Bill Limit Eases the Paper Chase

There is a quiet revolution going on in Sacramento, and it is good news for all of us.

Feb. 28 was the deadline for introduction of bills in the California Assembly, and only 1,541 had been put forth. Although that figure sounds staggering, it is actually a dramatic decrease from previous years. At this point in the 1987 legislative session, almost 2,700 bills had been introduced--well over 1,000 more than in the current session.

The reason for the change is the leadership of Assembly Speaker Cruz M. Bustamante (D-Fresno), who has moved boldly to limit the number of bills that Assembly members are allowed to introduce, a practice the Legislature has been experimenting with in recent years.

The Assembly rule is simple: No member may introduce more than 30 bills in any two-year regular legislative session. Although there is a process to allow exceptions--a Rules Committee waiver--this is meant for emergencies.

The rule for the state Senate is similar, although the cap is set at 65 bills per member, per two-year session.

As a result of their new rule, many Assembly members have limited to about 15 the number of bills they have introduced in the first year of this session. In the past, some legislators would introduce as many as 100 separate measures.

It is important to realize the amount of time, money and effort devoted to considering a single bill. Each one that is introduced requires a hearing in at least one policy committee and sometimes in a fiscal committee before it is debated on the floor. Staff for each of the 80 Assembly and 40 Senate members spend thousands of hours analyzing bills so their bosses will be prepared to knowledgeably consider their votes.

Bills that pass the Assembly are sent to the Senate (and Senate-originated measures that pass go to the Assembly), and the process is repeated. Those bills approved by both houses are sent to the governor, whose office does its own analysis. Thus, fewer bills means fewer hearings--and fewer tax dollars spent on superfluous proposals.

So far, results of the bill limit have been positive.

In the past, it was not uncommon to see perhaps a dozen bills on the same subject in any given legislative year. Although duplication of effort has not been eliminated, the level of redundancy has certainly been reduced.

A good example comes from the Assembly Public Safely Committee, which I chair and which historically has carried the heaviest bill load of any of the policy committees. Based on the number of bills that have been referred to the committee this year, it appears that about 450 will be considered by the panel this legislative session. That is almost 250 fewer than the committee considered last session--a marked decrease.

The bill limit also is forcing members to work more closely to coordinate their legislative efforts. Interest groups and legislators have to think carefully about which issues are most important, so that only those bills with the highest priority are ever put forward.

In addition to the obvious collaborative benefits, it is my hope that this new policy will enable legislators to spend more time in our legislative committees and focus on more thoughtful and extensive policy discussions. We actually might have a chance to engage in in-depth, comprehensive approaches to making laws in California. And maybe we will even have the opportunity to write bills in simple, understandable English.

Certainly, even with the present 1,541 new Assembly bills, such goals seem almost unattainable. However, an important step has been taken in the right direction.