Psychedelic therapy and workers’ rights bills fail to advance in California’s tough budget year

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — As California faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, lawmakers must make tough decisions about which of the more than 1,000 measures still alive in the Legislature this year will not make the cut.

On Thursday, they stopped hundreds of bills from advancing to the Senate and Assembly floors via the so-called suspense file. It’s a mysterious process where lawmakers on two committees decide — with no explanation — which bills will get a chance to become law later this year and which ones should not move forward.

Typically, lawmakers pass roughly three-quarters of the bills during the process. But this year, something “out of the ordinary” happened, veteran lobbyist Chris Micheli said. He estimated that the Assembly Appropriations Committee only approved about 65% of bills on its suspense file, leaving more than 230 bills without a path to move forward.

Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the committee chair, said the state’s budget troubles are “no secret.” The committee held a bill to create a government-funded universal health care system, which Wicks has supported in the past.

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