Liz Ortega

Existing statutory provisions provide for direct benefit payments to individuals with disabilities pursuant to various programs, including (1) the State Supplementary Program for the Aged, Blind and Disabled (SSP) , which requires the State Department of Social Services to contract with the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services to make payments to SSP recipients to supplement Supplemental Security Income payments made available pursuant to the federal Social Security Act, (2) the Cash Assistance Program for Aged, Blind, and Disabled Legal Immigrants (CAPI) , which provides cash assistance to aged, blind, and disabled legal immigrants who are not citizens of the United States, as specified, (3) the state disability insurance program, which provides for the partial compensation for the wage losses suffered by eligible individuals unemployed because of disability, and (4) the workers' compensation system, which compensates an employee for injuries sustained in the course of the employee's employment.

The California Constitution requires urgency statutes to include in one section of the bill a statement of facts constituting the necessity for immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety. The California Constitution requires in each house the section and the bill to be passed separately, each by rollcall vote entered in the journal, 23 of the membership concurring. 

This measure would require a bill that reduces a direct benefit payment to an individual with a disability to only be passed by the enactment of an urgency statute and would prohibit the bill from including any other unrelated provisions. The measure would specify that its provisions only apply to SSP, CAPI, the state disability insurance program, and the workers' compensation system, as specified. The measure would make its provisions self-executing and severable.

A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by adding Section 29 to Article IV thereof, relating to individuals with disabilities.