| AB 1943 Passes Senate Business and Professions Committee 6-0 with Leadership support. |
| Once again, California acupuncturists demonstrated their personal enthusiasm and dedication to their chosen profession by showing up by car and busload to the state capitol in Sacramento. Some fifty-three acupuncturists and students left Los Angeles at 5:00 AM in a chartered bus to attend the afternoon hearing. Another fifity or so drove from San Francisco Bay area to attend the meeting, taking another day off work, knowing their sacrifice today would help assure the future of their profession in California and the United States. |
| Senator Liz Figueroa, chair of the Senate Business and Professions Committee, called for brief testimony, having worked constructively with Assembly Member Judy Chu to make amend AB 1943 and to move it through committee without objection. Acupuncturists Brian Fennen and Neal Miller stated their support of the legislation on behalf of the profession, and acupuncturist An York Lee asked for supporters to stand, bringing nearly the entire room to its feet. |
| With all of their previous objections having been addressed through amendments, the opposition seemed a bit desperate to find and voice their latest "concerns." The opposition was represented by Tom Haines, an administrator for Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and board members of the National Alliance, Steven Givens, faculty at Bastyr University and executive board member for the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and LIxing Huang, president of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and executive board member of the Council of Colleges. They suggested that the 3,000 hour standard (that two of them had participated in developing) should be re-reviewed by the LIttle Hoover Commission, that the Acupuncture Board should delay enforcement of the new law and that the new law not go into effect until after the Little Hoover Commission had developed its findings on related issues. |
| Senator Figueroa and Committee staff member Kristin Triepke assured the opponents that the 3,000 hours had already been decided and was no longer in question, that the timeline had already been extended to allow the Acupuncture Board and the schools more than enough time to implement the new standards, and that there was no reason for further delays. Senator Figueroa suggested that the author had worked cooperatively with this committee, and that these "new" concerns could be considered by Judy Chu prior to the Appropriations Committee hearing. Upon calling the vote, Senator Figueroa was the first to cast an "aye" vote in favor of passage. The rest of the committee members voted the same. |
| Outside, over one hundred acupuncturists and students, mostly of Chinese and Korean descent, congratulated and thanked Judy Chu, and surrounded her for an historcial photo on the steps of the Capitiol. |