Kevin de Leon, a first-term Democratic assemblyman from Los Angeles, had a chance to hear physicians' concerns at an April 26 fundraiser at the Los Angeles County Medical Association's downtown headquarters.

Organized by the political action committees of LACMA and the California Medical Association, the fundraiser drew about 30 physicians and medical students interested in supporting de Leon and in persuading him to adopt physician-friendly positions.

Other physician advocacy groups were represented as well, including the California Academy of Ophthalmology, which grapples with scope-of- practice issues that regularly confront the Legislature. "We anticipate that the optometry [field] will probably introduce a scope-of-practice bill next year," says Alfred Marrone, MD, a Torrance-based ophthalmologist and chair of the CAO political action committee.

Along with Howard Krauss, MD, president of the CAO and a LACMA board member, Dr. Marrone attended the event as an opportunity to present his concerns to de Leon. "We think [expanding optometrists' scope is] counterproductive for patients in California, because they will probably be asking to do surgery, and I don't think you pass legislation to get people the right to do surgery--you go to medical school for that," he says.

De Leon is assistant majority leader of the assembly and serves as a member of the Committee on Health, the Committee on Insurance, the Joint Committee on Legislative Budget, the Committee on Governmental Organization, and the Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism, and Internet Media.