BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 126
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          Date of Hearing:   May 11, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                     AB 126 (Davis) - As Amended:  April 4, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              JudiciaryVote:7-2

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill,  as proposed to be amended  , attempts to create greater 
          transparency in the process of judicial selection and 
          evaluation. Specifically, this bill:

          1)Requires each member of the designated agency of the State Bar 
            responsible for evaluating judicial candidates to complete a 
            minimum of two hours of training annually in the areas of 
            fairness and bias in the judicial appointments process.

          2)Requires the governor to post on his or her official website 
            the names of all persons, except employees of the governor, 
            for whom the governor or his or her representatives have 
            provided judicial application materials on candidate(s) for 
            judicial office for purposes of determining whether: 

             a)   The application should be submitted to the State Bar for 
               evaluation, or

             b)   The candidate should be appointed following evaluation 
               by the State Bar.

          3)Requires the State Bar and the Administrative Office of the 
            Courts (AOC), with respect to statewide demographic data on 
            all judicial applicants and on justices and judges, to use 
            specified ethnic and racial categories, as defined for the 
            2010 U.S. Census.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Minor absorbable ongoing costs for the Governor's Office to make 
          the required disclosures on its website.








                                                                  AB 126
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           COMMENTS  

           1)Purpose  . This bill seeks to address the historical lack of 
            transparency in key aspects of California's judicial selection 
            and evaluation process.  The author contends the bill will 
            help with the effort the Legislature and governor are 
            currently making to address the continuing lack of sufficient 
            ethnic, racial and gender diversity in the state's judicial 
            branch. The bill is supported by the California State 
            Conference of the NAACP and the California Public Defenders 
            Association. 

           2)Prior Legislation  . This bill is substantially similar to AB 
            2095 (Davis) of 2008, which was vetoed by Governor 
            Schwarzenegger, who stated:

               "Having a diverse and qualified judiciary that can 
               effectively serve all Californians is a goal I continue to 
               work towards.  Our hard work is reflected in the increased 
               number of diverse judicial applicants.   My appointments, 
               of which over 23% to date are ethnic minorities, exceeds 
               the percentages of ethnic minority applicants? I receive 
               information from a myriad of sources, and ? Ýt]he people 
               this bill seeks to identify perform an advisory role only 
               and a final decision about who advances in the process is 
               exercised exclusively by the Judicial Appointments 
               Secretary, acting on my behalf. Therefore, any contrary 
               characterization does a disservice to the public? ÝThis 
               bill] would impair the availability of impartial 
               information about prospective judicial candidates, have a 
               chilling effect upon people willing to provide candid 
               information, and would subject individuals to political 
               lobbying from various sources.  Ultimately, this bill would 
               hinder my ability to most effectively carry out my 
               constitutionally-mandated duty."

           3)Amendments  are clarifying and simply list the specific ethnic 
            and racial categories are currently used by the AOC to collect 
            demographic data and are consistent with the 2010 census.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081 











                                                                  AB 126
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