Expanding Access to Healthcare. 

Inland Southern California is one of the most medically underserved regions in the state and nation, with a primary care physician shortage worse than some third world countries, and the lowest supply of physicians per capita in the state. Where 60 to 80 primary care physicians per 100,000 people are recommended, our region only has 40 per 100,000 people.  To tackle this crisis, General Roth has dedicated his tenure in the State Senate to improving healthcare outcomes for our communities:

• Delivered critical funding to establish the UC Riverside School of Medicine, the first new medical school in California in over 40 years.
• Delivered an on-going annual appropriation of $15 million for the medical school to address the physician shortage in Inland Southern California.
• Negotiated an additional $25 million in ongoing funding for the medical school, bringing the total to $40 million in annual funding.
• Secured approval to build a new state-of-the-art building for the medical school, doubling the capacity of the school from 250 to 500.
• Established a new $10 million teaching hospital for short-term, intense treatment at the UCR School of Medicine.
• In partnership with Cal State San Bernardino, Cal State Fullerton, and Riverside Community College District, established a nursing education pilot program that streamlines graduation for bachelor’s degree nurses and places them into medically underserved regions like Inland Southern California, helping meet our nursing shortage .

Creating Good Paying Jobs. 

• Delivered $419 million investment in the California Air Resources Board’s new emissions testing facility, which will be built at UC Riverside and create over 400 new jobs in our region.
• Secured a $300 tax credit to create thousands of new jobs building the B-21 “Raider” Long Range Strike Bomber.

Protecting Public Safety.

• In partnership with the Riverside Police Officers Association, passed a new law to protect police officers and firefighters catastrophically injured in the line of duty.
• Increased law enforcement’s ability to track and prevent domestic violence by passing a new law requiring that strangulation and suffocation be included in existing domestic violence police reports filed when a call for assistance is made
• Required schools to share human trafficking prevention resources with parents and guardians. 

Investing in Our Infrastructure. 

• Delivered $427 million for road repairs and transportation infrastructure improvement projects in our region.

Helping Our Students Succeed. 

• Created the Pathways to Higher Education program, which has successfully connected over 1,000 high school students and their families with vital resources for higher education.
• Prevented cuts to the Cal Grant financial aid program for students at our colleges and universities, expanded Cal Grant to cover summer sessions, and further invested in the Cal Grant program by $30 million annually.

Supporting Our Veterans. 

• Secured $3 million to fund a California Strike Team that delivered over $35 million in back payments to our veterans and over $52 million annually in ongoing disability payments. 
• Secured $1.7 million to permanently fund the Work for Warriors program which places veterans and their spouses in jobs throughout California.
• Streamlined the transition for veterans seeking a community college education by requiring California Community Colleges to award credit to military personnel and veterans.
• Established the California Transitional Assistance Program (CalTAP) Endowment Fund to provide supportive services to homeless veterans.

Improving Mental Healthcare. 

• Secured $65 million to support mental health services on K-12, community college, CSU, and UC campuses.
• Invested $15 million to establish a tele-psychiatry program at UCR School of Medicine, which will help drive critical mental health services including mobile treatment units, new psychiatric residents and technology.

Making Government Work for the People.

• When it was discovered that the California Department of Parks and Recreation amassed a secret surplus of more than $20 million over 12 years, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection misreported $3.6 million, at a time when the economic recession forced billions in budget cuts to state programs affecting families and Californians in need, passed a law to hold state officials and employees civilly and criminally liable if they knowingly misrepresent the balance of an account containing state funds to the California Department of Finance.
• Funded 25 of the 48 authorized, but unfunded, superior court judgeships and expenses associated with those positions and requires the Judicial Council to allocate the funded judgeships based on its updated determination of judicial needs.
• Reallocated four vacant judgeships from counties that are identified as having an excess number of judges to Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, without affecting existing funding sources for support staff in the counties where the judges are reallocated.

Water.

• Required the State Lands Commission, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Water Resources, to find that the transfer of the water from a groundwater basin underlying specified desert lands will not adversely affect the natural or cultural resources, including groundwater resources or habitat, of those federal and state lands in order for that transfer to be allowed.
• For decades, the County Water Company of Riverside (CWC) failed to deliver safe and reliable water to its residents. Passed a bill allowing the Eastern Municipal Water District and Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District to provide assistance without being held liable for past administrative or operational deficiencies of the existing water system, providing clean water to former CWC residents, allowing the water districts to proceed, and in turn protecting ratepayers.