BILL ANALYSIS �
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 ? �t]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? �This
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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