§ 9901 Legislative Spending Oversight

Findings and declaration. The people find and declare: (a) All citizens of the State are entitled to full and effective representation by their elected representatives. (b) In recent years spending for the support of the Legislature has increased at a rate greatly exceeding the growth in spending for most other state functions, severely damaging the image and credibility of the Legislature with the people of California. (c) In the absence of reasonable oversight and constraints, powerful individual lawmakers exercise virtually exclusive control over legislative spending, depriving the people of California and other lawmakers of an effective means of discovering how these monies are being spent or of judging the propriety of those expenditures. (d) The distribution of funding, staff, and informational resources in the Legislature according to predominantly partisan criteria has greatly hindered the ability of minority party representatives to provide effective legislative representation. (e) The concentration of power in the office of Speaker of the Assembly and, to a lesser extent, in the office of President pro Tempore of the Senate, has created a system of patronage and punishment through which a single legislator, accountable only to the people of a single legislative district, is able to wield greatly disproportionate influence over the laws of California. (f) The growth in abusive voting practices in the Legislature and its committees has worked to deprive the people of their right to monitor the performance of their legislative representatives and respond accordingly. (g) The Legislature’s refusal to adhere to statutory and traditional notice and publication requirements for committee hearings and reports of conference committees has deprived the public of its right to make effective input into the legislative process. (Added June 5, 1984, by initiative Proposition 24.)