Give legislators an earful. (CalCPA Members).

Just two days after CalCPA members descended on the state Legislature, a particularly onerous "accounting reform" bill, AR 1995 (Correa) was voted down on the Assembly floor.

"The positive impact of so many members arriving on a single day in Sacramento can't be overstated," says CalCPA Chair David George. "The profession really came together and showed it has the collective will to do what it takes to oppose regulation and law that is not beneficial to either California's economy or CPAs."

On May 28, hundreds of CPAs made a post-holiday weekend trek to Sacramento to visit their legislators.

"I was impressed with how eager our representatives were to hear our point of view," reflects Larry Russell of the Los Angeles Chapter. "Both those who were for and against AB 1995 listened intently to our perspective. In fact, two of the Assembly members who had said they were planning to support AB 1995 ended up abstaining from the vote. I think they had second thoughts after our visit."

Among other things, AR 1995 would have restricted the scope of services CPAs could provide to publicly held audit clients by specifying a narrow list of permissible "non-audit" services, automatically prohibiting all others.

CalCPA opposes a number of other bills currently winding their way through the state legislature chiefly because reform at the state level is not appropriate. "We support reform that is uniform and national," says Michael Ueltzen, chair of CalCPA's Government Relations Committee. "If California insists on hurrying through its own legislation without waiting for Congress to act, it should consider listing prohibited services and pay close attention to the CBA's task force reports."

For the latest on what's happening in Sacramento, go to CalCPA's government relations website at http://calcpa.iris1.com.