BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 948
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Date of Hearing: June 17, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
Sharon Quirk-Silva, Chair
SB 948 (Committee on Veterans Affairs) - As Amended: March 10,
2014
SENATE VOTE : 35-0
SUBJECT : Active Militia
SUMMARY : Alters the requirements for being on State Active
Duty (SAD) with the California Military Department (CMD).
Specifically, this bill :
Requires that a service member on SAD must be at least one of
the following:
1)A current member of the California National Guard; or
2)An individual who is retired or otherwise honorably separated
from service with the active component of any branch of the
United States Armed Forces, the federal reserve component of
any branch of the United States Armed Forces, or the federally
recognized National Guard of any state or United States
territory, with current membership in the State Military
Reserve; or
3)A current member of the State Military Reserve with a minimum
of two years of service; or
4)Mandates that a service member already serving on SAD who
retires federally from the California National Guard shall
assess into the State Military Reserve in order to retain
eligibility for continued SAD.
5)Clarifies that a member described in subdivision (c) of
Military and Veterans Code section 210 shall not be qualified
to serve on SAD unless he or she maintains current membership
in the State Military Reserve.
EXISTING LAW: Establishes within the CMD the SAD program,
providing both temporary and permanent uniformed positions
funded by the State. Provides that permanent positions be
filled by a military competitive selection process and that
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applicants for those positions meet specified eligibility
criteria.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown at this time.
COMMENTS : The CMD is a state department located within the
executive branch. The CMD is comprised of several components and
contains a mix of personnel including both paid employees and
volunteers, uniformed military and civilian workers, full-time
and part-time employees, and both federal and state employees.
The CMD's 24,000-person roster is dominated by its largest
component, the CalGuard. The CalGuard is the largest of the 54
"state-level" National Guards located in U.S. states and
territories.
The CalGuard is split into two components, the larger Army
National Guard (ARNG) and the Air National Guard (ANG). Each of
these is commanded by a federally recognized Guard general
officer from the appropriate branch of service. The ARNG is an
official component of the United States Army.
Under existing law, the Governor may call members of the
CalGuard onto state active duty for various purposes, including
disaster response, so long as it does not conflict with the
contemporaneous imperatives of federal duty.
In addition to the personnel provided by the federal government,
the CMD contains approximately 750 personnel funded by
California state taxpayers. About 500 of these are full-time
uniformed personnel serving full-time on SAD. These SAD
positions are not federally recognized and place the employee at
no risk of being mobilized federally as part of the national
defense force. However, existing state law provides that, in
order to be eligible for "mobilization" by the state into a
full-time SAD job, a person must fit one of the following
profiles, which cross-link different CMD components:
1)A current member of the California National Guard; or
2)Retired or otherwise honorably separated from federal active
military or California National Guard service with current
membership in the State Military Reserve (SMR) (The SMR is a
purely volunteer component with approximately 1,000 active
members; or
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3)A current member of the SMR with a minimum of two years of
service.
The primary rationale for SAD employment requiring active
membership in either the CalGuard or the SMR is that both the
Guard and SMR components fall under the "active state militia"
defined in California statutes. Since members of the active
militia may be called onto state active duty by the Governor,
active membership in one or the other places the SAD applicant
in the position of being eligible for "call up" into the SAD
full-time job.
Sponsored by the CMD, SB 807 (Correa, 2012) was intended to
include retirees from other states' national guards and the
federal reserve components, but the wording was ambiguous and
confusing.
Existing MVC �142 clearly states that "(s)ervice members on
state active duty who retire federally from the California
National Guard shall be automatically assessed into the State
Military Reserve." Nevertheless, there is concern that MVC
�210(c), which does not pertain to the SAD program, could be
misread and misapplied to SAD eligibility in a confusing manner;
therefore, this bill states that "(f)or purposes of this
section, a member described in subdivision (c) of Section 210
shall not be qualified to serve on state active duty unless he
or she maintains current membership in the State Military
Reserve."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : John J. Spangler / V. A. / (916)
319-3550
SB 948
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