Changing the state, one bill at a time Changing the state, one bill at a time (January 21, 2005)

Lieber begins ambitious 2005 agenda

By Jon Wiener

The California State Assembly allows its members to submit only 40 bills in each two-year term. Last Friday afternoon, Sally Lieber was staring at a list of 60 she wants to propose.

Some of the top candidates on the list include increasing the penalties for sex crimes, adding protections for mobile homeowners and attempting to raise the minimum wage again. "We've got so much more to do than we've got space to do it in," Lieber said, as she thumbed through her packet.

The former Mountain View mayor, now the third-highest-ranking Democrat in the state's lower house, won election to her second term in November with 70 percent of the vote.

She already kicked off her legislative agenda for 2005, introducing AB22, a bill that would make human trafficking a felony in California.

"That one very much came out of my experience on (Mountain View City) Council," she said, referring to a series of police stings that broke up several local brothels masquerading as massage parlors. One of the bills would give city attorneys the right to file claims of behalf of the prostitutes, women who are often forced into the trade after being lured with a trip from their home countries to America.

"There's been a shift from looking at them as being perpetrators towards them as being victims," said Lieber, who also plans to introduce a bill that would erase the statute of limitations on rape.

A total of six bills dealing with mobile home parks are also high on her list of priorities for this year, including protections for homeowners in parks that are being converted to other uses.

After the governor vetoed her 2004 proposal to increase the minimum wage by a dollar over two years, Lieber went back to the drawing board. What she came back with was half of the original bill -- a one-year, 50-cent increase -- a compromise she believes has a better chance of passing.

Other bills in the works include a day-worker protection act, rules regarding the interrogation of developmentally-disabled crime suspects and new standards for toxic pollution in the workplace. Lieber is also a co-sponsor of a bill that aims to formally legalize gay marriage, an issue that she said is the most popular topic among constituents she hears from and the source of at least one e-mail every day.

Despite her busy legislative schedule, Lieber has been getting more involved in local politics. Last week she appeared before the Mountain View City Council to lobby for its prevailing wage for contract workers. She has also promised to appear before the council again, this time carrying bags of trash from the local refuse facility as a show of support for the workers there.
E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

State Assembly member Sally Lieber will host a town hall meeting this Saturday to hear from local residents. The forum is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon at Mountain View City Hall, 500 Castro St.

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