Bob and Carmen Pack, whose 10-year-old son Troy and 7-year-old daughter Alana died in 2003, appeared at a news conference outside the L.A. County Registrar's Office in Norwalk, turning in 830,000 signatures to place the initiative named for their children on the November ballot.

Co-authored by Bob Pack, the Troy and Alana Patient Safety Act seeks to raise the cap on medical negligence damages — put in place by the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) of 1975 — up from $250,000, require doctors to submit to random drug tests and make it illegal for doctors to prescribe narcotics without first checking a statewide database.

"I'm very happy and proud that we were able to accomplish this signature-gathering effort," Pack said. "I think it will send a message that the citizens of California — when they learn about it — feel very strongly that the Safety Act and the MICRA laws need to be changed. The failure of the state legislature to do it on their own is being proved out."