A few hours after the launch event, my California student housing bill was killed by an unelected Committee Consultant who called it a “developer giveaway” She purposely withheld her proposed amendments to the bill until the last possible minute to make negotiations impossible. Committee Consultants are supposed to be impartial, but she made it clear she opposes increasing housing production. I am heartbroken and disillusioned with the California legislative process. Unelected bureaucrats should not have unilateral power to kill bills. You shouldn’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbyists to ensure your bills are heard in committee. I know that by posting this I’m probably going to be blackballed from having bills heard in the Assembly Housing Committee for the next few years. But so much of the legislative process is shrouded in secrecy out of fear of retaliation. This silence just perpetuates bad behavior, and I’m not going to be complicit.