By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers have reversed course on the sneaky attempt to reduce access to public records, as mandated by the Public Records Act. The act provides Californians the ability to obtain documents about state and local government actions.

Instead, according to the Los Angeles Times, Legislative leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown are looking at a constitutional amendment that would force local governments to pay for a state mandate that always has been picked up by the state. The result will be even more pressure on local budgets. So much for all of the feel-good political rhetoric about support for local governments.

Here’s what happened. On June 14,  AB 76  was passed by both houses of the Legislature and sent to the governor. It would gut the state Public Records Act at the local level. The last-minute trailer bill language would remove local governments’ current requirements to respond within 10 days to public records act requests, or to assist those requesting documents.

But opposition to the bill was immense from outraged members of the public and the media.

So on June 20, the Assembly passed SB 71, which is the same as AB 76, but with the the language threatening the Records Act removed.

Blame Brown

Blame was cast on Brown, who put the requirement to suspend the California Public Records Act in his January budget proposal. On the Assembly floor Thursday in a session I attended, Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Los Angeles, said passing AB 76 was merely to save money. He said, “The governor, wanting to save money, put in the provision.”

Then Blumenfield, clearly on the defense, added a knock on the press itself for not noticing what was in the budget. “Six months ago, there was not a peep out of the press or anyone in public,” he said.

Assemblywoman Kristen Olsen, R-Modesto, pointed out that her bill, ACA 4, which would require all bills to be in print for 72 hours before being voted on, would have prevented the mess Democratic lawmakers found themselves in over attempting to strip the Public Records Act.

As I wrote in May, Democrats killed her bill even before it could be heard in the Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6, which is led by Blumenfield.

Blumenfield did not back down. “Those arguments have nothing to do with this bill,” he said in response to Olsen. But ACA 4 would have assured that AB 76 had 72 hours to be scrutinized carefully; instead, it was subjected to a quick vote with almost no scrutiny of what was in it, leading to the ongoing crisis.

“The governor’s proposal was in place six months ago,” Blumenfield said again, even though both the Assembly and Senate slipped the provision into budget trailer bills at the eleventh hour. Nothing in a budget proposal by any governor is automatic, but must be written up into a bill by the Legislature.

Additionally, under increasing pressure this week, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, D-Los Angeles, released a joint statement Thursday admitting, “[T]here needs to be both an immediate fix to ensure local entities comply with the California Public Records Act and a long term solution so the California Public Records Act is not considered a reimbursable mandate.”

Public Records Act provisions

Assemblywoman Olsen called her legislative colleagues “hypocritical” for  reversing course on gutting the Public Records Act, while still opposing her ACA 4 requiring bills to be in print for 72 hours before a vote.

“I find it interesting the same folks who didn’t want to release their office budgets two years ago are falling all over themselves now to get SB 71 passed,” Olsen said.

Olsen was referring to a big dust-up in August 2011, when  the Assembly refused to comply with the state-required performance audit of Assembly administrative offices.

I wrote back then, “The Standing Rules of the Assembly call for an annual performance audit of the Assembly. But the Assembly had never actually complied with this rule,” prior to August 2011.

A political about-face

Both Blumenfield and Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, maintained that the trailer bill measures were meant to save the state millions of dollars in reimbursement to local governments for fulfilling Public Records requests. And both of the lawmakers claimed the budget bills would not make records unavailable.

However, every local government Public Records Act request I’ve made already comes with a hefty charge by the agency for reproducing the documents.

Brown, Steinberg and Perez announced a plan to introduce a constitutional amendment to go before voters next June, making changes to the California Public Records Act.

After a closed-door meeting of the Senate Democratic Caucus, a joint statement was released by Steinberg and Perez, which said that, as the Senate constitutional amendment progresses, the Assembly and Senate will work together “to give voters the chance to make clear that good government shouldn’t come with an extra price tag.”

Steinberg and Perez said, “We agree there needs to be both an immediate fix to ensure local entities comply with the California Public Records Act and a long-term solution so the California Public Records Act is not considered a reimbursable mandate.”

If the change ends up becoming law, then local governments will have pick up the tab for what until now has been a state mandate paid for out of state general-fund revenues. This would be on top of all the other mandates the state imposes on local governments, including the mandated pension spiking a dozen years ago and the recent shifting of state prisoners into local jails.

This also is a reason why, as Dave Roberts reported on CalWatchdog.com, the Legislature is trying to make it easier for local governments to raise parcel taxes, which then would pay for shifting the cost of honest government from the state to the local levels.

By Katy Grimes

SACRAMENTO — In a move which disregarded the very issue in the bill, Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 killed an important transparency bill Tuesday before it was even heard.

Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R- Modesto, hadn’t even testified on ACA 4, which she authored, before the bill was sent to the suspense file by the committee. This tactic prevented the committee members from even voting for or against increasing transparency in state government.

ACA 4 would require that proposed legislation be in print for 72 hours before a vote can be taken. This would allow lawmakers and the public to review and analyze bills before they are voted on.

“It was disappointing to learn, before we even began testimony, that the bill would be moved to the suspense file, where most bills effectively go to die,” said Olsen in a statement immediately following the hearing. “However, I intend keep working with members of the committee to address concerns and make sure that Californians have the open and transparent government that they deserve.”

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who is carrying the identical SCA 10, in the Senate, testified in support of the measure, but left the hearing right after her testimony, leaving Olsen to field sometimes antagonistic questioning.

ACA 4/SCA 10

ACA 4 and SCA 10 would place a measure on the ballot to allow voters to change the California Constitution to require all bills to be in print for 72 hours before legislators could vote on them.

New York and Florida already have similar laws in place, Olsen said.

Every year the California Legislature is faced with thousands of proposed bills. After extensive public review and input in legislative committees, the Legislature approves most of these bills, which then go to the governor for his signature.

Olsen said that too many bills forgo extensive public review due to the gut-and-amend process, by which the language of one bill is “gutted” and replaced with something entirely new. Usually the process occurs in the last days of the legislative session, so bills receive little or no review before being voted on.

“Unfortunately, there is an increasing trend for the Legislature to forgo the usual process and approve a brand-new law with no public review at all,” said Olsen. “Some bills are passed and sent to the governor before even we legislators have had the time to read them or to hear from our constituents. This needs to stop.”

Committee Chairman, Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell, D-San Bernardino, challenged Olsen on the need for the bill, claiming that the process already works, and inferred that more transparency would not necessarily be a good thing.

Olsen said critics of her proposal claim the current legislative process actually needs more secrecy to protect against special interests who will pressure the Legislature not to approve important laws that are unpopular but necessary.

“If that is the case, why have public hearings at all?” Olsen asked. “The truth is that the very special interests who oppose sunshine are the same ones who thrive in the back room, where only they are allowed.”

Surprisingly, given the importance of the bill, other than myself there were no media at the hearing.

Gutting transparency

Too often, the gut-and-amend process happens on the way to a bill.

Gut-and-amend bills can be particularly insidious. This secretive process often leaves lawmakers, as well as the public, little or no time to review entirely new legislation dropped into an old bill. And usually, the subject of the legislation has nothing to do with the bill’s previous legislative issue.

Gut-and-amend typically happens with budget issues and heavy special interest legislation. Lawmakers have complained loudly for years that the gut-and-amend process has been grossly abused by whichever party is in power.

Olsen said this problem can be fixed once and for all by amending the California Constitution, instead of through piecemeal legislation which can easily be bypassed.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

“One hundred years ago, in 1913, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that ‘sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,’ an idea that led to the concept of sunshine in government,” Olsen wrote in a recent op-ed. “Brandeis also wrote, ‘the most important political office is that of private citizen.’ The three-day-in-print rule recognizes both of his observations.”

Supporters at the hearing for ACA 4 included Philip Ung from Common Cause, Paul Smith from the Rural County Representatives of California, Jim Ewert of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and Dan Carrigg of the League of California Cities.

There was no opposition to the bill, and the committee analysis was wobbly. The analysis supported Blumenfield’s and Mitchell’s argument that the legislature should have minimum transparency, and is not subject to the transparency requirements required of state agencies.

The bill will only come off the suspense file if and when the committee decides to take it up again, said Olsen.

“Open government and public participation is at the heart of our democratic process,” Olsen said. “Transparency and public participation are the best safeguards against special interest self-dealing and bad lawmaking.”