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Joint Judiciary

Thursday, January 22, 2026·5h 38m·▶ Watch / Listen

In a marathon third day of SMART Act hearings paired with a grim JBC budget briefing, the Joint Judiciary Committee spent most of its energy on the Department of Corrections — a parole risk-assessment breakdown, a rejected bed-expansion request, a staffing crisis and a looming DOJ investigation — against a backdrop of a budget cycle its authors described as almost entirely cuts. Wrenching testimony from the Child Protection Ombudsman over restrained and dead children stood out alongside the corrections reckoning.

Key Actions

·JBC budget briefing — Department of CorrectionsAction

+ 12 more actions

Notable Quotes

instead of shiny new programs, in this budget book, largely what you are finding are cuts. And if you don't like them, and we don't like some of them, but tell us what you do want to cut.

Emily SirotaThe JBC's framing of a lean budget cycle that colored every request before the committee.

+ 9 more quotes

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TranscriptPreview
Welcome to order. Ms. Jensen, please call the roll. Senators and Representatives. Bacon. Excused. Carson. Present. Carter. Clifford. Here. Dougherty. Excused. Espinosa. Here. Garcia. I might just walk. Excused. Henriksen. Here. Kelty. Here. Richardson. Excused. No, he's here. Sorry. Richardson. Roberts. Here. Wallace. Excused. Weinberg. Here. Zamora. Wilson. Person. So. Kai. Here. Weissman. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Here. All right, members, we have a long day ahead of us today. We're starting out with a briefing from the Joint Budget Committee. I see. Representative. I have Representative Sirota signed up, but I heard that Amable might be giving the presentation. Whoever wants to begin, if it pleases the Chair, I might just say a few words and then I will turn it over to Senator Amable. Great. But I just wanted to remind everyone that we are here because of a joint rule. Excuse me. That requires us to come before you. You now have a liaison to connect with. This is. But what we do here is we present the Governor's budget. So it's a little awkward. This is not our budget. This is what has been proposed to us. These are the decisions that we are considering that
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