was that the USDA has failed to explain how states that sent full benefits during the Rhode Island District Court's order were in effect and how states can undo the issuance of those benefits.

The coalition announced that the US district court for the district of Massachusetts granted its request to pause the USDA's November 8th guidance document from taking effect and set a remote hearing today at 12 30 uh Pacific time.

Um I haven't seen the results of that, but um things are still very much in flux in the courts right now on this issue.

And and I will say, I mean, I was seeing today that like some states, like to your point, Amy, have um have put out full benefits, some partial, like it's just kind of it's it depends on the state as to who has done what.

I mean, it's it's a huge mess.

Um, and I think it could probably reopen before um, you know, if if the House votes on Wednesday, president could sign it, I guess, Wednesday night, depending on Thursday.

So I mean it could reopen before any of this is even decided.

Thank you.

Uh just following up on that.

So uh the president basically quote ordered that the states that distributed um partial benefits or or full benefits, like you know, the EPE cards were refilled, that they need to cease and decease.

But if the government reopens, does that over that edict get overtaken by events?

Uh yes, because then they would have the funds.

I mean, you know, it wouldn't be from the contingency funds anymore, it would be the full appropriations from uh the agriculture approbes bill.

So there shouldn't be a problem.

The funding is there.

But yeah, part of that edict was a threat that uh states could see some jeopardy in their federal funding allocations.

Uh does that affect um the reopening and refunding of the SNAP benefits?

I mean, I I don't think we know.

I think we're we're just assuming that once the full funding starts to flow, things should go back to normal.

But to your point, I I don't think we know what the admin has.

Quite frankly, Amy, I'll I'll let you.

I was gonna say, uh, to your point, Supervisor, on Saturday, the USDA released new guidance claiming that when if any state sent full SNAP benefits, it was unauthorized and they directed the state not to transmit transmit any complete benefits to the EBT processors.

Um, and they instructed states to continue processing and loading only the partial assistance, which was the 35% of benefits we've talked about.

Um the USDA further instructed states that had already issued full benefits, which California did over the weekend, to undo any steps taken to issue full benefits, warning to your point that a failure to comply may result in federal enforcement actions, including cancellation of the federal share of state administrative costs and holding states liable for any overissuance resulting from that noncompliance.

So to Emily's point, um, you know, my viewpoint is that, you know, if the vote happens and the president signs it from that period forward, we would be back into full benefits.

But there is going to be this period of time for Saturday until now, that we're not exactly sure how the feds are going to opine on those that did send out full benefits.

Um I can tell you how it works administratively is they do go out in tranches.

And so it's not like everybody in California got their benefits, you know, over the weekend.

Um, and so there'll be a slice here of individuals who did, and I think we'll have to wait and see kind of what the what the feds decide to do, hopefully post-shutdown.

Okay.

Um, so they vote tonight in 15 minutes.

It goes to the House on Wednesday.

Possibly get signed by the president on Friday.

So what does that mean in terms of the cascading of the reopening of the government?

Because clearly uh this is in an effort to try to address a whole number of issues before the holidays.

Will a lot of the impacts um get alleviated before the holidays if this happens?

I think that's the expectation.

Um, but you know, even with like air traffic, they're saying it could take a while.

It's not like it they just flip a switch.

Um, but yes, I mean, I think the hope is that by the holidays, things are kind of back to normal.

Okay, so we have at least a couple of weeks before we see what happens.

Thank you very much for that update.

Um, any public comments on the federal legislation update.

There are no speakers.

Okay.

So, Amy, continue with the state legislative update.

Thank you so much, Supervisor.

I gave you a little bit.

I was going to talk about SNAP.

So I gave you that part of my report.

And of course, we'll continue to monitor as we see what happens with these court cases and the temporary restoring restraining order requested by the attorney general.

Um, as reported last week, obviously, we had an election day in California, and voters did pass proposition 50.

Uh, the yes side got about 63.8% of the vote, and the no side about 36.2 for a total of about 8.9 million um uh votes cast in the state.

Um, just after a little 12 hours after the polls closed, the California Republicans filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging uh proposition 50.

The suit argues that the measure violates the 14th and 15 amendments by establishing districts that favor Latino voters over other racial and ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, incumbents and challengers, as I'm sure you've read over the weekend across both parties are scrambling to stake their claims on the newly drawn maps and making their um choices to run or to, in some cases, we're seeing some folks are choosing not to run.

Um, as part of his election night victory speech, the governor urged other democratically led states to follow suit with California's lead after uh voters overwhelmingly approved proposition 50.

Um he urged the leaders in Virginia, Maryland, New York, Illinois, and Colorado to meet the moment head on, urging Democrats uh to counter the Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Uh, this week, uh, and fresh off of his redistricting win, the governor is heading to climate talks in Brazil.

He is currently out of the country, traveling to Bellum, Brazil to attend a global climate summit.

Um, and his visit does coincide with the United Nations climate talks, where he's expected to highlight the state's leadership on emissions reductions and climate action.

While he won't be part of formal negotiations reserved only for national level leaders, Newsom spoke that's is on showcasing our state's progress and reinforcing the state's role as a global model at the sub-national level.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Supervisor Fortunatabas.

Um, appreciate just to get some clarification.

Um, the CalFresh and or the EBD uh card that was replenished, um, that came from the state funds.

Is that correct?

Or I I guess I don't know how to color the funds in terms of the SNAP benefits versus the CalFresh benefits.

So there was a window of time when the flows fund from the feds, based on the court actions, uh, where the state believed full benefits were fully authorized.

And so that was what was sent out.

Um, the only funds the state has offered is actually um 80 million dollars that was included in the current budget for food banks.

So none of the 80 million have been used yet, right?

I believe the governor actually sent that out to the food banks last week.

Um, so it's a funding source that goes directly to the food banks, and similar to the county's uh proposal on this, it helps leverage the dollars at the food banks.

Often they're able to buy in bulk in a way, um, and so and they have the infrastructure.

Um, and so those flows did fund late last week.

I I see.

Um, okay, that's helpful that clarification.

Um I have no other questions.

Are there any public comments on our state legislative update?

There are no speakers.

Okay.

Uh are there any public comments on items that are not on today's agenda.

There are no speakers.

Thank you.

And will those online uh please identify yourselves so we can appreciate your participation.

Good afternoon, Valerie Arkin, Supervisor Miley's office.

Good afternoon, Jessica Montes with Alameda County Community Food Bank.

Thank you.

Jessica Blakemore, Alameda County Health.

Mona Barra Gibson, Alameda County Assessor's Office.

That's all.

Thank you very much.

Meetings adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.