Regarding the California Legislature's unwillingness to make its bill data
available to the public, I for one am not one bit surprised. Curiously,
California has long been behind the other states in providing access to
electronic legislative information system. This is something I discovered
over 10 years ago, while researching "Automated Legislative Information
Systems," published in 76 Law Library Journal 233 (1983). As I noted in that
article, California represented an extreme view in its access policies and
denied access to anyone outside that state Legislature -- even to members of
California state agencies! At the same time, most other state legislatures were
willing to allow outside users to access their online systems at no cost or at a
minimal fee calculated to recover their direct costs of providing the access.
The information shared by Jim Milles just shows that California hasn't changed
its position on this issue over the past decade.
- Blair Kauffman
University of Wisconsin -
Madison
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