PRI meets with Assembly Republican Leader Brian Dahle at the State Capitol.
Last week, PRI’s team was in Sacramento for our annual “Legislative Day” at the State Capitol.
Every year, we meet with legislators, key staff, and leaders in the Capitol Community to discuss our work on state issues, get feedback on key issues where free-market scholarship is sorely needed, and promote our new California-focused studies.
Joining us this year for our day at the State Capitol were Sally Pipes, PRI’s President, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy; Senior Vice President (and blogger and podcast host) Rowena Itchon, and Lance Izumi, Koret Senior Fellow in Education and Senior Director of PRI’s Center for Education.
We were pleased to have the opportunity to meet with Assembly Republican Leader Brian Dahle, Assembly Republican Floor Leader Marie Waldron, Senators Mike Morrell and Scott Wilk, and Assemblymembers Melissa Melendez, Kevin Kiley, Chad Mayes, and Tom Lackey.
During our meetings, we promoted our recent California scholarship on poverty in the Golden State, electric car subsidies, pension reform, and education reform.
If there was a common theme from our Sacramento meetings, it’s that single-payer health care continues to dominate the discussion. Legislators were eager to hear PRI’s ideas for free-market health care alternatives. They are looking forward to receiving copies of Sally Pipes’ new book, The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care, which many said would be helpful to them in pushing back against what has been a one-sided conversation promoting single-payer at the Capitol this session.
Legislators and staff were also very interested in hearing the results of our new California business climate survey, and said they would take the responses of the executives surveyed to heart as they pursue reforms to make California’s business climate more competitive for jobs and highly-desired industries.
Our day in Sacramento showed that PRI’s scholarship is about more than just producing studies that will collect dust on a shelf. Rather, it shows that PRI’s work on California issues truly embodies our motto of “Ideas in Action.”
Tim Anaya is communications director for Pacific Research Institute.
