SACRAMENTO—Native American foster students would receive the same educational rights as other foster children under AB 1055, a proposal approved Wednesday by the Assembly Education Committee on a bipartisan vote of 7 to 0. Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) authored the measure.

“This bill ensures that tribal foster youth are afforded the same resources and services as their non-tribal counterparts,” Ramos said. If AB 1055 is enacted all California foster youth – those under supervision of the county or tribal court systems – will receive the attention they need to achieve success in

SACRAMENTO – A measure to help ensure Native American students can wear items of spiritual or cultural significance at high school graduations was approved Wednesday in the Assembly Education Committee on a bipartisan vote of 7 to 0.

Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) said his bill, AB 945, is aimed at making sure students are not prevented from exercising this right guaranteed by the U.S. and California constitutions and state law to wear cultural and religious items at their graduation ceremonies. “Despite existing protections, local school officials have raised objections to students

SACRAMENTO—The Assembly Judiciary Committee today approved a measure on a bipartisan 10-0 vote to allow state and local court employees to receive a paid holiday in celebration of California Native American Day.  

“I am appreciative that the Judicial Council brought this forward,” Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) said. “For more than 20 years, I have worked to help create a day that recognizes California’s First People and their history,” Ramos stated. "Our state has the greatest number of Native Americans residing within its boundaries, and it is fitting that we begin to expand our

SACRAMENTO—An Assembly constitutional amendment and bill to strengthen and assert current instructional California Native American social science standards and frameworks was introduced today by Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland).

The language in ACA 6, the California Indian Education Act, is also included in AB 1554 which Ramos introduced earlier this year and has since amended.

“California’s Native Americans resided in our state long before explorers, missionaries and settlers, yet little is acknowledged or even studied about that past or even present. Native people have been made

SACRAMENTO—Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland), the first California Native American elected to the Legislature and a lifelong resident of the San Manuel Indian Reservation, today cheered the 11-9 vote by a key U.S. Senate committee advancing the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) as U.S. Interior secretary.

I am excited and proud to see Rep. Haaland’s nomination move a step closer to reality. For hundreds of years, the Department of Interior has wielded enormous power over the lives of the country’s Native Americans without including them in decision making that affects their

SACRAMENTO—Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) today urged the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to confirm the nomination of U.S. Representative Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) as Secretary of the Interior. If approved by the Senate, Haaland would be the first Native American to serve in a position that oversees federal bureaus and agencies critical to Native American governance, education, and culturally sacred lands.

“I am asking that the Energy Committee members refer her historic nomination to the floor and that the full Senate approve this historic nominee,” Ramos said

SACRAMENTO—All state and local court employees would receive a paid holiday in celebration of California Native American Day instead of Columbus Day if a bill introduced today is approved by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) said his measure, AB 855, makes California Native American Day, on the fourth Friday of September, a judicial holiday. Ramos’s bill swaps the present paid holiday on Columbus Day for California Native American Day. “For more than 20 years, I have worked to help create a day that recognizes the state’s first

SACRAMENTO— Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) today introduced a measure to replace the statue of controversial Franciscan friar Junipero Serra, overturned by protestors on July 4 during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd. Because the sculpture was created pursuant to legislation, it will take another law to create a successor monument. Ramos is the first California Native American elected to the Legislature.

The bill is sponsored by six Indian tribes who live in the Sacramento region and whose ancestors populated the land where California’s capitol is located.

“It is

SACRAMENTO—Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) today denounced the Trump administration’s-transfer of a tract of Arizona land known as Oak Flat, sacred to Apaches and numerous regional tribes, to the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The transfer was conducted at an accelerated pace by Trump’s U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The text of the Rendon and Ramos letter follows:

This trade of the 2,422-acre parcel known as Oak Flat represents a betrayal of the Apache people who