Bill Text: CA SCR8 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: President Barack H. Obama Highway.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Passed) 2017-09-11 - Chaptered by Secretary of State. Res. Chapter 147, Statutes of 2017. [SCR8 Detail]

Download: California-2017-SCR8-Introduced.html

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CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Concurrent Resolution

No. 8

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Introduced by Senator Portantino
(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Gomez)

December 20, 2016

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Relative to the President Barack H. Obama Highway.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SCR 8, as introduced, Portantino. President Barack H. Obama Memorial Highway.

This measure would designate a specified portion of State Highway 134 in Los Angeles County between State Highway 2 and Interstate 210 as the President Barack H. Obama Memorial Highway. The measure would also request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.

Digest Key

Fiscal Committee: YES  

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Bill Text

WHEREAS, With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank; and

WHEREAS, President Obama came from a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, where hard work and education were the means of getting ahead, and where the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others; and

WHEREAS, President Obama obtained his early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii and spent two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, inclusive, which played a major role in determining his future. He made his first political speech there on February 18, 1981, as part of a movement to persuade the Occidental Board of Trustees to divest the college of its investments in South Africa; and

WHEREAS, After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants; and

WHEREAS, He received a B.A. in 1983 from Columbia University, New York City and worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois. He later studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received his J.D. in 1991. Upon graduation from Harvard Law School, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and continue his community service; and

WHEREAS, President Obama became a State Senator from Illinois from 1997 to 2004, inclusive, and was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 2004, and served from January 3, 2005, to November 16, 2008, inclusive. He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008. After being reelected in 2012, President Obama is currently serving his second and final term, which will end on January 20, 2017; and

WHEREAS, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia and Sasha; and

WHEREAS, His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others; and

WHEREAS, In recognition of President Barack Hussein Obama’s more that two decades of dedicated public service to the citizens of the United States and the State of California, it is fitting to designate a portion of State Highway 134 in his honor; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby designates the portion of State Highway 134 from State Highway 2 to Interstate 210 in Los Angeles County as the President Barack H. Obama Highway; and be it further

Resolved, That the Department of Transportation is requested to determine the cost of appropriate signs consistent with the signing requirements for the state highway system showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources sufficient to cover the cost, to erect those signs; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the Director of Transportation and to the author for appropriate distribution.