BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1075
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Date of Hearing: August 8, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1075 (Committee on Rules) - As Amended: June 26, 2012
Policy Committee:
JudiciaryVote:10-0 (Consent)
Rules 11-0
(Consent)
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill, consistent with the Uniform Electronic Legal Material
Act (UELMA), designates the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) as
the state's official publisher of electronic legal material (the
California Constitution, state statues, and the California
Codes), and requires the LCB, by July 1, 2015, when publishing
legal material only in an electronic record, to designate that
material as official, i.e. the legal material must be
authenticated, preserved, and made reasonably available for
public use on a permanent basis. This bill also:
1)Provides that if legal material is preserved in electronic
form, the LCB must ensure the integrity of the electronic
record, provide for backup and disaster recovery of that
record, and ensure the continuing usability of the legal
material.
2)Requires the LCB to authenticate the legal material in any
electronic record designated as official by providing a method
for a user to determine that the record received by the user
from LCB is unaltered from the official record published by
the LCB.
3)Requires the LCB, in implementing the above, to consider the
standard and practices of other jurisdictions and the use of
methods and technologies used by other official publishers in
states that have adopted UELMA.
SB 1075
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FISCAL EFFECT
The LCB estimates one-time set-up costs of $136,000 (General
Fund) for archiving, authentication, auditing, and onsite and
offsite storage, and ongoing General Fund costs of $40,000 to
$70,000 for licensing, auditing, and offsite storage (at one to
three sites).
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . With modern advances in information technology, all
states now publish their laws, statutes, rules and other legal
material online. According to the author, however, while
electronic publication of legal material has facilitated
greater public access, it raises concerns about the
authenticity and preservation of this official information
when in electronic format. For example, how can users
accessing the text of a statute online be assured that it is
an unaltered, accurate copy of the true language of the law?
SB 1075 adopts the UELMA, model legislation drafted by the
National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws
("Uniform Law Commission") that provides for the
authentication, preservation, and accessibility of official
state legal material in electronic form.
2)Background : The LCB is required to make the California Codes,
statutes, Constitution, and other specified legal information
available to the public in electronic form. While this
information is available at the LCB's website
(www.leginfo.ca.gov), there is currently no official online
version of the statutes or codes, and no single state entity
serves as the digital clearinghouse for electronic records.
The Secretary of State is the custodian of all acts and
resolutions passed by the Legislature, but it does not
maintain an official electronic version of California's laws.
According to the Council of State Governments, while all 50
states now maintain online versions of their codes, only seven
states provide access to official versions online.
SB 1075
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In 2011, the Uniform Law Commission recommended that the
states adopt UELMA, and since then the Act has been introduced
in six states, including California. The UELMA provides an
outcomes-based approach, which identifies standards and goals,
but not specific procedures that states adopting the Act must
use to manage their electronic legal material. This allows
states to remain flexible when fashioning solutions to the
particular technological and practical challenges it faces in
implementing the Act.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081