Final Legislative Session Wrap-Up

Now that we're a month out from the end of session, we know what happened to all of our priority bills. 

One of our biggest priorities this session was extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months(SB232). During the beginning of session, we were scrambling to find a sponsor for this priority. Although a lot of legislators are interested in the policy, especially supporting it, there were very few who were willing to be the bill champion. Luckily with the help of our partner, Children's Advocacy Alliance, we were able to get Senator Majority Leader Nicole Canizzarro as a bill sponsor and champion. Postpartum Medicaid was introduced 3 times, and the bill never made it passed the "money" committees, or Ways & Means. This bill passed out of committee, both houses, and was signed by the governor. This was a huge lift from our coalition partners and other legislators. 

A bill that we were able to support was SB118, which was lead by the health districts and sponsored by Senator Fabian Donate. This bill invested $15 million in our health districts so that they can address pressing public health issues. This is an impressive investment in our public health infrastructure, especially as we are working on the aftercare from COVID-19. Although there were some set backs and working on getting support from the governor, this bill was eventually signed and passed. With these great wins, there is a lot for us to celebrate. 

From this session, we have a lot of potential for campaigns next session including tobacco retail licensure, tobacco control program funding, and paid family and medical leave. We made great strides in finding champions for our issues and built up our coalitions to take on these issues. 

All in all, this was a VERY successful session and there will be lots of actions from here!