About this event:

DRC is standing in total opposition to a current batch of bad bills on mental health and public safety. This online town hall will be a place for the community to come together and learn about these bad bills and their terrible implications for Californians.

Our panel will discuss and layout what’s wrong with these bills, why they need to be opposed without negotiation, and the overall policy direction of Gov. Newsom and some in the legislature that needs to be fought and changed with people power. After the panel discussion we will have a Q&A with attendees.

The Bad Bills:

SB 27 (Umberg) – Umberg has gotten a CARE Court update bill passed every year since, each of which has increased its coercion and expanded its reach. This bill would vastly widen the kind of diagnoses that justify the state for involuntary commitment and treatment, and would expedite their ability to do so, significantly eroding due process. The bill pushes to secure more funding for the court system not to expand actual health services. This is the scariest and most central bill in pushing this awful policy direction aggressively forward. Legislators who originally voted for Care Court said it was limited and narrowly focused. Now those same legislators face a choice: will they back this sweeping expansion? Being heard in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, July 1, 9 am in the Capitol, room 437.

SB 331 (Menjivar) - This bill would classify any diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM,) as a “mental health disorder” eligible for involuntary commitment. This would mean that people could be forced into locked wards even if their only diagnosis is, for example, gender dysphoria (the diagnosis many trans people need to obtain insurance coverage of gender-affirming care), caffeine withdrawal, or restless leg syndrome.  

SB 367 (Allen) – A bill that would make it easier to lock people into conservatorships and harder to get them out. 

SB 820 (Stern) - This bill would create a new way to expedite involuntary medication orders for jailed misdemeanor defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial. It is pushing harsh involuntary mental health approaches. Being heard in Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, July 1, 9 am in the Capitol room 126.

ASL, Spanish interpreting and auto captions will be provided

Moderator

• Eric Harris is Disability Rights California’s Associate Executive Director of External Affairs with an extensive career working closely with disability leaders, community members, and elected officials throughout the country to progress change for the disability community.

Panelists

• Lex Steppling is an Organizer with LACAN and a founding member of All People’s Health Collective. He has worked for most of his life organizing for abolition.
• Katherine Wolf, MPH, MESc, is a disabled queer doctoral student and activist in the Sustainability and Health Equity and Disabled Ecologies laboratories at the University of California at Berkeley. Her research, at the intersection of environmental health and disability studies, focuses on the geographic siting of psychiatric facilities for forced treatment in California. As a member of the All People's Health Collective and Peers Advocating for Rights and Recovery, she fights to end coercion in medical systems and build a world where everyone has what they need to flourish and be free.
• Kendra J. Muller (they/them) is a disabled, queer attorney from Disability Rights California (DRC), the nation’s largest non-profit disability rights firm. As a part of the Civil Rights Practice Group, Muller seeks to challenge civil rights violations and provide advocacy for historically marginalized and underserved communities, including 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, veterans, unhoused persons, people of color, multilingual individuals, seniors, and low-income communities. At a policy level, Muller provides analysis of state legislation and regulations affecting the queer community.
  Muller is a board member of Rainbow Spaces, a non-profit dedicated to creating inclusive spaces for queer youth. Muller is a prior member of the California Department of Managed Health Care Transgender, Gender Diverse, or Intersex (TGI) Working Group. Muller has been a guest lecturer for current legal code issues for gender identity in California, and assisted and moderated events with the U.N. Independent Expert on violence and discrimination of LGBTQIA+ individuals. Muller brings a research background, emphasizing synthesizing public policy, science, and law to find solutions for disability justice, public health, and human rights.