Why Produce So Many Bills?

Next month, thousands will once again fill the halls of the State Capitol when the legislature reconvenes on Jan. 3. For the next few months, legislators, staffers, lobbyists and advocates will zip in and around the Capitol, resulting in upwards of a thousand new bills all vying to become law. Sacramento is undoubtedly a bill factory, each year producing tens of thousands of pages of legislation that could create hundreds of new laws and changes to existing law.

After all, this is the primary purpose of a legislature – to make, change or repeal laws. However, in my first year as an assemblymember, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we can improve our process. One thing I have wondered – do we really need to produce so many bills?

For legislators, there is an instilled expectation to produce; often it can feel as if the professional capacity of a legislator is dependent upon the number of bills authored, co-authored and passed.

In terms of creating and reviewing the actual language of the law itself, the process works. Where I see room for improvement, as far as the role of the legislature is concerned, is in what happens after the law is passed.

When a bill becomes law, it can take state departments years to develop the regulations to actually implement the changes. In some cases, a decade has gone by and the lawmaker who originally wrote the bill is long gone. We can end up with a backlog of passed legislation just waiting to be implemented, slowed down by the mechanics of the process, while more and more changes are piled on top.

This is largely due to the nature of how legislators had to operate over the years. Since term limits were imposed in 1996 (Assembly) and 1998 (Senate), legislators have had their careers dependent on getting as much passed as possible. However, after the passage of Proposition 28 in 2012, members elected in or after 2012 now have the ability to serve up to 12 years in either house. This means that if constituents choose to continually elect their state legislators, those assemblymembers and senators have over a decade to do the work they were initially elected to do.

Because of this, I think it is appropriate that we re-think the way we operate – moving away from the impetus of producing volumes of laws and towards a role that involves overseeing the implementation of those laws.

An oversight role would return power to the people – instead of simply proposing changes, legislators would be accountable for the changes to ensure the law is truly working. We can also take our time to develop well thought-out legislation instead of running bills just to beat the term limit clock. We can tackle comprehensive reforms – think about water conservation, health care reform and the expansion of mental health care and foster care services. Just a few years ago, the idea of expanding access to care for our most vulnerable would have been overwhelming. Now we have the longevity to provide that oversight to ensure quality care and some sense of stability and sustainability in the community.

While it is not written anywhere in stone, we can all agree that the goal of any legislator should be to propose legislation that will actually resolve our challenges and improve the quality of life for Californians – term limit expansion provides much more room for the pursuit of that goal.

If the thousands of laws authored, debated, revised, then voted on each year prove anything it’s that Sacramento is a tremendous machine. We could use that power to not only write the best and most necessary laws possible but to also take our time in ensuring that those laws end up working to the benefit of the people of California. Having the legislature move into more of an oversight role would give lawmakers the ability to not simply propose law but to usher in law, to perform quality control and allow the people of California more power in the process that affects all of our lives.

What do you think? As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea; please feel free to share them with me by emailing me or calling my district office.

Email: Assemblymember.Friedman@Assembly.ca.gov
District Office: (818) 558-3043