An email from Tim Donnelley: Governor Brown Vetoes AB 1612, Says NO To Transparency In Government For California Businesses! Weve all heard that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The problem is when you have a state legislature that passes hundreds of new laws every year, which give birth to thousands of new regulations, how do you keep up? Thats why I brought forth a bill to require the government to make these regulations available for free to the public who must comply with them. Seems like a good idea. Thats why the bill received broad bi-partisan support, with 80% of the Democrats voting for this transparency measure. But Governor Brown chose to defend the status quo, where the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) only provides access through a private contractor to a free online version of regulations currently on the books. However, the free content is intentionally made too difficult to navigate and comes with use disclaimers nearly as long as the actual regulations themselves. This forces frustrated individuals and businesses to purchase paid versions of the content so that they can stay in compliance with the myriad of new laws. Why should the public have to pay to find out about all the new regulations they must obey? After all, the content is under copyright of a public entity, entirely funded by the taxpayers. Whats worse, the government agency that should give us free access is making money on us; OAL receives a 7-percent kickback from the contractor for the paid versions. Where then is the incentive to ever make the free public site user friendly? The answer is there is none. Businesses owners in California are continually being crushed under burdensome regulations, such as the State’s ever-expanding ADA accessibility requirements. Governor Brown has sent a clear message with his veto that the same rules do not apply to state agencies when it comes to people having ease of access to the very regulations they’re forced to live by. This Administration’s clear double-standard only serves to drive more and more job-producers like Toyota, Tesla, and others out of California every day to business-friendly climates in Nevada and Texas.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 14:41:12 +0000
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