STATE LEGISLATURE: Melissa Melendez outlines her priorities for upcoming session

by JEFF HORSEMAN

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, invited the press to her Murrieta office last week to discuss her goals for the upcoming legislative session, which starts early next month.

Like many of her colleagues, Melendez, who was re-elected in November, wants to prevent a looming tuition hike for University of California students. UC regents recently voted to raise tuition by as much as 5 percent a year for five years, prompting lawmakers to consider boosting UC’s funding to stop the increase.

“Everybody wants more money,” Melendez said. “But they’re going to have to live within their framework. Everybody has been cut into.”

When freshmen enroll at a UC campus, they should pay the same level of tuition throughout their four years in school, unless they need more than four years to graduate, Melendez said.

Melendez also is concerned about Prop. 47, a ballot measure passed by voters in November that reduces many nonviolent criminal offenses from felonies and misdemeanors. It also spends money on truancy prevention, mental health and drug treatment programs to keep offenders out of jail.

Critics say Prop. 47 makes it a mere misdemeanor to possess so-called “date rape” drugs meant to incapacitate a victim before a sexual assault. In the official voter guide, Prop. 47 backers said “using or attempting to use any kind of drug to commit date rape or other felony crimes remains a felony.”

Melendez said she wants to stiffen penalties for possessing date-rape drugs. “There’s a clear distinction between having drugs for personal recreational use and having drugs you use to harm someone else,” she said.

Melendez’s other priorities include:

— Restoring vehicle license fee revenue to Eastvale, Jurupa Valley, Wildomar and Menifee. The fledgling cities’ budgets took a major hit in 2011 when state lawmakers re-allocated the fees. Jurupa Valley leaders fear they might have to disincorporate if the money isn’t restored.

Melendez and Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, got the Legislature to pass a VLF restoration bill last session, but Brown vetoed it. Still, Melendez, whose district includes Menifee and Wildomar, said she’ll try again.

“Maybe persistence is going to pay off,” she said.

— Taking another stab and providing whisteblower protection to legislative staff who report unethical or illegal behavior. A similar bill sponsored by Melendez died in the Senate last session.

— A possible legislative remedy for Ontario International Airport. “It does not appear that things are getting much better,” said Melendez, who like other Inland lawmakers believes the city of Los Angeles, the airport’s current owner, does not have the Inland Empire’s best interests at heart.

[Source]: Press Enterprise