California lawmakers push for disclosure of lobbying letters

Two California lawmakers are trying to open up legislative documents that are technically public records but difficult for even the most seasoned Capitol staff to access.

Dockets are letters registered by lobbyists and advocacy groups sent to the legislature to support or oppose bills. CalMatters has sought greater access to them for more than a year.

members of the assembly Rebecca Bauer-Kahana Democrat representing the San Ramon area and a Republican Greg Wallis each of Rancho Mirage introduced legislation in February that would require the Legislature to post the letters online.

“Honestly, I had no idea that the public didn’t have access to letters of support and opposition,” said Wallis, who authored Assembly Bill 2063. “I was very shocked to find out that this is not readily available.”

Bauer-Kahan’s office did not respond to a request for an interview to discuss her Assembly Bill 2557which is similar to Wallis’ account.

Position letters from lobbyists and advocacy organizations submitted via portal on the Legislature websiteare public records, according to California Legislative Open Records Act. The law sets the rules for the correspondence lawmakers and their staff must disclose and says they must produce the letters upon request. They usually do.

But you must separately request legislative staff letters for each bill before legislators— more than 2000 every year—is tedious and time-consuming. Each proposal can generate dozens of letters.

Legislative officials must spend considerable time distributing the letters to the army of advocates who rely on them to find out which groups support or oppose the legislation and why.

“Even if staff are willing to be very fair in sharing that kind of information, it’s not a good use of their time; absolutely not,” said Jennifer Fearinga longtime lobbyist who advocates for non-profit organizations.

Former Democratic state Sen. Steve Glazer said the letters “can be very relevant to the legislative compromise process” because they can contain valuable suggestions from organizations on how to improve legislation.

They are also one of the few windows into the secretive world of Capitol lobbying.

“There’s a lot of influence that happens in the shadows,” Glaser said. “But that’s usually different from letters that go on the record and go to a legislative committee.”

He questioned why legislative leaders even needed a law to post the letters online.

“If I was a leader … I would say, ‘This is bullshit … Publish the damn letters.’

CalMatters requested interviews for this story with the senator, President Pro Tem Monique Lemon and chairman of the assembly Robert Rivasboth Democrats. They refused.

Some other state legislatures, such as Hawaii’s, post advocacy position letters on their websites.

Do legislative analyzes provide an unbiased picture?

Over the past year, CalMatters has sought to obtain the letters as they are submitted through the Legislature’s online position letter portal, which lawmakers and their staff have access to but the public cannot. The Legislature denied CalMatters’ request, made under the Legislative Open Records Act.

CalMatters seeks to add the letters to its Digital Democracy Databasewhich is free for public access.

The letters will also be used to create a more accurate estimate of who supports and opposes each bill in the database. Without the letters, Digital Democracy can only track the positions of lobbyists and other advocates through theirs short testimony at committee hearings or if the positions are listed in the public bill analyzes that accompany the legislation.

Staff from various legislative committees and houses of the Senate and Assembly write the analyses. They provide a basic summary of what a bill seeks to achieve, some context behind the legislation, and a brief description of supporters and opponents and their positions, often based on letters submitted through the portal.

Some question whether the committee consultants who write the analyzes accurately reflect support and opposition to a bill in an unbiased way, or whether they provide all the relevant facts that lawmakers — and their constituents — need to make informed decisions.

Former Democratic Senator Jerry Hill said he was disappointed by the slanted positions some of the commission’s consultants put into their analyses. He believes the legislative process would benefit from posting the letters online for all to see.

“I think it would definitely improve the process if all these letters were made public,” he said. “This will create a better-informed legislature to make these decisions at the end of the day and not have to rely entirely and solely on the opinions of a few committee staff writers and consultants.”