CENTER FOR CONTRACT COMPLIANCE

On May 19, 2008, James Reed, Executive Director of the Center for Contract Compliance (CCC) along with outreach consultants Manuel Valencia and Frank Molina of Valencia & Company Public Affairs (V&C) made Legislative visits with the Sacramento Offices of Senator Alex Padilla and Deputy Attorney General Ralph Lightstone (DOJ).

The purpose of these Legislative briefing meetings was to update members of the Labor Committees on the efforts of the CCC. The meeting with Mr. Ralph Lightstone will help the CCC to build a stronger relationship with the California DOJ. Stemming from this meeting are several items for follow-up.

• Mr. Reed will follow up with Richard Slawson regarding apparent violations in public projects in downtown Los Angeles.
• V&C will follow up with Mr. Lightstone on the possibility of having the Attorney General speak at next year’s CCC annual conference.
• CCC will explore other possible ways to partner with the Attorney General’s office on activities or projects.

The visits were scheduled based on a ranking system that took into consideration both term limits as well as the leadership role of each committee member. Mr. Reed presented on issues pertaining to the Underground Economy such as public works labor compliance, employee misclassification and prevailing wage violations.

In between the scheduled meetings, the CCC team took advantage of free time to make some drop-in visits to Legislative staffers for the members listed below. During these visits we provided the members’ offices with the updated CCC collateral materials as well as recent media release.

California State Senate - Labor and Industrial Relations Committee
Mark Wayland-Vice Chair
Carole Migden-Chair

California State Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment
Audra Strickland-Vice Chair
Ted Gaines

Overall the day-long visit to Sacramento was a success, these efforts are sure to help the CCC to establish stronger contacts with the labor compliance community.