00:00Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really like to do data, facts, and dates. So let's have some.
00:05Seven months ago, there was a different president in the White House. Let's be clear. The challenges
00:10Californians faced are the same ones they are now. But then, back then, seven months ago,
00:17the average cost of a home in this state was $825,000. One in every five Californians right
00:24now can't afford their utility bills. Recent college graduates were drowning in student loan
00:29debt, and small businesses were shuttering at an alarming rate. The fact of the matter
00:33is this. The common denominator in all of this isn't who sits in the White House. It's the
00:42priorities of the legislature. Excuse me, Assemblymember Tangipa. Just a moment. Assemblymember Harbidian,
00:47state your point of order. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We'd ask the speakers to actually speak to the
00:53bill in front of us. Thank you, Assemblymember Harbidian. Your point is well taken.
00:57Assemblymember Tangipa, please speak to the merits of this bill.
01:02And we are here today debating a bill that does nothing to address housing affordability,
01:09utility rates, education, or small business survival. Instead, we're debating a bill that
01:13writes blank checks for an election that solves nothing that was never asked by anybody.
01:20The Legislative Analysis Office and the Department of Finance, two offices that rarely agree on much,
01:25are in lockstep on one thing. Our state faces a structural deficit between $10 billion and $30
01:32billion until 2028. We don't even know the final cost of this election. The analysis says it'll
01:39likely run in the hundreds of millions of dollars when at a time when we're already in the red.
01:44And that's even before we even factor in the additional blank checks that are written by the
01:49Attorney General for an inevitable litigation that will truly, truly follow. Colleagues, this bill and
01:57the manner in which it is being forced through the legislature is the exact opposite of fiscal
02:01responsibility. Again, as a business owner and a realtor, it usually takes around 21 days to perform
02:08due diligence when spending $500,000 on a home. I can't even get 21 minutes in a committee to perform
02:19due diligence and we're debating on spending over $200 million. That's just financial insanity. This is
02:25a bill that would spend millions of dollars and affect 40 million Californians. Writing blank checks
02:33without due diligence is grossly negligent. Californians deserve more than two hearings,
02:39limited comments, and no answers. Rather than wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on a special
02:43election that nobody asked for, we have an opportunity to reevaluate our priorities. The money could be used
02:50to address very real and critical issues. Madera County, a rural county, the hospital is struggling to
02:58remain open. In that exact county, you cannot have a baby in it. And I represent them along with others.
03:05Colleagues, let's be honest. This bill is not about solving California's real problems. It's about
03:11political gamesmanship at the expense of 40 million people who are already stretched to their limits.
03:16Every dollar we throw at a vanity project is a dollar we steal from families who cannot afford
03:22groceries from the 68 hospitals on the verge of closing its doors, from students buried in debt,
03:28and small businesses just trying to survive. If we pass this bill, we're not just writing blank checks,
03:36we're writing off the very people we elected to serve. Californians deserve leadership, not recklessness.
03:42They deserve solutions, not distractions. They deserve a legislature that treats their hard-earned tax
03:48dollars the same as they treat their own. I will not stand by and rubber-stamp financial insanity.
03:55I urge you to join me in rejecting this wasteful, short-sighted, and hypocritical bill.
04:02When asked multiple times, how much does it cost? Can we allocate money? I was attacked over and over
04:09and over again. And if we want to use hypocrisy as an argument, then let's look at it. Let's look at the
04:17independent redistricting. Let's look at all of this. Let's bring up 1441 when it was. If you even
04:23read the bill, if you even read that partisan gerrymandering bill, you would realize that it's
04:30based off of the registration in that county gets the majority, and it also has written in that bill
04:35that the minority party doesn't even have to agree with it. That is structurally different than the
04:41independent redistricting commission we have here. And it is a blatant lie, and you are trying to gaslight
04:46people, that we are hypocritical. Let me do you one better, because I look at this so much.
04:51There's another bill that was AB 2030 in 2022 that created the exact same thing. That was a partisan
04:59citizens redistricting commission. I ask that you look at a non-partisan independent one, and you
05:04protect the sanctity of it, and you also prioritize the Californians' wallets, because they can't afford
05:10the BS. I urge a no.
