Rite of Jan. 1: In With Many New Laws, Out With a Few

So now it’s 1997. Another year and another thousand or so new state laws going into effect. Many a critic of government might protest: “More laws? There are too many laws already. What we need is fewer laws.”

The reason there are so many new laws annually--1,174 this year--is that the Legislature instinctively reacts to a need, or a demand, for legislation. And most of that demand comes from the public, either through constituent appeals or complaints to legislators’ offices or indirectly through a variety of special interest groups that lobby the Legislature.

For every bill that was passed in 1996, four others failed to navigate the maze of representative democracy, with all its checks and balances. Most of those that succeeded went into effect Jan. 1. But in none of the cases was passage a simple or easy matter. Consider the chronology of Assembly Bill 2466, a straightforward little piece of legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (R-Poway). It is a 12-line-long measure designed to prohibit companies from putting an expiration date on gift certificates. The state had rules about expirations of trading stamps and premium coupons but none dealing with gift certificates.

Like any bill, AB 2466 was formally drafted by the legislative counsel’s office, which checks carefully for constitutional issues and to make sure there is no conflict with existing statutes. And like any measure it was screened by the state Department of Finance and the legislative analyst’s office for fiscal implications.

In the Legislature itself, AB 2466 was subject to 28 separate actions from its introduction on Feb. 20 until it was signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson on Sept. 25. Along the way it was amended at least nine times. The measure had to pass the muster of two different committees in each house. It passed the Assembly 69-0 and the Senate 37-0, but because it was amended in the Senate, the measure had to return to the Assembly for approval of the Senate changes.

The Goldsmith measure is typical, almost innocuous--far different from those few bills that cause raucous, partisan floor debate and receive public attention during the course of a session.

A number of proposed changes are originated by state departments and agencies, sometimes to streamline regulatory processes or merely to keep up with developments. Senate Bill 1588, sponsored by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), was something of a catch-all measure to update codes governing the Department of Motor Vehicles. Among other things, SB 1588 makes it possible for customers to submit certain documents by computer rather than in paper form. Another provision requires a motorist to pull over to allow another vehicle to pass if the driver flashes his headlights, just as prior law had provided when the driver honked his horn.

One of the biggest achievements of the 1996 session was a measure to deregulate the electric utility industry in California over the next five years. In this case, the state Public Utilities Commission already had approved a deregulation plan using its own regulatory authority (delegated to it by the Legislature, by law). But a number of parties, including consumer groups, were not happy with the PUC plan and took their case to the Legislature.

A compromise was worked out by a Senate-Assembly conference committee during hundreds of hours of hearings involving the electric utilities, labor organizations, alternative energy producers, consumer groups and environmentalists. Not everyone was entirely happy with the outcome, but the 100-page-long measure passed the Legislature without a single dissenting vote, joining the other 1,173 bills signed into law by Wilson.

Still, there is always a glimmer of good news for those critics who think there are too many laws. Each year a number of the new measures are introduced to rid the books of old laws that have become outdated or duplicative. But, of course, the Legislature can’t repeal the old without passing a new law.