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Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) has reintroduced proposed mental health legislation that he says has been decades in the making and is urging his colleagues in Congress to rally behind as mental health struggles throughout the country have continued to abound in the years since it first became a top priority for him.
DeSaulnier, whose district includes much of the Tri-Valley, reintroduced the “Mental Health Matters Act” on the last day of the previous Congress on Jan. 3, meaning it will need to be reintroduced once again in the current Congress in order to move forward, according to a spokesperson from his office. It was initially introduced in 2022, then passed with a vote of 220 to 205.
“Mental health care is health care, and with one in five adults and one in six children experiencing mental illness each year, it’s imperative we take bold, comprehensive action to get quality support and resources to the millions of Americans in need,” DeSaulnier said in a press release on Jan 3. “Having lost my dad to suicide, I am honored to introduce legislation to help other families by employing evidence-based resources to tackle the mental health crisis plaguing this country.”
DeSaulnier’s father Edward – who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Massachusetts Senate from 1949 to 1958 – died by suicide in 1989 after a years-long battle with alcohol and gambling addictions, advocating for the mitigation of alcoholism and other substance abuse issues following his time in office.
DeSaulnier told DanvilleSanRamon that the loss of his father – and the need for widespread legislation and societal support for mental health and substance abuse issues – helped shape the priorities for his own political career, which began two years later when he was elected to the Concord City Council in 1991, having served on the city’s Planning Commission starting in 1988.
“It led me to an interest when I was in college and when I got into elected office, particularly at the county, because the counties have the behavioral health division,” said DeSaulnier, who served on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors from 1994 to 2006.
“I’ve always had an interest in pursuing policies, including financial support for government agencies and non-government agencies, both on the research side and the dependence on the research for providers,” he continued. “This is a culmination of 40 years of interest in behavioral health.”
Despite ongoing advocacy from DeSaulnier and others seeking to address mental health and substance abuse over the years, the current outlook remains grim, and increasingly so for younger generations, according to statistics provided by his office.
Suicide is currently the second leading cause of death between the ages of 10 and 24, and the 12th leading cause of death overall in the United States. Last year, 40% of students reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” with more than 20% seriously considering suicide and 9% attempting it – yet 80% of young people requiring mental healthcare don’t have access to it.
Those requiring mental health services account for more than half of students statewide, according to a 2022 report from the ACLU, with “decades of underinvestment” resulting in schools throughout the state having an average of one social worker for every 6,000 students, and the third highest ratio of students to school counselors in the nation.
DeSaulnier added that his ongoing work with local school districts has made the increasing mental health issues all the more tangible to him in recent years, with the Mental Health Matters Act seeking to improve and expand mental health and special needs support to school districts throughout the country.
“I do a lot of outreach in the school districts in particular, and what I hear regularly, particularly in the last 20 years, is both from students, and administrators and from teachers that they need more counselors and they need more training, so the Mental Health Matters act is a comprehensive response to what I think the country has to look at with some real sense of urgency,” DeSaulnier said.
The next steps for the bill on his end, DeSaulnier said, was to help garner increased support and awareness for it, and to find “others who have an open mind about this, both Republican and Democrat.”
Although he acknowledged that bipartisan support for anything could be increasingly difficult in the current and future political climates, DeSaulnier said he would continue pushing for the bill to be put into law, and that he remained optimistic.
“I’m realistic, but I think we have to do it, and I think as somebody who has a background on this, it’s a passion for me,” DeSaulnier said.
The major challenge facing the proposed bill or any other widespread mental health care legislation, DeSaulnier said, is a cultural one.
“I think we tend to think that if people have a weakness, if they have a behavioral health problem, they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and we know that’s not accurate,” DeSaulnier said.
