How to resolve AdBlock issue? NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – On Monday, state Senate leaders made good on their promise to vote on an amended state budget rider that removed provisions damaging to the state's public records act law.
The Senate voted 28-11 to pass SB 71 with amendments that concurred with changes implemented by the Assembly last week.
Week before last, legislators had passed SB 71 in the Senate and AB 76 in the Assembly, budget riders with provisions that would have removed the requirements for local agencies and governments to adhere to the California Public Records Act, as Lake County News has reported.
Legislators and Gov. Jerry Brown targeted the 45-year-old law, considered a pillar in the effort to keep governments at all levels transparent, because of a mandate that requires the state government to reimburse local jurisdictions for fulfilling public records act requests from journalists and everyday citizens.
Outside of a projected savings of “millions of dollars,” state officials gave no specific amount of savings anticipated from the changes.
Open government advocates countered that the damage to government transparency would be far more expensive, and rallied last week against the budget bills.
As a result, the Assembly changed course and agreed to amend the bill, with the Senate at first balking before also agreeing to revisit and amend SB 71.
Last Friday, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced a constitutional amendment to put before voters in June 2014.
SCA 3 would require all local government agencies to comply with the California Public Records Act and the Ralph M. Brown Act and removes the mandate that the state reimburse local entities for the costs of following these laws.
It must pass the Legislature by a two-thirds vote in order to go to next June's ballot. The governor has signaled his support for such a constitutional amendment.
SCA 3 already is working its way through committee, according to legislative records, and could make its way to the Senate floor for a vote later this week.
During Monday's Senate vote, Sen. Noreen Evans, whose constituency includes Lake County, voted for the revised bill after having voted against the previous incarnation of SB 71 due to her concerns that it made the California Public Records Act unenforceable.
Lake County's other representative in the Legislature, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, voted for the revised budget bill last week after initially voting for the original version.
The updated budget bill now goes to Gov. Brown for signing.
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