California Legislature delays start of 2021 session due to uncontrolled COVID-19 numbers
The California Legislature has pushed its return date to Sacramento for the start of the 2021 session back by a week to Jan. 11 due to staggering COVID-19 numbers, according to a joint statement from Democratic leadership.
“With the number of COVID-19 cases reaching all-time highs and in an effort to keep members, Legislative staff, and all staff in the Capitol as safe as possible, both the Assembly and Senate have decided to move the date of our return to session to January 11, 2021,” Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, said in a Friday statement.
The massive surge in new infections has sapped hospital capacity, forcing 98% of the state into regional stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stymie the spread of the virus, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a Friday video.
The state’s seven-day average case count is now 39,810, much higher than the state’s summer surge, and the positivity rate has climbed to 12.8%, more than double the threshold recommended for public health officials to relax restrictions and reopen the economy.
Newsom called this period a “critical juncture” in the pandemic, and urged Californians to stay vigilant as the state enters a “surge phase” of freeing up more beds for intensive care.
“I don’t want people to be alarmed by that,” Newsom said, “except I do want to raise the alarm bell about what we all must do individually and collectively to address this rate of growth.”
The Legislature’s announced calendar revision is only the latest in a year blemished by multiple interruptions to its 2020 schedule. In March, lawmakers recessed for more than a month during the start of the first surge in California, then postponed session again amid a second spike during the summer, when a handful of members tested positive.
Disruptions caused bills and committee hearings to be cut, and tension to rise between houses.
Everything came to a head on the final night of the 2020 session, however, after Sen. Brian Jones, R-Santee, tested positive for the virus on Aug. 26. Because they’d had contact with Jones, most Senate Republicans were forced to enter quarantine for the Aug. 31 final night of session, when lawmakers faced a midnight deadline to pass a slew of critical bills related to police accountability, housing production and paid family leave.
Republicans had to vote remotely, which led to inter-party bickering over debate logistics that chiseled precious time from the clock.
Using 2020 as their lesson, both Atkins and Rendon said during recent interviews with The Sacramento Bee that the pandemic will continue requiring quick logistical pivots in the Capitol.
Rendon moved the Assembly to the Golden 1 Center in downtown Sacramento for the Legislature’s constitutionally required Dec. 7 Organizational Session to allow for social distancing instead of holding the ceremony in the Assembly chamber.
Both houses have also instituted pandemic protocols that range from temperature checks, mandatory masking and social distancing, plexiglass installations at the Capitol’s entrance and more frequent cleaning.
Still, the delay underscores how challenging it will be to continue working uninterrupted in 2021. Almost daily, new cases in the Capitol community prompt email alerts to all staff and members to announce another case in state government buildings.
The infections both inside and outside the Capitol, along with state warnings against cross-county traveling, could wrinkle timing for important bills related to extending the eviction moratorium and cleaning up problems in the Employment Development Department.
Atkins said she anticipated remote participation “being a big part of our work moving forward,” an allowance that could prove handy if lawmakers are exposed to or test positive for COVID-19.
“We understand that we may not have considered everything that could happen, everything that could come our way,” Atkins said. “But we’ve become more flexible and fluid.”
Rendon also said that anyone infected with or exposed to COVID-19 will not be allowed back into the building until “they have a clean bill of health.”
“As the holidays get underway,” Atkins and Rendon’s joint statement concluded, “we hope all Californians will continue to follow public health guidelines in an effort to mitigate the spread of this virus.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 5:10 PM.