Students Draft a Bill and See it Through Committee
Religious Liberty Clinic students, Greg Schweizer ’15 and Caitlin Bradley ’14 had a fantastic legislative experience today watching their client’s bill pass through committee. They are pictured here with Senator Ellen Corbett in the Senate chamber and have provided an account below of their work and the experience.
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The clinic was retained by the Holy Cross Monastery in Castro Valley for another matter, but when we met with Father Stephen, he told us of the
failing health of the monastery’s chief spiritual leader and founder, Abbot Archimandrite Theodor Micka, and his long-standing desire to be buried on the monastery’s property. The monastery is a holy place to the Abbot, his brother monks, and their religious order. There is no other place where he would want to be buried. Father Stephen pointed us to a bill passed in 2005 for a similar monastery-burial measure passed by the state legislature for a monk in Fresno that mirrors what the Abbot wanted here. We drafted the bill, contacted Senator Corbett’s office (who is the senator whose district encompasses the monastery and serves as Majority Leader), and worked with her legislative director to make this a reality. The bill passed the Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection 13-0 and will head to the Assembly floor next week, then onto the Senate, and hopefully to the governor’s desk.