Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 03:27:17 -0700
Subject: GovAccess.045: EMERGENCY ALERT!  Kill this @#$%% bill NOW!


CALIFORNIA'S AB 2451 HIGH-JACKED BY BUREAUCRATIC BANDITS!  KILL IT!  QUICK!

State Assembly Member Tom Bates (D, Berkeley-Richmond) authored Assembly 
Bill 2451.  Until late August, it would have made all computerized state and 
local public records available via the public computer networks to the public 
that has already paid once for their creation, without state charges.

Earlier this month, the Senate brain-damaged it with a still-tolerable 
requirement that it be implemented only if federal funds were available to 
pay for it.  (The Golden State often thinks that the gold comes from 
Washingtoontown.)

On August 26th, the Senate converted it from a multi-year implementation 
mandate to merely a design mandate, and then only subject to federal loot.  
Still (barely) tolerable.


HOW TO MAKE A GOOD BILL INTO A BAD BILL

But, apparently on August 22nd, while Bates' aide  - who had been sheparding 
this bill - was out with a back injury, someone allowed the bucks-hustling 
bureaucrats to high-jack the bill!

Someone slipped the following killer sentence into the bill:
    "Information that was sold by the state for more than the cost of 
    reproduction as of July 1, 1994, shall be exempt from this article."

It's bad precedent.

The public has already paid the cost of creating this public information.

The public should not have to pay for its own information, twice.

Access to tax-created public records should not be limited only to those who 
can create a profit for the agencies that control them.

It goes counter to the worthy principle we esatalished last year, for 
online access to legislative information *without* state profiteering 
(AB 1624 by Debra Bowen).

It's opposite to the laudible guidelines set forth in the federal Office 
of Management and Budget's 1993 Circular A-130 -- mandating that copies of 
*federal* public records shall *not* be sold for more than the incremental 
cost of their duplication.


THE PRECEDENT SUCKS!  IT SHOULD BE KILLED!  FINAL VOTE IS IN *A DAY OR TWO*!

The high-jacked bill cleared the Senate on their consent calendar, yesterday.

The Assembly will hold its final vote on it in the next day or two.

It's too late to try to amend-out this profiteering sentence.


FAX AND EMAIL TO ASSEMBLY MEMBERS, *NOW*!

One page is plenty - but there needs to be plenty of one-pagers!

Send them to your own Assembly Member (if you're in Californica).  And send 
a copy to bill-author Tom Bates (fax/916-445-6434), Assembly Speaker Willie 
Brown (fax/916-445-4189) and by email to Bates' Aide, Rachel Richman 
(richmarb@ais0.assembly.ca.gov).

[Either Rachel didn't spot this outrageous amendment, or at least she didn't 
mention it to me - although we've been working together on this bill from its 
first draft, and she's called about it on numerous occasions.  The first I 
heard about the profiteer's authorization was when Debra Bowen's aide, Mary 
Winkley - who so-diligently sheparded last year's AB 1624 - spotted it and 
faxed a copy to me.]

We can come back and do it RIGHT next year.  Or after term limits finally 
kick out the too-comfy career incumbants who are obviously much too-cozy 
with and too-obedient to the bureaucrats and Sacramento insiders.


--jim
Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc.
   345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814
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