SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers on Friday adopted new protections for animal researchers, rejected a controversial bid for neutering pets and floated a plan for solving the state's water crisis.
They also addressed efforts to protect homeowners from foreclosure scams and to provide consumers with more choices on milk as 87 bills moved through the Legislature a week before their scheduled adjournment.
On Friday, three weeks after firebomb attacks on UC Santa Cruz animal researchers and months after vandalism at a UCLA professor's home, state senators unanimously approved an emergency measure to strengthen laws protecting academics against violence and intimidation.
It would create a new misdemeanor charge for entering residential property of an academic researcher with the intent to intimidate or interfere with research.
The measure also would make it a misdemeanor to publish information on the Internet that describes an academic researcher or his or her family members, or gives the location of their residence with the intent that another person use the information to commit violence or make threats.
"After the number of violent incidents against researchers, it seems to me they do need some additional protection over and above what the criminal law provides now," said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).
The home of a UCLA researcher incurred more than $20,000 in damage after being flooded by animal-rights activists who inserted a garden hose into the house. An incendiary device destroyed a car outside the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher and a firebomb exploded nearby on the front porch of another researcher's home.
The attacks are believed to have been orchestrated by activists who regard the use of animals in research as inhumane. Lawmakers say the targeting of academics in such ways is intolerable.
Virginia Handley, head of San Francisco-based Animal Switchboard, said she worries that the measure could chill the exchange of information on the Internet about animal researchers.
"We do not condone these actions," she said of the firebombings. But "I don't want the law interfering with people getting information."
The bill, AB 2296 by Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo), is subject to final approval in the Assembly before it goes to the governor, whose signature would make it effective immediately.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he will not act on bills that come to him before there is an agreement on the long-overdue state budget.
