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| (June 19, UPDATE 6:50 p.m.) -- In fast breaking developments today (June 19) amid a storm of press and public criticism over Sacramento legislation regarding the CA Public Records Act (decribed in LBREPORT.com coverage earlier today), SacBee.com says Assembly leader John Perez (D., Los Angeles) said the Assembly will take up another trailer bill, SB 71, on Thursday (June 20), whose language (unlike legislation enacted June 14) WON'T change the status quo, and will instead continue current reimbursement from Sacramento to local governments for complying with requirements of the CA Public Records Act.
HOWEVER, SacBee.com indicates that roughly an hour later, state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D., Sacramento) indicated that when SB 71 arrives from the Assembly, the state Senate will "hold" the bill [without taking a vote on it] and instead, state Senator Mark Leno (D., San Francisco) will introduce a proposed State Constitutional Amendment that -- if passed by voters statewide -- would require local governments to comply with the Public Records Act without receiving reimbursement from Sacramento. At late afternoon, Gov. Brown's office issued the following statement: "We all agree that Californians have a right to know and should continue to have prompt access to public records and I support enshrining these protections in California's constitution." The idea of a State Constitutional Amendment was floated yesterday by Californians Aware which proposed "Plan B: Saving the CPRA from Repeated Sabotage." The piece criticized state lawmakers for AB 76, deconstructed "talking points" by Sen. Steinberg and proposed the following solution: [CalAware.org text: Plan B, the permanent solution, would not be accomplished until the June primary next year, but it would be relatively simple. Senator Steinberg and like-minded lawmakers could introduce and pass a Senate Constitutional Amendment (SCA) placing on the ballot for voter approval (or rejection) a proposal to end the ability of local government agencies to claim reimbursement from the state for the costs of compliance with the Public Records Act. In compensation, a separate bill could amend the Act to permit higher charges for providing copies of records to be used solely for private commercial purposes rather than sharing the information with the public -- in media reports, public interest research or academic studies, for example. After all, both state and local agencies say that it’s those industrial "data miners" that add significantly to government costs with no corresponding public benefit. Meanwhile, SacBee.com coverage of Wednesday's (June 19) developments is at this link Further on this fast breaking story as it develops. Stay with LBREPORT.com and you won't miss a thing. Background below from LBREPORT.com's coverage earlier today. (June 19, 2013, updated at 3:30 p.m. from a.m. coverage) -- The state legislature (Assembly and Senate vote tallies below) has sent Governor Jerry Brown legislation (AB 76, a "trailer bill") accompanying the new state budget that, among other things, would suspend some current mandatory requirements of the California Public Records Act. AB 76 -- which received "yes" votes from Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal (D., Long Beach-San Pedro) and state Senator Ricardo Lara (D., Long Beach-Huntington Park) -- would downgrade certain provisions of the Public Records Act from legally enforceable mandates (for which Sacramento has to reimburse local governments) to optional "best practices." The measure was reportedly published in final form roughly 24-48 hours before it was approved by the Assembly and state Senate (Democrat majorities in both houses) on June 14. CalAware.org says if the Governor signs AB 76 into law, local government agencies will have the option to no longer:
Locally, Long Beach Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske has called on Mayor Bob Foster to urge Governor Brown to oppose the legislation. In a release this morning (June 19), Councilwoman Schipske said "transparency should not be optional" and called the bill's Public Records Act provisions "an assault on the public's right to know and should be opposed." Schipske's release said the City Council wasn't given information about the legislation's impacts and that she had to find the information on her own on the internet. UPDATED: At midafternoon, Mayor Bob Foster issued a City Hall release with a statement on the elimination of state funding for compliance with the CA Public Records Act. [Mayor Foster release w/ statement text] Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster was among a group of California's "Big 10" mayors meeting with the Governor in Sacramento today on a variety of topics. Among the items discussed were the state budget, implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Local Control Funding Formulas (LCFF) for schools, and the negative impacts on cities from public safety "realignment" and potential changes to Enterprise Zones. [End update] Councilwoman Schipske's release also strongly criticizes other provisions in the trailer bill impacting domestic violence reporting and tracking (further below). Chris McKenzie, executive director for the League of California Cities [advocacy group representing City Halls], said he "expected" local governments to continue complying with all aspects of the law, even if they're not mandatory. However, it's not immediately clear what Long Beach City Hall, with policy and budgeting determined by a City Council majority, will do if Governor Brown signs the legislation. [See UPDATE from Mayor above] The City Council could presumably budget sums to cover costs now paid by Sacramento and continue doing what the Public Records Act currently requires...or a Council majority could require requesters to pay additional sums to see public records that the public can currently receive...or it could presumably simply cease complying with some provisions of the Public Records Act. The First Amendment Coalition said the CA Public Records Act "is gravely threatened by stealth amendments revealed for the first time [on June 13] as part of a "trailer bill" to the new state budget. Instead of the relatively minor cost-saving tweaks proposed earlier by the Governor and approved in legislative committees, the actual amending language will gut key transparency safeguards in California's most important open-government law. [First Amendment Coalition text]...1) Public access to data controlled by local governments, so important to open-data and big-data initiatives, will come to an end. The final trailer bill, SB 71, eliminates the requirement of existing law that agencies must make available "electronic" records or information in "any format" in which the agency already holds them. Gov Code sec. 6253.9(a)(1). Instead, according to SB 71, "the local agency may determine the format of electronic data to be provided in response to a request for information." SB 71's provision regarding the CA Public Records Act is at this link. Reaction has been swift. Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publisher’s Association, called the CPRA changes, "the worst assault on the public’s right to know I have seen in my 18 years of doing this." Editorials followed:
In her release, Councilwoman Schipske also criticized changes made by the legislation in the mandatory handling of domestic violence crimes, an elimination of funding the City’s Local Health Officer duties in tuberculosis reporting and elimination of the 10 day reporting requirement for Public Records requests. [Schipske release text] "I just read that the District Attorney of Sacramento Jan Scully has identified that buried in the bill are provisions that infringe on the rights of victims and seriously impact the fight against domestic violence," says Schipske, who has served on the US Attorney General’s Violence Against Women Advisory Council. "Specifically, if approved the law would change from mandatory to discretionary the requirement that law enforcement keep complete records of domestic violence restraining orders. It would also change from mandatory to discretionary standards for police officer responses to domestic violence crime and the tracking of domestic violence calls. These changes would abandon the years of work undertaken in Long Beach to protect the rights of victims of domestic violence." Below are the "yay" and "nay" vote tallies (Assembly and state Senate) on AB 76. ASSEMBLY FLOOR VOTE UNOFFICIAL BALLOT MEASURE: AB 76 AUTHOR: Committee on Budget TOPIC: State government. DATE: 06/14/2013 LOCATION: ASM. FLOOR MOTION: AB 76 BUDGET Concurrence in Senate Amendments By BLUMENFIELD (AYES 53. NOES 25.) (PASS) AYES **** Alejo Ammiano Atkins Bloom Blumenfield Bocanegra Bonilla Bonta Bradford Brown Buchanan Ian Calderon Campos Chau Chesbro Cooley Daly Dickinson Eggman Fong Fox Frazier Garcia Gatto Gomez Gonzalez Gordon Hall Roger Hernández Holden Jones-Sawyer Levine Lowenthal Medina Mitchell Mullin Muratsuchi Nazarian Pan Perea V. Manuel Pérez Quirk Quirk-Silva Rendon Salas Skinner Stone Ting Weber Wieckowski Williams Yamada John A. Pérez NOES **** Achadjian Allen Bigelow Chávez Conway Dahle Donnelly Beth Gaines Gorell Grove Hagman Harkey Jones Linder Logue Maienschein Mansoor Melendez Morrell Nestande Olsen Patterson Wagner Waldron Wilk ABSENT, ABSTAINING, OR NOT VOTING ********************************* Gray Vacancy ________________________________________________ STATE SENATE FLOOR VOTE UNOFFICIAL BALLOT MEASURE: AB 76 AUTHOR: Committee on Budget TOPIC: State government. DATE: 06/14/2013 LOCATION: SEN. FLOOR MOTION: Assembly 3rd Reading AB76 Committee on BUDGET (Blumenfield) By Leno (AYES 23. NOES 11.) (PASS) AYES **** Beall Block Calderon Corbett De León DeSaulnier Hancock Hernandez Hill Hueso Jackson Lara Leno Liu Monning Padilla Pavley Price Roth Steinberg Torres Wolk Wright NOES **** Anderson Cannella Emmerson Fuller Gaines Huff Knight Nielsen Walters Wyland Yee NO VOTE RECORDED **************** Berryhill Correa Evans Galgiani Lieu Vacancy AB 76 is now on the Governor's desk, where it can be signed into law or vetoed. Developing.
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