Inventory of the Bruce Bronzan Papers
Processed by Lisa DeHope
California State Archives
© 2010
1020 "O" Street
Sacramento, California 95814
Phone: (916) 653-2246
Fax: (916) 653-7363
Email: ArchivesWeb@sos.ca.gov
URL: http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/
California Secretary of State. All rights reserved.
Inventory of the Bruce Bronzan Papers
Collection number: LP409
California State ArchivesOffice of the Secretary of State
Sacramento, California
- Processed by:
- Lisa DeHope
- Date Completed:
- March 2010
- Encoded by:
- Cori Schmidtbauer
© 2013 California Secretary of State. All rights reserved.
Title: Bruce Bronzan Papers
Dates: 1983-1992
Collection number: LP409
Creator:
Bruce Bronzan, California Legislator
Collection Size:
9 cubic feet
Repository:
California State Archives
Sacramento, California
Abstract: Bruce Bronzan was a Democratic California State Assembly Member, 1983-1992, and who served the 31st Assembly District.Bronzan
was on the Assembly Health Committee for all ten years, serving as Chair the last four. As a leading legislator in health
care and an expert on the Medi-Cal program, he has carried legislation to create a health facilities financing system and
to increase funding for health care of the indigent.The Bruce Bronzan Papers consist of 9 cubic feet of textual records reflecting
Bronzan's legislative activities during his 10-year Assembly career. Record series include Bill Files, 1983-1992; Subject
Files, 1968-1990; Press Files, 1986-1988; and a subgroup consisting of Joint Legislative Audit Committee Subject Files, 1972-1989.
This collection is particularly useful to researchers interested in California's health care policies, especially as it concerns
the homeless and mentally ill during the 1980s.
Physical location: California State Archives
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
While the majority of the records are open for research, any access restrictions are noted in the record series descriptions.
For permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the California State Archives. Permission for reproduction or publication
is given on behalf of the California State Archives as the owner of the physical items. The researcher assumes all responsibility
for possible infringement which may arise from reproduction or publication of materials from the California State Archives
collections.
[Identification of item], Bruce Bronzan Papers, LP409:[folder number], California State Archives, Office of the Secretary
of State, Sacramento, California.
Acquisition and Custodial History
The California State Archives acquired the Bruce Bronzan Papers following his final term in the State Legislature.
Bruce Bronzan was a Democratic California State Assembly Member who served the 31st Assembly District. During his time in
office, AD 31 encompassed much of eastern Fresno County, stretching from the Madera County border in the north, Tulare County
in the south, and running down the Central Valley roughly following State Highway 99 in the west. He was first elected to
the State Legislature in 1982. His popularity continued and he easily won victories in his district for the next five elections.
He ran unopposed in what became he last election in 1990. He left office in 1992 having represented his constituents from
the cities of Clovis, Fowler, Orange Cove, Parlier, Reedly, Sanger, Selma, and the eastern part of the city of Fresno for
ten years. (Who's Who in the California Legislature).
Bruce Bronzan was born in Fresno, California on September 28, 1947 and went to Fresno schools including McLane High School
and California State University, Fresno, where he graduated with a B.S. in Political Science and a teaching credential in
1969. He received a Masters in Urban Studies from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1970 and was a Coro Foundation Fellow
that same year. In 1968, Bronzan wed Linda Barnes and eventually had two children, daughter Chloe and son Forest. He began
his political career as a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, serving for eight year from 1975-1982. He became
Vice Chair in 1980 and Board Chairman in 1981. Before he entered the political arena, Bronzan was the founder, director
and teacher at a small, alternative-education, secondary-level school in Fresno before becoming the director of an alcoholism
program at Fresno Community Hospital in 1973 (Oral History Interview, 1994).
During Bronzan's early childhood, his father's career took the family from his native Fresno to Los Angeles and Visalia for
a few years before returning to Fresno for a job at the YMCA. Bronzan suggests that his own time spent in YMCA organizations
and groups prepared him for a life in politics. Learning parliamentary procedures, working with small group dynamics, planning,
and budgeting yearly projects and activities created a "milieu of little models of democracy" which Bronzan would apply towards
his experiences in the student government, program development, and the legislature (Oral History Interview, 1994). With
a progressive, open-minded, well-read father, Nick, and artistic mother, Peggy, Bronzan was a creative leader in his endeavors
inside and outside of politics.
Bronzan not only gained experience but also an interest in health care related issues during his time at the Fresno Community
Hospital. After he was elected to the Board of Supervisors at age twenty-eight in a 1975 special election, Bronzan "inherited"
health care issues because no one else wanted to deal with them. After spending seven years on the Board of Supervisors
he fostered a passion for health, which would become his major platform in the Assembly. While he sponsored other issues
and was member on several other committees, Bronzan stated that while in the Assembly "health was the thing I cared most about...by
far and away the most important thing to me." (Oral History Interview, 1994-1995).
Bronzan was on the Assembly Health Committee for all ten years, serving as Chair the last four. As a leading legislator in
health care and an expert on the Medi-Cal program, he has carried legislation to create a health facilities financing system
and to increase funding for health care of the indigent. He wrote the Mental Health Services Reform Act of 1985 and carried
a liberal platform on health issues throughout his service on the Assembly Health Committee, numerous subcommittees such as
the Subcommittee on Health and Welfare, the Subcommittee on Health and Workers Insurance, and the Subcommittee on Mental Health,
Development Disabilities and Substance Abuse, as well as multiple health related select and special committees. As a member
and later as Chair of the Ways and Mean Subcommittee on Health and Welfare he was highly influential at both the budgeting
and legislative end of the health care spectrum in the Assembly.
Bronzan also served as a member of the Assembly Agriculture Committee for all ten years of his tenure in the State Assembly
and demonstrated his loyalty to agricultural interests by authoring and supporting legislation that followed a conservative
agenda. Coming from a district with a large population of small farmers, Bronzan's legislation sought to stop the "Big Green"
initiative, which would have restricted even further the pesticide use of California farmers in the 1990s. He lamented that
farmers and consumers have lost connection with one another and strove to encourage local farmers to reach out to the urban
and suburban communities to remind them of the importance of local growers to California residents and the economy (Oral History
Interview, 1994-1995).
Bruce Bronzan left the Assembly in 1993 and took a job as the Associate Dean for Administration and Development at University
of California, San Francisco at Fresno with the main responsibility of spearheading a model healthcare delivery system reform
in central California (Oral History Interview, 1994-1995). As of March 2010, he served as the President of Trilogy Integrated
Resources. According to their website, "Trilogy Integrated Resources, Inc. is a company dedicated to improving information
and communication in the health and social service fields at the community level. Trilogy works primarily with state and county
governments and other local human service entities to establish one-stop information places, centered on highly interactive,
community-based Web sites" (former Trilogy Website).
According to the California Legislature at Sacramento (Handbooks) and the Assembly Final History, Bronzan served on the following
committees:
- Standing Committees
- Aging and Long Term Care, 1983-1984
- Agriculture, 1983-1992
- Finance and Insurance, 1987-1990
- Health, 1983-1992 (Chair, 1989-1992)
- Chair, 1989-1992
- Human Services, 1989-1990 (Chair, 1989-1990)
- Chair, 1989-1990
- International Trade and Intergovernmental Relations, 1987-1988
- Local Government, 1985-1986
- Televising the Assembly, 1991-1992
- Utilities and Commerce, 1983-1984 (Vice Chair, 1983-1984)
- Vice Chair, 1983-1984
- Ways and Means, 1985-1988
- Select Committees
- California Wine Production and Economy, 1987-1992
- Children and Youth Services, 1991-1992
- Genetic Diseases, 1989-1990
- Mental Heath, 1983-1984
- Chair, 1983-1984
- Small Business, 1983-1984
- Utility Performance, Rates, and Regulation, 1983-1984
- Vice Chair, 1983-1984
- Subcommittees
- Subcommittee #1 (Ways and Means) - Health and Welfare, 1985-1988
- Chair, 1985-1986 Health and Workers Insurance, 1989-1990 Health Personnel, 1989-1990
- Mental Health and Development Disabilities, 1985-1988
- Mental Health, Development Disabilities and Substance Abuse, 1989-1990
- Minority Health Affairs, 1991-1992
- Unemployment Insurance and Disability Insurance, 1987-1988
- Joint Committees
- Legislative Audit, 1987-1990 (Chair, 1987-1988)
- Chair, 1987-1988
- Special Committees
- Medi-Cal Oversight, 1987-1992
- Oversight Committees
- Tobacco Tax Programs, 1991-1992
- Legislative Task Force
- Taiwan Sister State, 1989-1992
- Televising the Assembly, 1989-1990
- Additional Committees, Commissions, and Boards
- California Commission on Health Care Policy and Financing, 1989-1990
- Commission on Economic Development, 1991-1992
The Bruce Bronzan Papers consist of 9 cubic feet of textual records reflecting Bronzan's legislative activities during his
10-year Assembly career. Record series include Bill Files, 1983-1992; Subject Files, 1968-1990; Press Files, 1986-1988; and
a subgroup consisting of Joint Legislative Audit Committee Subject Files, 1972-1989.
This collection is particularly useful to researchers interested in California's health care policies, especially as it concerns
the homeless and mentally ill during the 1980s. As a member of the Assembly Health Committee from 1983-1992, serving as chair
from 1989-1992, and a member of six health related subcommittees during his career in the Legislature, Bruce Bronzan spent
his legislative career focused on creating awareness and focusing legislative attention and funds on public health issues
for traditionally disadvantaged groups such as children, the poor, and the mentally ill. Bronzan also served on the Agriculture
Committee dealing with irrigation, pesticide regulation, tax credits, and world trade as it relates to agriculture and agricultural
products. Subject files from his time as chairman and member of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee from 1987-1990 reflect
the committee's deliberation and recommendations to the Auditor General regarding State audits. Among the most notable were
the audits of the major agencies including the Department of General Services and Worker's Compensation. Because of Bronzan's
experience with Medi-Cal and insurance and his continued commitment to farmers, families, and the mentally ill, his collection
provides a detailed view of policy changes in these areas and the effects on California during the 1980s and early 1990s.
No further accruals are expected.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
California. Legislature. Assembly
California. Legislature. Assembly. Committee on Agriculture
California. Legislature. Assembly. Committee on Ways and Means. Subcommittee #1 on Health and Welfare
LP409:1-117
Series 1 Bill Files 1983-1992
Physical Description: 117 file folders
Arrangement
Bill files are arranged chronologically by legislative session and numerically by bill number.
Scope and Content Note
Bill files created by Bruce Bronzan may include bill analyses, amendments and resolutions, author's statements, testimony,
press releases, editorials and newspaper clippings, correspondence, committee statements, background and other information.
Bronzan's bill files reflect his legislative priorities including reactions to pesticide regulation (AB2635, 1983), irrigation
(AB1701, AB3375, 1989) and the Food Safety Act of 1989 (AB 2161, AB4176, 1989-1990). Bronzan struggled to restore funding
to the Office of Family Planning cut from the budget by Governor Deukmejian. AB 99 (1990) finally restored the funding but
not before several clinics throughout California were forced to close. Other legislative endeavors to protect children and
families included efforts to make pre-natal vitamins more easily available through Medi-Cal (AB1131, 1985; AB1905, 1987; AB919,
1987); health education programs (AB3331, 1986); pre-adoption criminal background checks (AB4272, 1986); foster care pilot
programs (AB1696, 1988); teen pregnancy programs (AB3804, 1990); and health care, treatment and day care centers for kids
(AB1271, AB1361, AB1362, AB4642, AB4649, 1987-1988; AB2495, 1992). While Assemblyman Bronzan dealt with these and many more
issues important to the state of California, his passion was for health care and health insurance reform. Some of Bronzan's
notable accomplishments in the legislature relating to health include his arduous struggle to pass the Mental Health Services
Reform Act of 1985, AB2541. During his tenure, Bronzan established new criteria for the licensure of physicians' assistants
(AB1880, 1984) and sought legislation regarding the training, representation and title given to other hospital personnel (AB2009,
AB2629 1983; AB1225, 1987; AB2159, 1989). He was devoted to helping the mentally ill and indigent by reforming health care,
policies, facilities, and allocating state funding for related programs. Other bill files cover topics such as energy, hazardous
waste treatment, the California World Trade Commission, and animal teeth cleaning.
1983-1984: AB735-AB4050, ACR18-45, AJR56, HR15 (LP409:1-9).
1985-1986: Legislation Log, AB104-AB4272, ACR107, Final Legislative Report (LP409:10-24).
1987-1988: AB300-AB4670, ACR61-ACR155 (LP409:25-59).
1989-1990: AB99-AB4273, ACR8-ACR151, HR10-HR70 (LP409:60-89).
1991-1992: AB14-AB3757, ACA12-ACA35; ACR47-ACR131, AJR12-AJR63, AB20X (LP409:90-117).
LP409:118-133
Series 2 Subject Files 1968-1990
Physical Description: 16 file folders
Arrangement
Subject Files are arranged alphabetically by subject heading.
Scope and Content Note
Subject Files may contain newspaper clippings, press releases, correspondence, reports, notes, memoranda and other materials.
The subjects covered in this series are reflective of Bronzan's particularly controversial or important legislation and those
topics of particular interest to the records' creator during his 10-year legislative career.
Background Reading Material, 1968-1986 (1ff) LP409:118
Bill Schedules, 1989 (1ff) LP409:119
Canine Teeth Cleaning, 1978-1991 (2ff) LP409:120-121
Family Planning, Office of (OFP), 1987-1990 (2ff) LP409:122
Mental Health, AB1896, 1990 (1ff) LP409:123
Mental Health Reform Act of 1985, AB2541, 1984-1985 (6ff) LP409:124-129
Mental Health Reform Act of 1985, Bebe Nolan's File, 1985 (1ff) LP409:130
Office of Family Planning Press Conference, 1990 (1ff) LP409:131
Photos and Artwork, undated (1ff) LP409:132
Teen Pregnancy: Dollar-A-Day Program, 1982-1990 (1ff) LP409:133
LP409:134-139
Series 3 Press Files 1986-1988
Physical Description: 6 file folders
Arrangement
Press Files are arranged alphabetically by subject heading. Within each subject grouping the records are organized in the
order assigned by the creator's numerical system.
Scope and Content Note
The Press Files series contains Issue Responses for a variety of different subjects and events, news clippings, and News Releases
written by Bronzan and his office. The Issue Responses are correspondence templates directed to his constituents expressing
his views on subjects and announce state-sponsored events and celebrations. News Clippings mentioning Bruce Bronzan, his
legislation, or issues of importance to Bronzan are also included in the Press Files series. The articles are from a variety
of different newspapers across California including the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications
from cities including San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Fresno. The News Releases are public statements conveying
Assemblyman Bronzan's views and actions regarding specific bills or groups of legislation before the State Legislature.
Assembly Joint Legislative Audit Committee Records 1972-1989
Scope and Content Note
The Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) was created in 1955 following the recommendations of Price Waterhouse and Company
in 1954 that the legislature have an independent, post-audit capability. The JLAC is comprised of seven members from each
house with Senate members being appointed by the Senate Rules Committee and Assembly members being appointed by the Assembly
Speaker. The Committee selects its own chairman and is non-partisan.
Bruce Bronzan served as a member of this committee from 1987-1990 and was chairman from 1987-1988. The JLAC determines the
policies of the Auditor General, sets priorities for audits, and approves audit requests. Audit requests can only come from
legislative officers, committee chairs, the Auditor General, or members of the JLAC. The JLAC subject files maintained by
Assemblyman Bronzan relate to audit requests received and audits performed during his time serving as chair of the committee.
LP409:140-179
Series 1 Subject Files 1972-1989
Physical Description: 40 file folders
Arrangement
Press Files are arranged alphabetically by subject heading.
Scope and Content Note
Subject files may contain newspaper clippings, press releases, correspondence, reports, notes, memoranda and other research
materials. The subjects covered in this series concern audits, suggested audits of California government agencies and departments,
and issues of concern to the committee.
Asbestos Removal - Schools, 1984-1988 (2ff) LP409:140-141
Auditor General, 1988 (1ff) LP409:142
Board of Corrections, 1987-1988 (1ff) LP409:143
Business Development Office, 1988 (1ff) LP409:144
Commerce Department (1ff) LP409:145
Consulting Services and Contracts, 1984-1988 (1ff) LP409:146
Department of General Services (DGS), 1981-1988 (1ff) LP409:147
Domestic Violence, 1988 (1ff) LP409:148
Emergency Medical Services (EMS), 1988 (1ff) LP409:149
Employment Development Department, 1982-1988 (1ff) LP409:150
Excess Land, Better Management of, 1983 LP409:151
Government Operations Review, 1982 (1ff) LP409:152
Health Services Department, 1985-1988 (1ff) LP409:153
Hearing Transcript, August 15, 1988 (1ff) LP409:154
Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, 1988-1989 (1ff) LP409:155
Office of the State Architect (OSA) and Office of Project Developmentand Management (OPDM), 1985-1988 LP409:156
Press Releases, 1988 (1ff) LP409:157
Private Care for the Retarded, 1987-1988 (1ff) LP409:158
Property Management, 1984-1988 (1ff) LP409:159
School Facilities Construction, 1988 (2ff) LP409:160-161
Waste Management Board, 1985-1989 (3ff) LP409:162-164
Workers' Compensation, 1972-1988 (15ff) LP409:165-179