BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 1847
                                                                  Page  1

          CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
          AB 1847 (Chesbro)
          As Amended June 4, 2014
          Majority vote 
           
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          |ASSEMBLY:  |76-0 |(May 19, 2014)  |SENATE: |32-0 |(June 26,      |
          |           |     |                |        |     |2014)          |
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           Original Committee Reference:    JUD.  

           SUMMARY  :  Deletes certain offensive and outdated terms once used  
          to describe mental health conditions and disabilities in various  
          California statutes (other than the Penal Code) and replaces  
          them with more current, less offensive, terms. 

           The Senate amendments  make technical conforming amendments  
          related to existing exemptions under the Public Records Act. 
           
          EXISTING LAW  uses dated and professionally rejected terms, such  
          as "mentally defective," "mentally disordered," or "insane,"  
          throughout the several California codes. 

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  None

           COMMENTS  :  This bill seeks to update various California code  
          provisions (other than those in the Penal Code) in order to  
          remove outdated and offensive terms once used to describe  
          various kinds of mental and psychological conditions and replace  
          them with more current, less offensive terms.  The bill does not  
          change terms in the Penal Code because, at criminal law, certain  
          terms - such as insanity - still carry legal significance  
          (especially in defenses to criminal prosecution) even though the  
          term itself has been more or less abandoned by the professional  
          community and, in many cases, the larger society.  Part of the  
          task of updating California code provisions was accomplished  
          through prior legislation.  For example, SB 1381 (Pavley),  
          Chapter 457, Statutes of 2012, and AB 2370 (Mansoor), Chapter  
          448, Statutes of 2012, replaced references to "mental  
          retardation" with "intellectual disability" and replaced  
          "mentally retarded persons" and with "persons with an  
          intellectual disability" or the "intellectually disabled."   
          Similarly, AB 1640 (La Malfa), Chapter 31, Statutes of 2007,  
          deleted the even older terms "idiot," "imbecility," and  








                                                                  AB 1847
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          "lunatics" from state code and replaced those terms with  
          "persons who are mentally incapacitated."  This bill is  
          effectively a clean-up measure to those earlier efforts.  

           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    Thomas Clark / JUD. / (916) 319-2334 


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