◼ Senate Bill 202 was written about 24 hours earlier, when Democrat Loni Hancock of Berkeley deleted the language in a bill about filing fees on voter initiatives and replaced it with a highly political proposal to change the state's election laws in ways that will favor Democrats in 2012. - Laurel Rosenhall/Sacramento Bee
Senate Bill 202 was written about 24 hours earlier, when Democrat Loni Hancock of Berkeley deleted the language in a bill about filing fees on voter initiatives and replaced it with a highly political proposal to change the state's election laws in ways that will favor Democrats in 2012.
The (Democrat controlled California) Legislature wrote 48 bills in the last three weeks of the regular session, long after the deadlines for most law-making procedures had passed. They did so by deleting the text of existing bills and replacing it with something new and often unrelated – a process known as "gut and amend."
Lawmakers sent 22 of those bills to (Governor Brown), who signed all but three of them....
"The lack of process in this bill is inexcusable," Sen. Ted Lieu of Torrance told his colleagues that night. "We as Democrats should be ashamed at how this came to the Senate floor."
