Public Education & Policy :: News Alerts

News Alert, July 2006

AB 2357 Goes to the Senate Floor

AB 2357 - the AB 1421 expansion bill - goes to the Senate floor for a vote. The legislature is on its summer break and will be back Monday, August 7, at which time, or soon after, the bill will be heard on the Senate Floor.

AB 2357 extends the sunset deadline of AB 1421, the bill which codified outpatient commitment. It extends the sunset deadline from 2008 to 2013. Extending the sunset deadline of AB 1421 will provide viability to outpatient commitment which is antithetical to the transformation that is taking place in California through the implementation of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA.)

Fax or e-mail your Senators. You can find the list of Senators at: http://www.senate.ca.gov/~newsen/senators/senators.htp

Send copies of your fax or e-mail to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate:

Honorable Don Perata
President Pro Tem
California State Senate
State Capitol, Room 205
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 327-1997
senator.perata@sen.ca.gov

Honorable Dick Ackerman
State Capitol, Room 305
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 445-9754
senator.ackerman@sen.ca.gov

Following are some arguments that are important to the California Network and which may assist you in your letter writing:

Give Voluntary Community Services (in the Mental Health Services Act) a Chance

Voluntary enhanced services are the answer to the mental suffering that surrounds us, not the expansion of forced treatment. In 1999, when legislation to expand forced treatment was introduced in California, the perception of the need for increased involuntary services was an incorrect response to the lack of accessible mental health services. Today assessable voluntary community services are on the horizon with the passage of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA.) Before resorting to the extreme measure of denying the rights of a whole group of persons, give these voluntary community services a chance.

Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (1999) states, "Almost all agree that coercion should not be a substitute for effective care that is sought voluntarily". Making AB 1421 a viable program option by extending the sunset provision would substitute coercion for a mental health system based on effective care that is sought voluntarily envisioned in the MHSA.

Outpatient Commitment is an Old Idea Whose Time Has Passed

AB 1421 was an incorrect answer to an inadequate mental health system. In California, that system is now changing. The environment that created the perceived need for AB 1421 is changing. In fact, other States are beginning to reject outpatient commitment. In 2005, Outpatient Commitment was proposed in New Mexico, and died on the floor of the legislature. Transformation, promoted by the President's New Freedom Commission's Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America, is now sweeping the country. Federal transformation grants have been awarded to States' mental health divisions. In California, the MHSA promises a transformation of our mental health system, with services that transcend outdated and stigmatizing reactions to people with mental disabilities. Outpatient Commitment is an outdated and stigmatizing reaction to people with mental disabilities; it looks backwards, not forwards. Whereas the traditional system has used coercion and force in its attempt to solve problems, a transformed system will create options that maximize client self-determination and autonomy, goals of the MHSA. The implementation of the MHSA supports a new direction for mental health services, not the same old - unsuccessful - answers. Making AB 1421 secure by extending the sunset clause supports the same old answers and is antithetical to the immanent changes throughout the country.

Introducing the Issue of Forced Treatment is Divisive

The introduction of AB 2357 threatens to destroy the consensus of the mental health stakeholders that has been forged in the development, promotion and implementation of the MHSA. The MHSA has spurred a unique collaboration among mental health stakeholders. By focusing on what we all can agree on, voluntary community services, the MHSA has brought together the whole mental health community. In unity is our success in building a transformed mental health system; in divisiveness will lie our failure. AB 2357 threatens to tare apart the whole. The introduction of forced treatment is the one subject that will create dissension and animosity among stakeholders and county/state administrators. It is divisive at a time when we need to be working together and diversionary at a time when our energy needs to be focused on working toward the one goal of transforming the mental health system.

MHSA Funds Can Not Be Used for AB 1421 Programs

A rational for AB 2357 is that AB 1421 needs to become a secure option (through extending the sunset deadline) because of the funding opportunities that the MHSA provides it. In fact, MHSA funds cannot be used for AB 1421 programs. The services that provided the model for the MHSA, AB 34 and 2034, are designed to be voluntary, and require providers to follow a client-directed, culturally competent and recovery-based standard of service. The California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies, one of the lead advocates of the MHSA, writes that "the law (AB 34/2034 programs) describes a process of developing an individual personal services plan in which each client participates. These are voluntary community services programs. There is no authority for using Proposition 63 funds for any other type of program. The imposition of involuntary treatment precludes such standards." This is reiterated in the following DMH's Requirements for Community Services and Supports Programs. "Individuals accessing services funded by the Mental Health Services Act may have voluntary or involuntary legal status which shall not affect their ability to access the expanded services under this Act. Programs funded under the Mental Health Services Act must be voluntary in nature."

There is No Justification to Expand the Sunset Deadline of AB 1421

No County has chosen to implement AB 1421. The Health Committee analysis that AB 1421 was implemented in Los Angeles is incorrect. Los Angeles County implemented a diversionary program for incarcerated persons with mental disabilities under the "negotiated settlement" section of AB 1421; it ignored the rest of the law. Los Angeles County describes its program as a voluntary wraparound program, not an AB 1421 program. The RAND report commissioned by the Senate Rules Committee cites that one reason for the lack of implementation of outpatient commitment laws throughout the country is that mental health providers don't like it; they don't want to undermine their therapeutic relationship with coercion. Only one County is considering implementing AB 1421: Nevada County promised to implement the law as a lawsuit settlement with the Wilcox family over their daughter's death. Because there has been no implementation of AB 1421, there are no program outcomes to justify its continuance. There is no new money that can support AB 1421; the MHSA can not support involuntary programs. There is no rationale for continuing the sunset deadline beyond what is in the law. AB 1421 should die as we enter the 21st century and commit ourselves to transforming the mental health system.