California supreme court rules on the release of $3Bn CIRM funding
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied petitions to review the Court of Appeal's February decision to uphold the validity of Proposition 71, the state's stem cell research funding law. The People's Advocate and the California Family Bioethics Council, which filed the petitions, have alleged that Prop. 71 violates the California Constitution by appropriating state funds to an entity that isn't exclusively managed and controlled by the state, and that it creates an oversight body that has unacceptable conflicts of interest. According to State Controller John Chiang, who chairs the California Financial Accountability Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state may now issue the $3 billion in bonds authorised by California voters in November 2004. The litigation had been blocking CIRM from distributing the funds.
