BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SCA 14
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 21, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES
Richard S. Gordon, Chair
SCA
14 (Wolk) - As Amended June 17, 2016
SENATE VOTE: 27-8
SUBJECT: Legislative procedure
SUMMARY: Prohibits the Legislature from passing a bill in
either house until the bill has been available to the public for
at least 72 hours before the vote, and requires the Legislature
to make audiovisual recordings of public legislative proceedings
including floor sessions and committee hearings. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Requires, beginning January 1, 2018, that the Legislature make
audiovisual recordings of all floor sessions of each house of
the Legislature and the standing committees thereof at which a
vote is taken or other action is recorded. Also, requires
that the Legislature make audiovisual recordings of public
committee proceedings held in the State Capitol Building, such
as an informational hearing, where no vote is taken or action
is recorded.
2)Requires, beginning January 1, 2018, that the Legislature make
reasonable efforts to audio visually record all public
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committee proceedings held outside of the State Capitol
Building.
3)Requires, beginning January 1, 2018, that the Legislature make
reasonable efforts to broadcast, in real time, all public
proceedings of the Legislature and the committees thereof that
are held in the State Capitol Building.
4)Requires, beginning January 1, 2018, that the Legislature
authorize members of the public who attend public legislative
proceedings to make and broadcast recordings of the
proceedings, subject to reasonable restrictions that ensure
public safety and prevent disruption of the proceedings.
5)Requires the Legislature to provide all of its audiovisual
recordings to the Legislative Counsel, who shall make the
recordings promptly available to the public. The recordings
shall remain reasonably accessible to the public for not less
than 20 years.
6)Requires the Legislature to enact laws necessary to implement
the provisions of this measure and provides that the necessary
expenditures made in furtherance of the requirements in this
measure are not subject to existing limitations on the
Legislature's budget that were enacted by Proposition 140 of
1990.
7)Reduces the period of time that an introduced bill must be in
print before a committee may hear or act on that bill from 30
days to 15 days. Retains the 30-day in-print requirement for
bills to be heard or acted on by the floor of either house.
8)Prohibits a bill from being passed in either house until the
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bill, in the form to be voted on, has been made available to
the public by publishing it on the Internet for at least 72
hours before the vote in that house. This requirement may be
waived by a two-thirds vote, if the Governor has declared a
state of emergency and submitted a written statement to the
Legislature identifying the bill as necessary to address the
emergency.
9)Provides that in the event that this measure and another
measure that imposes transparency requirements on the
Legislature appear on the same statewide ballot, the
provisions of the other measure or measures shall be deemed to
be in conflict with this measure. In the event that this
measure receives a greater number of affirmative votes than a
measure deemed to be in conflict with it, the provisions of
this measure shall prevail in their entirety, and the other
measure or measures shall be null and void in their entirety.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires, pursuant to Section 7 of Article IV of the
California Constitution, that the proceedings of each house of
the Legislature and the committees thereof be open and public,
except as specified.
2)Prohibits, pursuant to Section 8 of Article IV of the
California Constitution, a bill other than the budget bill to
be heard or acted on by a committee or either house until the
31st day after the bill is introduced, except by a
three-fourths vote.
3)Prohibits, pursuant to Section 8 of Article IV of the
California Constitution, either house from passing a bill
until the bill, with amendments, has been printed and
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distributed to the Members.
4)Prohibits, pursuant to statute, a television signal generated
by the Assembly from being used for any political or
commercial purpose. This restriction does not limit use of
the signal by an accredited news organization or nonprofit
organization for educational or public affairs programming.
5)Requires, pursuant to statute, the Legislative Counsel to make
specified information available to the public in electronic
form, including: the schedule of legislative committee
hearings; a list of matters pending on the floors of both
houses; the text, analysis, bill history, and vote information
of each bill; and, all statutes enacted on or after January 1,
1993.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)The Legislature would incur one-time General Fund costs of up
to $2 million to purchase audiovisual recording equipment, and
approximately $1 million in ongoing General Fund costs related
to personnel and storage of the audiovisual recordings. SCA
14 excludes these costs from the Legislature's annual budget,
which is subject to the limits established in 1990 by
Proposition 140. SCA 14, however, requires that the
Legislature make sufficient funding available for these
purposes.
2)One-time General Fund costs ranging from $414,000 to $552,000
to the Secretary of State for printing and mailing costs
associated with placing the measure on the ballot in the next
statewide election.
SCA 14
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COMMENTS:
1)Purpose : In support of SCA 14, the author states:
SCA 14 would amend the California Constitution to
prohibit the Legislature from approving a bill unless
the bill, with any amendments, has been published on
the Internet for at least 72 hours prior to the vote
in that house. The 72-hour requirement would apply to
all bills except those necessary to address an
emergency declared by the Governor and with a 2/3 vote
in each house concurring prior to the vote on the
bill.
Historically, there have been many occasions when
significant legislation has been voted upon and
approved with little time for legislators, the press,
and the public at large, to read, review, analyze, and
comment on the merits of the bill.
SCA 14, if approved by the voters in November of 2016,
would provide the public more time to review
legislation and express their views to their elected
representatives on the merits of legislation,
providing greater transparency and accountability to
the legislative process, while still allowing for
expedited action in case of an emergency.
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2)Recording by the public : SCA 14 allows recording of
legislative proceedings by the public, subject to reasonable
restrictions such as preventing disruption of the proceedings
and ensuring public safety. This addresses public safety
concerns raised during the joint initiative hearing held on
June 15, 2016, by the Assembly Rules Committee and the Senate
Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee.
3)In-print requirement : SCA 14 reduces the 30-day in-print
requirement for introduced bills to 15 days before a committee
may hear or act on a bill. This will allow committees more
time to amend, analyze, and hear bills. It will also provide
the public more time to participate and provide feedback on
legislation. SCA 14 retains the 30-day in-print requirement
for action on the floor of the house of origin.
4)Competing proposal : SCA 14, along with AB 884 (Gordon), is
similar in intent to an initiative measure titled the
California Legislature Transparency Act (CLTA), which is
currently pending signature verification.
a) Amendments to SCA 14 since June 1 reflect an effort
to clarify the initiative's ambiguities, particularly
related to the 72-hour rule. The June 1 version
interpreted "final form" and "the vote" to mean the vote
on the floor of the second house, which is where most
bills become final. The June 9 version added a provision
to ensure that the house of origin had three days to vote
on that final version, in the unusual case where the bill
would not return to the house of origin for concurrence
and the bill had not had three days in the house of
origin. The current version concedes to the initiative
proponents' argument that they intended to give the first
house three days to review the bill before "dismissing"
the bill from the house, without regard to whether the
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bill was in the "final form." SCA 14 therefore would
clarify the ambiguity in the favor of the initiative
proponents, despite the additional burden imposed by the
current version. It does not reflect how the Legislature
may interpret the "final form" ambiguity if the voters
ultimately approve the initiative and not SCA 14.
5)Resolving ambiguities : SCA 14 resolves a number of identified
ambiguities in the California Legislature Transparency Act
initiative that could result in the initiative not having the
intended legal effect, including:
a) Passage of a bill : SCA 14 explicitly states that no
bill shall become a statute if it fails to comply with
the provisions of SCA 14. This enforcement clause
resolves the ambiguity in the initiative which provides
that "no bill may be passed or ultimately become a
statute" because Section 10 of Article IV of the
California Constitution provides the requirements for
bills to become statutes. This unnecessary language
could be interpreted to mean that a bill's failure to
comply with the other requirements in Section 8 of
Article IV would not prevent that bill from becoming a
statute.
b) 72-hour requirement : SCA 14 explicitly provides
that a bill must be published on the Internet "for at
least 72 hours before the vote in that house." Unlike
the language in the initiative which requires that bills
be in print for "72 hours before the vote," SCA 14
ensures that bills will be in print for 72 hours before a
floor vote in either house. The ambiguous language in
the initiative could reasonably be interpreted to only
apply the 72-hour requirement to the last vote before a
bill is presented to the Governor. This would not
provide the public sufficient time to review bills that
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are amended in the other house of the Legislature.
c) Final form of a bill : SCA 14 also ensures that the
72-hour requirement applies to the "form to be voted on,"
guaranteeing that amendments to a bill are in print for
the intended 72 hours in each house. The initiative, on
the other hand, uses ambiguous "final form" language
which could reasonably be interpreted to only require 72
hours on the final version of the bill that is presented
to the Governor.
6)Option for initiative withdrawal : Pursuant to SB 1253
(Chapter 697, Statutes of 2014), proponents of a statewide
initiative or referendum measure are now allowed to withdraw
the measure after filing the petitions with the Secretary of
State at any time before the measure qualifies for the ballot
(131 days prior to the election at which the measure will
appear). This provides a mechanism for a proponent to remove
a ballot initiative when the proponent comes to some form of
negotiated resolution, such as an alternative passed by the
Legislature.
SCA 14 has demonstrated how the negotiation process, intended
by SB 1253, on an initiative should occur. SCA 14 was
introduced as an alternative to the CLTA, has had numerous
public hearings, and has been significantly amended to address
concerns raised in those public hearings by the initiative
proponents and others.
Development of amendments to SCA 14 since June 1 has involved
discussion among representatives of the authors (SCA 14/AB
884), majority leadership offices, the Secretary of the
Senate, and the Assembly Rules Committee, in an effort to
interpret and clarify the meaning of the initiative's language
through amendments to SCA 14 and AB 884.
SCA 14
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7)Prior legislation : SCA 14 is similar to the following prior
bills which would have required bills be available for a
specified period of time prior to consideration: SCA 10 (Wolk,
2013), ACA 1 (Olsen, 2015), SCA 3 (Morrell, 2015), and SCA 10
(Huff, 2015).
8)Related legislation : AB 884 (Gordon, 2016) establishes how
the Legislature will arrange for audiovisual recording and
disclosure of the Legislature's activities, and is contingent
upon voter approval of SCA 14. AB 884 is pending on the
Senate Floor.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
California Newspaper Publishers Association
Rural County Representatives of California
Opposition
In light of the most recent amendments responding to the
initiative proponents' objections to prior SCA 14 versions, it
is unknown if there is opposition to the June 17 version of SCA
14.
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Prior versions of SCA 14 were opposed by Charles T. Munger, Jr.
and Sam Blakeslee (CLTA proponents), and the First Amendment
Coalition.
Analysis Prepared by:Michael Erke / RLS. / (916)
319-2800