Florez's Antibiotic Bill Rejected

June 4, 2009
Food-safety bill stalls in Senate
By JAKE HENSHA
Wjhenshaw@gannett.com

SACRAMENTO A food-safety campaign to tighten up the standard for meat served in schools and to give the state new power to recall contaminated food largely stalled Wednesday in the Senate.

Senators rejected Senate Bill 416 by Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, that would have authorized schools to buy meat and poultry that hadn't been routinely treated with antibiotic drugs.

It also would have required state school officials to collect and report to the Legislature on information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the use of antibiotics in meat going to California schools.

Originally, SB 416 would have banned serving meat and poultry in schools that had been routinely treated with antibiotics. Read More

The bill in California that would have required schools to purchase as much meat as possible from livestock that hadn’t been fed antibiotics was defeated. Sen. Florez has introduced a flurry of anti-agriculture bills in the CA Senate since the passage of Proposition 2. All of the bills he has brought forward have been based on emotional feeling rather than rational thought. Bills such as this one would actually decrease our ability to keep livestock healthy. I truly believe the mark of a good elected official is not the one that gets the most bills passed, rather it’s the one the gets the most bills killed.