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Capitol Insiders

What Did Bishops' Lobbyist Do This Year?

By Eric Reslock

On February 1st, I sat down in the basement of the capitol with Edward "Ned" Dolesji, executive director of the California Catholic Conference to talk about the legislature and the Catholic Conference agenda and the start of the second half of the current two-year legislative session.

ER: Tell us about the Catholic Conference.

ND: Well, the Catholic Conference has been around for a while. During its history, priests have led it and several of them went on to become bishops. Cummins was the first director of the California Catholic Conference back when he was a priest. Bishop Levada was at one time secretary of the Catholic Conference. I am the first layperson to act as director of the Catholic Conference. The conference is essentially the bishops in California. There are twelve dioceses and the Archdioceses of San Francisco and Los Angeles. California is the only state that has two provinces, or two archdioceses. Then there are the 12 ordinary dioceses with two archbishops and 10 bishops plus the auxilaries. So there are a total of 22 bishops who make up the California Catholic Conference. They operate through two general consultations together per year, plus an executive committee, a public policy committee, an education committee and so on.

ER: That's how you get your direction?

ND: Yes, through those structures we process the agenda for the different issues we're involved in. Occasionally, we convene a round table that is a representative group of people from across different geographies, ethnicities, and ministries throughout the state.

ER: How did your group fare last year?

ND: We're just wrapping up the report on the first year of the legislative cycle and focusing on those bills we used for our legislative lobby day in May. The high point of the year was Assembly Bill 1592, the physician assisted suicide bill. Let's just say that bill died a peaceful, natural death....

ER: Will we see the assisted suicide bill again this year?

ND: No, they are not allowed to introduce a bill that is substantially similar. We are pleased the bill didn't advance but we can't sit back because the proponents of this are very adept at moving the issue forward.

ER: During the first half of the current legislative session, were you able to appeal to the Catholicism of any of the members on these kinds of issues?

ND: Yes, sure. There are many members who share a Catholic vision of life and are troubled by certain issues of public policy.

ER: On both sides of the aisle?

ND: Yes. But let's be honest. If a bill by a committee head like Aroner (14th District Assemblymember) -- if she can't get her [assisted suicide] bill through, it's because there are people in her caucus who don't like the bill and there are a lot of Catholics in her caucus.

ER: Does the rise of a number of moderate Democrats -- Latinos in particular, bode well for your issues?

ND: It does, but at some times it's hard to say. The major issues of moderate Democrats, it seems to me, are about jobs and business and the way those affect their communities and constituencies. At the same time, a number of them seem to be active in their faith and their consciences are moved on issues like last year's Assembly Bill 525 [requiring Catholic hospitals to refer abortions]. It was amended, essentially, into a disclosure bill. The most egregious parts of it are gone. The punitive thing was to force Catholic hospitals to do those [refer abortions]. I was proud of both Republican and Democrat Latinos alike, particularly those who are Catholic because it was the right thing to do.

ER: But at the same time, doesn't the bill put in statute that a definition of reproductive health that includes abortion?

ND: That's already the understanding in law that comprehensive reproductive services -- I think that's the language -- does include abortion in the state of California. What I think is of more concern from a Catholic standpoint is that inordinate focus is being put on, quote, reproductive services. Is that the only service of value? Is that the sole standard by which we judge whether health care is being delivered in a community? What if you don't offer oncology? How about if you don't offer maternity care?

ER: Doesn't it seem like a surgical strike at Catholic hospitals?

ND: I would say, frankly, not so much a surgical strike at the Catholic hospitals because the disclosure requirements are basically on the health plans. What the bill is is a placeholder for this conversation after the election.

ER: Sheila Kuehl [author of Assembly Bill 525] is going to have a tough Senate primary against Wally Knox down in Los Angeles.

ND: Yes, but they will be back. I think it's instructive if you look at a speech given at the Commonwealth Club some weeks ago in San Francisco. The head of Planned Parenthood laid out their agenda, which includes going after Catholic hospitals in merger situations, and going after the various conscience clauses in laws [that protect the Church]. So it's pretty clear what their agenda is and they will be back.

ER: Is this, in some way, a good sign that Catholic hospitals are growing in enough prominence to get this kind of attention from the legislature?

ND: I think the best sign is that the Catholic hospitals are holding firm and saying 'no'. They've done a really admirable job. But what the proponents of Assembly Bill 525 don't realize is that it's only the Catholic hospitals that are stepping into those merger situations. They were asked to come into the heart of Gilroy, which is also the heart of a large Latino community -- in the center of a growing area they were asked by Columbia HCA, a for-profit, to make a bid because no one else wanted to. They know that Catholic hospitals would be willing to go into those communities because they have always been willing to provide health care, and particularly to those who are poor and in need and those who are suffering -- that tends to get lost in the whole debate. Catholic Healthcare is not going around willy-nilly and gobbling hospitals up. Certainly it's large, but in these merger situation, it's usually because a community hospital can no longer maintain its viability the Catholics are invited to come in because of their philosophy, their approach, their focus on the common good -- and they are not for-profit.

ER: What other issues were big in the first half of the session?

ND: The other big issues were Assembly Bill 39 and Senate Bill 41 [mandatory insurance coverage for contraception]. I am extremely disappointed at how they turned out.

ER: You worked on getting the standard conscience clause into the bills that would exempt the Church.

ND: Yes, we did, and the bills passed with a definition of religious employer that is an insult to the Catholic Church. We'll continue to pursue that politically. It's wrong for a number of reasons: First, the Catholic Church should not be forced to be morally complicit with things they don't agree with -- that is a kind of bed-rock understanding of religious freedom. Second, to write what I consider an insulting definition of the Catholic Church is an inappropriate intrusion of the legislature into the Church and how we operate. We are not here primarily to inculcate our values and beliefs, but to serve. We don't primarily employ people of our own faith in our hospitals and we don't serve people primarily of our own faith.

ER: This one passed and was signed by the governor, right?

ND: Yes, and it became law on January 1st. Fortunately its effect hasn't been felt much because most health insurance policies are up in July and September, so we have some relief between now and then.

ER: If there is no relief by that time, what will the hospitals do?

ND: I don't know yet, but this doesn't affect just Catholic hospitals, but Catholic Charities of San Francisco and Sacramento -- you know, everyone. Those don't primarily serve Catholics either. And I think there's no mystery here that the goal is to eventually qualify abortifacients as contraception. If you make them readily available to everyone -- it's at that point that the bishop of say, San Diego, is not going to pay for health insurance benefits for his employees to have abortions. That individuals would make that choice is unfortunate and grievous but the fact that we would be paying with Church dollars to facilitate that is totally unacceptable because it makes us morally complicit.

ER: Any other bills?

ND: We were also concerned last year about Assembly Bill 1363, which proposed expanding school based health clinics.

ER: That died, correct?

ND: It got moved over to the Senate as Senate Bill 566. Apparently, it is not going to make it, but I have no doubt it will be back. Our position was somewhat nuanced. We opposed the bill directly because abortion is considered within the realm of reproductive services in California and that would be reason enough to oppose it. But, we were taking the position that if society wished to do this -- permit the massive expansion of health care that is offered in schools, regardless of the debate whether that is a good thing for schools or not -- if society judged and the legislature agreed that this is a good thing, we would expect that the legislature would have a commensurate interest in making sure that parents knew what was going on. A parent might think that their child was doing for first aid, but this is a far cry from going to the school nurse because a child's tummy is upset. We felt that if we are going to permit this kind of a broad expansion that the state should accept the responsibility of requiring districts to notify parents directly what kind of services will be available to their kids and allow the parents to consent to that. Some parents may have deep concerns about abortions, other parents may just want to use their own doctors and if their child is sick, they want a phone call. We asked for a very clear accountability statement with a consent clause. The matter is unresolved.

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