The committee received updates on federal and state legislation, reviewed language access services, and heard public comments. No votes were taken; the meeting served as an informational session and discussion forum.
Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, June the 15th, 2026. May I have roll call, please? The Supervisor Portana Boss. Supervisor TAM. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you very much. Would you like to go through instructions on participation? For all participants, please state your name for the record prior to your presentation. If you wish to speak on an item not on the agenda, please wait until Chair TAM calls for public input on non-agendized items. Only matters within the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed to notify the clerk you wish to speak for in-person participants. Please fill out a speaker card and hand it to the clerk. The speaker cards are at the front of the room. For online participants, please use the raise hand function when we aren't on an item that you wish to comment on. For Daladin participants, please Dow star five to use the raise hand function. Dialing it again allows you to lower your hand. The clerk will call your name when it is time for public comment. If you are in person, please come to the podium to speak. If you are online or dialed in, the clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute. That concludes the clerk instructions for public comment. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will start with the federal legislative update from CJ Lake. Good afternoon. You've got Emily Baket de Silva here and John Assini is also here, but I don't think he's been elevated to presenter, so he cannot unmute. But I'll go ahead and um kick it off. The Senate is in session this week, but the House is out, and they'll be out until June 22nd. Um last week, I know we've talked about this in PAL, but um House Republicans did end up passing the 70 billion reconciliation package funding for ICE and CBP. Um and basically it's uh three years through the end of President Trump's term. Um the bill cleared the House on a party line vote 214 to 212 after the Senate passed it on June 5th. Um President Trump did sign the bill into law last Wednesday, you know. This ends the months long standoff um over immigration enforcement funding. Um Republicans have now started to shift their attention to a possible third reconciliation package. Um, but honestly, Republican leadership hasn't coalesced around specific proposals to include. And I think we've talked about this with just such narrow majorities and really a limited legislative calendar, the chances of moving another reconciliation package are pretty slim. Um, you know, one of the things we've talked about too is appropriations and of course this was the funding for ICE and CBP that was really FY26 funding. Um, and that's what kind of led to the uh shutdown of DHS for for such a long time. I know we mentioned this last week as well, but you know, the house has been passing appropriations bills out of committee in a pretty partisan fashion. Um it's usually the Senate that uh starts usually later than the than the House. And last year, all the bills they passed out of committee were bipartisan. Uh last week when we talked to you guys, um, I still remember John saying that um, you know, there had been some delays for markups uh the week prior, and um there was an attempt to mark up six bills last week. That ended up being delayed as well, and it's simply because Republicans and Democrats on the Senate side cannot reach an agreement on a top-line number in order to move forward. So it just shows kind of the problems that we are going to have uh trying to uh wrap up or even start FY27. So I just wanted to make that note. Um another issue we've been talking about is uh the FISA extension. That's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Um, and Congress did fail to extend Section 702 uh last week after members deadlocked over President Trump's appointment of the head the federal housing finance agency director, Bill Poulty. Um he had nominated him to be acting director of the um national intelligence. And so the house voted on a short-term extension, but the measure failed, uh, with most Democrats and 18 Republicans voting against it. The Senate also tried to pass a short-term extension through uh unanimous consent, but that effort failed as well.