SECTIONS 9900-9907 - California Statutes

GOVERNMENT CODE

SECTION 9900-9907

9900. Short title
This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the "Legislative
Reform Act of 1983."

9901. 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.

9902. 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 judgement 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.

9903. Construction of chapter
This chapter shall be liberally construed to accomplish its
purposes.

9904. 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.

9905. 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.

9906. 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.

9907. 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.