Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed three Cal Grant-related bills that the Associated Students Inc. Senate and Lobby Corps were hoping to see pass.
“I mean, it isn’t disappointing because these [bills] aren’t gone,” said Andrew Siwabessy, Senator for the College of Engineering and Lobby Corps voting member. “They are going to come back again, and once they do go through, they will benefit the students of [the Cal State University].”
In its Oct. 2 meeting, the ASI Senate expressed its full support of Assembly Bill 1287 and Senate Bills 284 and 285 by passing resolutions drafted by Lobby Corps. Members of Lobby Corps also contacted the governor’s office and other legislators to voice their support of the three Cal Grant bills.
“These bills affect students in the most positive way,” said Rhea-Comfort Addo, ASI senator for College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics via email. “The majority of students at CSULB rely on Cal Grant awards in order to continue pursuing their education, and these bills help promise them that support.”
Had AB 1287 been approved, the bill would have allowed CSU students who were considered ineligible for Cal Grants due to a rise in family income a chance to be reassessed, according to Allison Gallagher, ASI secretary of systemwide affairs.
“How it runs now is they aren’t eligible ever again,” Gallagher said. “[AB 1287] changes the language so that if you lose your eligibility in 2012 but become eligible in 2013, you can reapply and still have access to Cal Grant and other forms of financial aid.”
On the other hand, SB 284 would have set up a new College Access Tax Credit Fund that individuals or businesses could pay into, while SB 285 would have designated the collected funds toward increasing the amount of Cal Grant B for students from $1,473 to $5,000, according to Gallagher.
In Brown’s veto message on AB 1287, he said the bill would result in “costly expansion” of the Cal Grant program and that he was “reluctant to commit limited state resources.”
Gallagher, however, said she thought the decision was understandable.
“It would require reopening the budget, and he’s kind of opposed to doing any budget changes now,” Gallagher said. “It was a really good one in trying to increase Cal Grant accessibility, but it’s more likely we’ll see these things next year.”
Both of the senate bills were contingent upon one another and were vetoed for a technical flaw. Brown’s veto message on the state legislative information website stated that SB 284 conflicted with Proposition 98, a 1988 ballot initiative that guaranteed about 40 percent of general state funds to education.
Even though the governor put a stop to the bills, some Lobby Corps members are looking forward to seeing them resurface again in the next legislative session.
“Gov. Brown is actually planning on working with AB 1287 author [Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva] to wrap up the issues he has with the language,” Siwabessy said. “So he is still interested in a lot of what is happening and wants it to go through — it’s just a matter of when.”
