The Sacramento Shuffle

The resurrection of Assembly Bill 84 is a classic example, but not a rare one, of how the Legislature cuts corners, bends or breaks its own rules and even “waives” provisions of the state Constitution to work its will. This practice is rampant each year in the final days of the session as lawmakers, often at the behest of lobbyists, ram through legislation without the required public notice, without public hearings or even debate.

Consider AB 84, by Assemblyman Brett Granlund (R-Yucaipa), introduced last December as a two-paragraph measure barring local government agencies from joining political organizations. The bill passed the Assembly but failed to get out of Senate committee. On July 15, Granlund’s bill was sent to the Senate’s inactive file, the graveyard of dead legislation, and it languished there until a stunning revival this month. It was pulled from the inactive file, given totally new language and passed the Senate 21 to 7 on the next-to-last day of the 1999 session. It went back to the Assembly for final approval in a matter of hours.

As passed, AB 84 shares only the bill number with Granlund’s original measure. Even his name was stricken. Now, AB 84 is authored by Assemblyman Dick Floyd (D-Wilmington). The bill effectively would prohibit the sale of groceries or prescription drugs in any new “big box” stores such as Costco and Wal-Mart in California. The bill, which deserves a veto, primarily was the product of lobbying by supermarket chains and the union that represents grocery store clerks, who are unhappy because the big-box stores mostly are nonunion.

This is known as hijacking a bill, a way to technically meet legislative deadlines and open-hearing rules even though the hearings were conducted on a different matter altogether. This can be a legitimate way to handle urgent issues that arise late in the session, such as state disaster aid. Too often, it is a backdoor entrance for special-interest legislation when no one is paying attention.

Reformers have tried for years to end the chaos in the waning days of a session because they know it creates fertile ground for mischief and shoddy work. They adopted deadlines to assure an orderly process. But legislators still break the rules when it suits them.

The flow of legislation illustrates the problem: Only about 300 bills passed in the first eight months of the session; as many as 900 passed in the final 10 days.

Part of the problem is institutional. Archaic provisions of the Constitution create artificial logjams at the end of the session. They should be changed.

And Gov. Gray Davis established a bad practice this year when he demanded that the Legislature pull back bills it already had passed because he did not like them as they were written. The governor should work with lawmakers in formulating legislation, but his last-minute return-to-sender tactic is an unhealthy invasion into legislative procedures.

The major problem remains lack of discipline in the Legislature. Lawmakers know how to eliminate most of the end-of-session crush and conduct the people’s business in an open, orderly fashion. But none of that will happen until the leadership develops enough spine to enforce the Legislature’s own rules.