Editor’s note: This story has been updated since its original publication to add a video.
(The Center Square) – Lawmakers in California are starting to roll out a new oversight review process to ensure bills passed in previous years are meeting residents’ needs.
So far, 14 bills passed since 2015 by lawmakers currently in office have been picked to undergo the process. All 14 bills were introduced by Democratic members of the state Assembly, according to a list released by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ office.
Assemblymember Gail Pellerin is the author of one of the bills, Assembly Bill 2496, which was passed in 2014 and aimed to help foster families.
“Our hopes are that we have a solid path forward for our foster family homes to get the insurance they need to take care of our most vulnerable youth in California,” Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, told The Center Square on Friday.
“We hit a barrier, a stopping point, where we basically put a Band-Aid on the problem, and now we’re looking for the long-term solution,” Pellerin said.
Previous years’ bills passed in the Assembly and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have sometimes not been implemented, according to members of the California Assembly.
“As legislators, it is disheartening for us to find out that these departments or regulatory agencies are sitting on these bills, waiting us out until we are termed out, or refusing to implement these bills as if they are members of the Legislature,” Assemblymember Mike Gipson, D-Gardena, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview on Friday. “When we pass a bill,the implementation starts the first of the year. That’s what our expectations are as lawmakers.”
Gipson added it takes months of working on a bill and involving constituents who care about the issue before a bill is passed and signed by the governor.
“Believing the bill is going to be implemented by a state agency and finding out months and months or years later that that bill has not been implemented is quite concerning,” Gipson told The Center Square.
After an Assembly floor session concluded Friday in Sacramento, other lawmakers told The Center Square they want to see the implementation of bills they authored in previous years.
“There’s nothing worse than when you’re not doing implementation,” Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry, D-Davis, told The Center Square. “You can do all the policy you want to, and you can do a bill. But if you can’t implement it, you should be checking yourself, so I think the outcome is going to be really good.”
Aguiar-Curry added she thinks lawmakers should always follow through if their previously passed bills are actually being implemented.
“People should always be doing that review process,” Aguiar-Curry said. “I think some people don’t realize how important it is.”
The effort comes on the heels of a CBS investigation that showed that the state’s legislators ignored recommendations from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office for years that show that many of the Legislature’s laws received little to no oversight by those same lawmakers to ensure that laws were implemented after being signed by the governor.
The investigation reported billions of dollars of fraud and waste were found in a variety of taxpayer-funded efforts, including housing programs to help the homeless, public safety, wildfire risk management and drinking water.
Republican lawmakers, too, support the outcomes review process, expressing in a letter sent to Speaker Rivas, D-Salinas, that they don’t want to see taxpayer dollars wasted from legislation it passes.
“Assembly Republicans are committed to Protecting the Promise of accountable government,” Assembly Minority Leader Heath Flora, R-Ripon, wrote in the letter that was signed by several other Republican legislators. “We agree that state laws, regulations, and programs should be periodically reviewed to ensure they deliver the promised results once enacted. For this reason, Republicans have repeatedly called for audits of state programs and authored several bills requiring legislative review of regulations.”
