SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Assemblymember Jim Patterson asked Pamela Smith to testify in front of the Assembly Public Safety committee a few weeks ago to share her son’s story.
“I met with the ER doctor who simply told me, 'we've been working on him for over an hour, and there's nothing more we can do,' and he asked me if I would like to see my son,” Smith said.
Jackson Smith, 22, died after he overdosed.
“Within seconds of entering that room, the doctor said 'time of death 3:18'," Smith said. "Since Jackson's death, I have made it my mission to fight this fentanyl crisis.”
But Smith didn’t get to testify. “I find it outrageous and I hope that you do as well,” she said.
Committee Chair Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer said he was afraid that if the bills proceeded as normal, none of them would pass. He wants to hold an informational hearing before bringing the bills up for a vote.
“For the Public Safety chair to say now, 'oh, I'm gonna wait till September and have some conversation about it?," Assembly Republican Leader James Gallager said, "I'm sorry. You're taking too long, and I think the California public thinks he's taking too long. We have good ideas. They have been discussed, but you won't even vet them.”
Assembly Public Safety Committee Chair Reginald Jones-Sawyer wants everyone to know this issue is personal to him too.
“I have an uncle or had an uncle, who died of a heroin overdose," Jones Sawyer said. "I have had a cousin who died of crack cocaine. I know what the effects of drug abuse has on individuals.”
He said he hopes to hold a hearing in June.
“I was very concerned that a lot of the bills that were coming through, weren't making it through, they were dying in our committee," Jones-Sawyer said. "I decided I need to save the remaining bills so that we can have an educated discussion on both the demand side and the supply side.”
Whether the bills are heard in June or earlier, Jone-Sawyer said they still wouldn’t go into effect until at least January if they passed.
Republicans point out that they, along with some Democrats, have been introducing bills to address the fentanyl crisis for years. Jones-Sawyer said he would like to give the authors the chance to bring them back to life with some changes they discuss in the hearing. Those bills can be voted on again in January.
Republicans will attempt to bypass the committee entirely on Thursday and bring the remaining bills up for a vote on the floor of the Assembly.
One of the bills would enhance sentences for dealers who kill or seriously injure people they sell the drug to. Another would increase penalties for those possessing large quantities of it.
Chair Jones-Sawyer sent a statement saying in part: “The California Constitution provides the Legislature with the ability to create committees for the consideration of legislative proposals and recommendations to the full Legislature for a vote. As Chair of the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, I believe the attempt to subvert that process by 18 members of a single party representing less than one-quarter of Californians is nothing more than a high jacking of our democratic process. This is of course nothing new with regard to the Republican playbook."
WATCH RELATED: Bill stiffening penalties for fentanyl dealers stalls in committee (April 2023).