State of CA Briefing: The New Session and How It Affects You
January 26, 2007

AeA’s Sr. Vice President of CA Government and Public Affairs, Roxanne Gould, began this early morning meeting by introducing AeA Sacramento to the audience. She quickly moved on and discussed the reality of 36 new legislative members and the leadership turnover in Sacramento. This turnover, as well as the term limits, is a difficulty for high-tech due to the continuing need to educate our legislators about high-tech, our companies and our issues.

The California public policy priorities Ms. Gould outlined include:

• Keeping CA competitive through R & D tax credits
• Health Care and it’s impact on high-tech
• Procurement Initiative and how the process needs to be reformed
• How to be part of the solution through
:
              AeA Council Committees
              Statewide Committees
              Grassroots efforts
              PAC

Senator Elaine Alquist joined the meeting emphasizing the need for high-tech companies to join together and present our companies and our issues to the legislators in conjunction with the AeA CA Public Policy staff. She stressed that both avenues are necessary in order to get high-tech’s needs recognized and acted upon in a positive way by legislators.  In addition, she addressed American Competitiveness and the role of better education in math and science by fielding several questions from audience members on this topic. 
 
                                
           Roxanne Gould, Sr. VP CA Government & Public Affairs,          Betty Baker, Executive Director,
                                 AeA CA Public Policy                                     AeA Silicon Valley/Northern CA Council

This page was last updated on 02/07/07.  
Copyright © 2007 American Electronics Association.  All rights reserved.