BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1075
Page 1
Date of Hearing: July 2, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES
Nancy Skinner, Chair
SB 1075 (Senate Committee on Rules) - As Amended: June 27,
2012
SUBJECT : Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act
SUMMARY : Adopts the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act
(UELMA) to ensure the authenticity of California legal material
made available to the public online. Specifically, this bill :
1)Defines "legal material" to mean the California Constitution,
Codes, and statutes of this state.
2)Designates the Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) as the
official publisher for electronic legal material in this
state.
3)Provides that where the LCB publishes legal material only in
an electronic record, the electronic record must be designated
as official, and the legal material in the record must be
authenticated, preserved, and made reasonably available for
public use on a permanent basis.
4)Provides that where the LCB publishes legal material in an
electronic record and also in a record other than electronic
form, the electronic record may only be designated as official
if the publisher authenticates, preserves, and makes the legal
material reasonably available for public use on a permanent
basis.
5)Requires the LCB to authenticate the legal material in any
electronic record that is 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 LCB.
6)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.
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7)Specifies a number of considerations that LCB, in its capacity
as official publisher, must take into account in implementing
UELMA, including 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.
8)Becomes operative on July 1, 2015.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the LCB to make specified categories of legislative
information available to the public in electronic form,
including, among other things, the California Codes, the
California Constitution, and all statutes enacted on or after
January 1, 1993.
2)Requires the LCB to operate and maintain an information system
in order to make legislative information, as specified,
available to the public by means of access by way of the
largest nonproprietary, nonprofit cooperative public computer
network, as well as by other means and in other formats so as
to provide the greatest feasible access to the general public
in this state.
3)Provides that any electronic public access through the above
computer network shall be in addition to other electronic or
print distribution of the information.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Intent of the Bill . 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 novel concerns
about the authenticity and preservation of this official
information when in electronic format. This bill would adopt
the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA), model
legislation drafted by the National Conference of
Commissioners on Uniform State Laws that provides for the
authentication, preservation, and accessibility of official
state legal material in electronic form.
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2)Background . The Legislative Counsel Bureau (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
Legislative Counsel Bureau-maintained 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. 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.
3)The Uniform Act's Standards. UELMA provides an outcome-based
approach, which identifies standards and goals, but not
specific procedures for states to use to manage their
electronic legal material. In short, this approach allows
states to remain flexible when fashioning solutions to the
particular technological and practical challenges it faces in
implementing the Act. Because there is no uniformity of
technology standards among states, outcome-based requirements
provide a reasonable solution to the challenge of managing
official publications in electronic form and allow for the
likely possibility that publication technologies will change
over time and require further adaptation.
This bill would designate the LCB as the official publisher of
these materials in California. The bill would then require LCB
to authenticate the electronic records of official material
and more specifically to provide a method for a user to
determine that the record received by the user from the
publisher is unaltered from the official record published by
the publisher. Authenticity of official legal material in
electronic form is a concern because all online information is
transitory and vulnerable to hacking. Currently, California's
online database of electronic legal material
( http://www.leginfo.gov ) instructs users to verify the
authenticity of information elsewhere. Using the standards
articulated by the drafters of UELMA, this bill would give LCB
discretion to select appropriate methods of authentication to
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achieve the desired outcome, which ultimately could lead to
the ability to provide the electronic legal material's
official and authenticated status through its website.
Under this bill, LCB would also have discretion to designate
what electronic legal material is official and must therefore
be preserved, and the system by which to preserve it. If
legal material is preserved in print form, reliable procedures
are well-established and therefore not specified in the Act.
If legal material is preserved electronically, however, this
bill would require LCB to provide backup and disaster recovery
of the electronic records, ensure the continuing usability of
the material in those records, and ensure that the material is
reasonably available for use by the public on permanent basis.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Taxpayers Association (CalTax)
Council of California County Law Librarians
Northern California Association of Law Libraries
San Diego Area Law Libraries
Southern California Association of Law Libraries
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Anthony Lew/Diane Griffiths / JUD/RLS. /
(916) 319-2334/2800