Wednesday, January 19, 2005

A Missed Deadline: What Does It Mean?

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine appears to have missed its first legal deadline – not that it means much, at least for now.

Monday Jan. 17 appeared to have been the deadline for appointment of members to the three working groups by the oversight committee. But no action had surfaced as of late Tuesday. Instead the search committee for the research funding working group scheduled a teleconference meeting for Jan. 25 to determine criteria for selecting members of the research working group.

There does not appear to be any penalty for missing the deadline, just as there is virtually no penalty for failure of the legislature and the governor to enact a state budget on time. Moreover, a substantial number of folks make persuasive arguments that CIRM needs to go slow and exercise great care in its proceedings.

Nonetheless, a skeptic might wonder whether this is the first step along a path that skirts the requirements of the law when the institute thinks it is necessary.

At any rate, the unknown person or persons who wrote that deadline into the initiative is the one who deserves the raspberry. It was totally unrealistic. If the measure had gone through the legislative process, perhaps it would not have contained such foolishness. But then again, it may have contained worse.

Credit Stu Leavenworth, an associate editor of The Sacramento Bee, with noting the Jan. 17 deadline in his
Jan. 9 piece on CIRM.

If you are a glutton for punishment, you can find the deadline in section 125290.50 of the measure. Our browser showed it on page 5 of the
PDF file of Prop. 71 on the California secretary of state's site.

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We would be delighted to publish your comments on the CIRM or the failings of this blog. Please send them to djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

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