Gov. Brown Signs Hastily Revised Budget-Linked Bill (SB 71) That Continues Reimbursing Local Gov't For Public Recs Compliance, Keeping Act's Provisions Mandatory For FY14

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Gov. Brown Signs Hastily Revised Budget-Linked Bill (SB 71) That Continues Reimbursing Local Gov't For Public Recs Compliance, Keeping Act's Provisions Mandatory For FY14; State Senate Will Consider Constitutional Amendment Next Week To Require Local Gov't Compliance With Or Without Sac'to Funding

(June 27, 2013) -- Governor Jerry Brown has signed a hastily revised budget "trailer" bill, SB71, which includes reimbursement to local governments to maintain certain mandatory requirements of the CA Public Records Act.

The Governor vetoed AB 76, enacted a few days earlier by Assembly and state Senate Democrat majorities, which (if enacted) would have halted the reimbursements and made some mandatory portions of the law voluntary. (Months earlier, the Governor proposed ending the eimbursements as part of his proposed FY14 budget.) Passage of AB76 ignired a firestorm of criticism from press and open government groups, prompting passage of SB71 (which included Public Records Act reimbursements.)

However at the same time, state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D., Sacramento) and state Senator Mark Leno (D., San Francisco) used Sacramento's "gut and amend" procedure (erasing the content of one measure, inserting new text) to propose a state constitutional amendment, SCA 3, requiring voter approval in June 2014, that would require local agencies to comply with the Public Records Act's current requirements regardless of whether Sacramento reimburses them.

LBREPORT.com has editorially urged amending SCA 3 to plug a current internet loophole in the Public Records Act and also to require state legislators to comply with the Public Records Act (from which they currently exempt themselves.)

SCA 3 is likely to come up on the state Senate floor next week (starting July 2).