(a) The Legislature finds and declares that legislative records relating to bills, resolutions, or proposed constitutional amendments before the Legislature provide evidence of legislative intent that may be important in the subsequent interpretation of laws enacted in the Legislature. The Rules Committee of each house of the Legislature and the Joint Rules Committee shall inform each committee of the Senate and Assembly, and each joint committee of the Legislature, of their responsibility to preserve legislative records and make them available to the public.
(b) Each committee of the Senate or Assembly, and each joint committee of the Legislature, having custody of legislative records relating to a bill, resolution, or proposed constitutional amendment assigned to that committee, shall maintain the legislative records described in subdivision (d) in an official committee file. The committee shall preserve those records in its custody, or, in the alternative, may arrange with the State Archives to lodge some or all of the records there under the condition that the records be preserved.
(c) “Committee” for purposes of this section includes any entity of the Senate or Assembly responsible for preparing analyses of bills, resolutions, or proposed constitutional amendments that are to be put to a vote by a quorum of the members of the Senate or Assembly.
(d) “Legislative records,” for purposes of this section, means records contained in an official committee file, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(1) Committee staff analyses.
(2) Written testimony.
(3) Background material submitted to the committee.
(4) Press releases.
(5) Written commentary submitted to the committee on a bill, resolution, or proposed constitutional amendment. For purposes of this paragraph, “written commentary” does not include the following:
(A) Material not utilized by the staff of a fiscal committee in the preparation of any analysis for the members of that committee.
(B) Communications determined by the committee or its staff to be confidential.
(6) Versions of bills, resolutions, or proposed constitutional amendments assigned to the committee.
(7) Relevant interim hearing materials, studies, case materials, and articles.
(e) Legislative records contained in an official committee file shall be open to inspection and copying by the public, pursuant to Sections 9073 and 9074. Each committee of the Senate or Assembly, and each joint committee of the Legislature, shall adopt and implement written procedures consistent with Sections 9073 and 9074 for the public’s access to official committee files maintained in the committee’s office. The procedures shall provide for the time, place, and other conditions under which committee files may be inspected and copied. Each committee shall make copies of its written procedures available to the public.
(f) The Rules Committee of each house of the Legislature or, alternatively, the Joint Rules Committee shall provide for the storage of any official committee file that is not maintained in the office of the committee that created the file or lodged with the State Archives. The Rules Committees of each house of the Legislature or the Joint Rules Committee, as the case may be, shall adopt and implement written procedures consistent with Section 9073 for the public’s access to official committee files so stored in its custody. The procedures shall provide for the time, place, and other conditions under which committee files may be inspected and copied, and the committee shall make copies of its written procedures available to the public.
(g) Nothing in this section requires making any legislative record available for inspection that relates to any unchaptered bill, resolution, or proposed constitutional amendment introduced in the current legislative session, except in accordance with the requirements and limitations specified in Sections 9073, 9074, and 9075.
(Added by Stats. 1996, Ch. 928, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 1997.)