SACRAMENTO – North Coast State Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) is one of 14 state senators to achieve a perfect 100-percent score from the Congress of California Seniors (CCS).
The CCS is a broad-based coalition of senior centers and residential facilities, women’s clubs, tenant and homeowner associations, faith-based organizations, community service groups, trade union retirees, retired federal/state/local and public school employee organizations, and other advocacy groups.
The CCS recently released its California Legislature 2009 Report Card assessing how state senators and assembly members voted on legislation important to California’s 4.5 million seniors.
According to CCS State President Henry Lacayo, 2009 “continued to be a difficult time for California seniors and for lawmakers to deal with those difficulties. The state’s fiscal collapse absorbed much of the time and attention of the legislature with nearly non-stop budget deliberations and special sessions to keep up with declining state revenues.”
Nevertheless, Lacayo added, the CCS “monitored dozens of bills covering health insurance reforms, nursing home care, training of homecare workers, affordable housing, and consumer protection.”
For its report card, the CCS scored legislators through their votes on a dozen key pieces of legislation in 2009. As previously noted, Wiggins was one of 14 (out of a total of 40) state senators to vote correctly on all 12 of the priority bills targeted by the CCS.
Those priority bills included:
– SB 18, increasing the financial penalties on those who abuse seniors and dependent adults, especially repeat offenders;
– SB 303, requiring informed consent of nursing home patients and their families before patients can be given any proposed treatment or procedure, especially psychotherapeutic drugs;
– SB 781, protecting residents of Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly from unreasonable eviction or transfer, including information on alternative housing and care options.
Assembly woman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), who has announced she'll run for Wiggins' seat when Wiggins retires next year, also achieved a 100-percent score.
