SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - After 158 years without missing a scheduled day of deliberations, the California Legislature is headed toward its second interruption in four months because of the coronavirus pandemic - this time after five people who work in the state Assembly contracted the disease.
The outbreak appears connected to a June 26 floor session of the Assembly, when lawmakers interrupted their brief summer recess to vote on a $202 billion budget. A memo from the Assembly Rules Committee says a staff member who tested positive was at the Capitol that day but wore a face covering at all times while in the building.
Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, a Democrat from Inglewood, says a representative from the Assembly Human Resources Department contacted her last week to say she was one of the people who had been exposed to the virus, even though Burke also wore a mask.
Burke said she tested positive on Saturday. Before that, Burke had stopped taking in-person meetings and had not been in her office, said Tish Rylander, her chief of staff.
“The only place she has been is on the Assembly floor,” Rylander said.
Many state legislatures suspended their work at the start of the pandemic but after the delay were able to complete their work and adjourn.
Lawmakers in Hawaii and Georgia contracted the virus shortly after their legislatures recessed in March. In Mississippi, officials announced Tuesday that at least eight lawmakers tested positive for the virus after lawmakers adjourned their session.
While all Assembly members were notified of the positive tests, not all were told they had personally been exposed and should self-isolate and be tested. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and Assembly Rules Committee chair Ken Cooley declined interview requests for this story.
Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco said even though most of the Assembly’s 80 members were in the same room for hours on June 26, not all of them should isolate themselves and be tested. That’s because lawmakers were required to wear masks while in the chamber and stay at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from each other.
Going forward, he said public health officials should try to figure out who Burke and others who have tested positive have been in contact with in recent days.
“Instead of trying to figure out where she got it, we’ll figure out who she has been in contact with. You are trying to break the chain of transmission,” he said. “It’s a much more forward-looking process than a backward-looking process.”
Normally, county public health departments handle the process of “contact tracing” to figure out who might have been exposed to the virus. Sacramento County spokeswoman Janna Haynes said public health officials were aware of the cases at the Capitol but declined further comment.
Some lawmakers are voluntarily isolating themselves. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat from San Diego, skipped the Assembly’s budget vote on June 26 after having come in contact with someone who had the virus. Gonzalez tweeted Tuesday that she and her husband, San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, have been isolating for nearly two weeks and have tested negative for the virus.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Bill Quirk, a Democrat from Hayward, has missed most of the legislative session this year because the 73-year-old lives in a retirement community and is worried about spreading the disease to his neighbors.
The state Senate is scheduled to return to work on Monday. Rendon has not said when the Assembly would return. In a memo to lawmakers, he said he has instructed his staff to “develop a schedule for hearings and other Assembly business that will allow us to conduct our work but minimize the days in the Capitol building.”
That’s concerning to Republican Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, who noted the Legislature already missed nearly two months of work earlier this year at the start of the pandemic. In that time, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued dozens of executive orders and authorized billions of dollars in public spending with little oversight from the Legislature.
Kiley said suspending the Legislature’s work every time someone tests positive “is not a sustainable solution.”
“If that’s what happens, then we ’re going to have no legislative branch for months on end,” he said. “There needs to be a better plan than that.”
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