Bill Text: CA SB73 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Amended


Bill Title: Official state ship of exploration.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Failed) 2018-02-01 - Returned to Secretary of Senate pursuant to Joint Rule 56. [SB73 Detail]

Download: California-2017-SB73-Amended.html

Amended  IN  Senate  May 01, 2017

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill No. 73


Introduced by Senator Hueso
(Coauthors: Senators Anderson and Atkins)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Chávez, Maienschein, Voepel, and Waldron)

January 10, 2017


An act to add Section 423.4 to the Government Code, relating to state emblems.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 73, as amended, Hueso. Official state ship of discovery.
Existing law establishes the state flag and the state’s emblems, including, among other things, “the Californian” as the official state tall ship.
This bill would establish the “San Salvador” as the official state ship of discovery. exploration.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: NO   Local Program: NO  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 (a)On The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) On September 28, 1542, the original San Salvador, led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, was the first European ship to sail and survey the waters off the State of California in search of new trade routes that would link Mexico to Asia and Europe.

(b)This voyage was the first time geographical information about the region which would later be identified as the State of California was available to the rest of the world, hence the designation of discovery, as until this voyage no territory referenced by the rest of the world as California was known to exist.

(b) At the time of the ship’s arrival in California, the region was occupied by hundreds of diverse indigenous cultures for at least 12,000 years, or as far back as 600 generations. New evidence suggests that there were human inhabitants in California as far back as 130,000 years.
(c) The San Salvador has been presented throughout the state as the physical manifestation of California’s origin story for more than a century.
(d) The voyage of the San Salvador predates the Mayflower by 78 years and the Jamestown voyages by 65 years making California one of the places where America began.
(e) The San Diego Maritime Museum, Maritime Museum of San Diego, whose primary goal is to preserve California’s precious maritime heritage, recently constructed a historically accurate replica of the San Salvador that was unveiled on September 4, 2015.
(f) The San Salvador replica functions as much more than just a static an active museum display as it sails along the coast of California, visiting its cities and towns as a floating education platform for California’s school children. schoolchildren.
(g) The educational and cultural potential of the San Salvador replica as an embodiment of California’s discovery maritime history is enhanced through its membership in one of the world’s great institutional collections of historic ships. The San Diego Maritime Museum Maritime Museum of San Diego will operate the San Salvador replica as an educational vessel and historic asset to promote and encourage an appreciation of the maritime heritage and coastal resources of the State of California.
(h) This educational and cultural potential of the San Salvador replica will further be enhanced through the representation of the rich indigenous ancestry and culture of the tribal territories, along the California coast, that the San Salvador replica visits.
(i) The State of California acknowledges, through the San Salvador’s designation, that the arrival of the ship also resulted in a recorded history that often did not properly acknowledge the true impacts of the European cultural advances on Native American civilization. That history was marked by increased war, conflict, disease, famine, slavery, and genocide.
(j) The Legislature expresses its intent to utilize the San Salvador replica as a tool to more accurately represent the history which followed the arrival of the San Salvador by providing historical context that acknowledges the results of European exploration on indigenous civilization.
(k) The voyage of the San Salvador stands as part of a larger history across the Americas that was signaled by the first interaction of Europeans with indigenous peoples, and subsequently the first time that California was plotted on the maps of the world.
(l) The voyage of the San Salvador was part of a large-scale event, the enterprise of the sea, that established connections between all branches of humanity for the first time in human history, thereby becoming part of a process of completing a connection that would link the entire world in a global trading network. As such, this voyage could be considered the “Space Shuttle Endeavor” of that historical period.

(h)

(m) The San Diego Maritime Museum Maritime Museum of San Diego will make the San Salvador replica available to the state for official functions to represent the state and will sail the San Salvador replica along the California coast to visit other ports and nautical museums so that all Californians may learn about the proud nautical heritage of California.

(i)

(n) The State of California has adopted numerous state emblems and with passage of this act the Legislature declares the San Salvador to be California’s official ship of discovery. exploration.

SEC. 2.

 Section 423.4 is added to the Government Code, to read:

423.4.
 The “San Salvador” is the official state ship of discovery. exploration.

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