Short title
This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the “Legislative Reform Act of 1983.”
Article 1 - General
California Government Code — §§ 9900-9907
Sections (8)
Findings and declaration.
The people find and declare:
(a)All citizens of the State are entitled to full and effective representation by their elected representatives.
(b)In recent years spending for the support of the Legislature has increased at a rate greatly exceeding the growth in spending for most other state functions, severely damaging the image and credibility of the Legislature with the people of California.
(c)In the absence of reasonable oversight and constraints, powerful individual lawmakers exercise virtually exclusive control over legislative spending, depriving the people of California and other lawmakers of an effective means of discovering how these monies are being spent or of judging the propriety of those expenditures.
(d)The distribution of funding, staff, and informational resources in the Legislature according to predominantly partisan criteria has greatly hindered the ability of minority party representatives to provide effective legislative representation.
(e)The concentration of power in the office of Speaker of the Assembly and, to a lesser extent, in the office of President pro Tempore of the Senate, has created a system of patronage and punishment through which a single legislator, accountable only to the people of a single legislative district, is able to wield greatly disproportionate influence over the laws of California.
(f)The growth in abusive voting practices in the Legislature and its committees has worked to deprive the people of their right to monitor the performance of their legislative representatives and respond accordingly.
(g)The Legislature’s refusal to adhere to statutory and traditional notice and publication requirements for committee hearings and reports of conference committees has deprived the public of its right to make effective input into the legislative process.
Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 131, Sec. 71. (AB 1754) Effective January 1, 2024.
Purposes of chapter
The people enact this chapter to accomplish the following purposes:
(a)Appropriations for the support of the Legislature should be reduced by thirty percent from 1983–84 budgeted levels and future growth in legislative spending should be limited to a rate commensurate with the growth of state government spending in general.
(b)Control over legislative spending should be removed from the hands of powerful individual lawmakers and there should be established a system of independent monitoring of legislative spending practices and increased disclosure of legislative spending levels.
(c)All Members of the Legislature, regardless of partisan affiliation, should be provided with equal opportunity and resources to effectively serve their constituents. The minority party or parties in each house of the Legislature should be provided with resources, funding, and a policy-making voice proportionate with their numbers in that house in order to achieve the end of fair and effective representation for all.
(d)No single Member of the Legislature should be given extraordinary power to influence the course of legislation nor the power to punish other members for the good faith exercise of their free will and judgment on behalf of their constituents.
(e)No system of legislative voting which serves to deny or obscure the people’s right to know how their representatives vote should be permitted in the
Legislature.
(f)The people have the right to have notice of, see, and express their feelings on all proposed changes in the laws, including those changes proposed in reports of conference committees, and any knowing and willful violation of these rights should be a criminal offense and the laws passed in violation thereof invalidated.
Construction of chapter
This chapter shall be liberally construed to accomplish its purposes.
Amendment or repeal of chapter; procedures
This chapter may be amended only by the procedures set forth in this section. If any portion of subsection (a) is declared invalid, then subsection (b) shall be the exclusive means of amending or repealing this chapter.
(a)This chapter may be amended only to further its purposes and only by statute, passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring and signed by the Governor, if at least 20 days prior to passage in each house the bill in its final form has been printed and made available for public inspection.
(b)This chapter may be amended or repealed by a statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors.
Imposition of additional requirements; law governing
Nothing in this chapter shall prevent the Legislature from imposing additional requirements on itself if the requirements do not conflict with the purposes of this chapter. If any act of the Legislature conflicts with the provisions of this chapter, this chapter shall prevail.
Severability
If any provision of this chapter, or the application of any such provision to any person or circumstances, shall be held invalid, the remainder of this chapter to the extent it can be given effect, or the application of such provision to persons or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby, and to this end the provisions of this chapter are severable.
Effective date
This chapter shall go into effect immediately. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all changes in the structure or operation of the Legislature required by this chapter, including but not limited to the adoption of rules in accordance with Section 9920 and 9921, the reorganization of the Senate Committee on Rules, the Assembly Committee on Rules, the Joint Rules Committee, and all standing, special, select, and joint committees of the Legislature, including the reallocation of staff resources, in accordance with Sections 9911, 9915, 9917, 9922, 9923, and 9924, and the reduction in funding for support of the Legislature pursuant to Section 9934, shall be implemented upon the first meeting of the Legislature in regular or special session subsequent to enactment of this chapter.