5,000 Bills is Too Many. California Legislature Sets New Max on Legislation

California’s legislative leaders will reduce the number of bills that members of the state Assembly and Senate could introduce during each two-year session, from 50 to 35 in the Assembly and from 40 to 35 in the senate, according to rules adopted by each chamber at the kickoff of the new session.

“Everyone in this room has good and important ideas  … but we all know that our time and energy here are limited,” he said in remarks at the swearing-in ceremony at the Capitol. “So this session, we are lowering the number of bills Legislators can carry and introduce from 50 to 35. And we’re doing so because we want every leader in this room to have the greatest possible bandwidth to focus on laws that uplift affordability and prosperity.”

Senate President pro tem Mike McGuire told Calmatters earlier that he was open to a lower limit if legislators in the Senate and Assembly agreed.

“In the Senate, we’re lowering the bill limit to focus more on commonsense legislation that will concentrate on the acute issues facing our state,” McGuire said Monday in a written statement.

Legislators and advocates have long complained that there isn’t enough time to properly consider complex bills that can involve negotiations with multiple stakeholders, detailed legal analysis and delicate coalition-building.

Rivas’ comment about the new rules to legislators was met with applause from Assembly members. And early reaction to the idea from legislators was positive.

“Not every idea is a good idea, no matter what our teachers told us growing up,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat from Palo Alto.

Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Democrat from Los Angeles, saw the change as a better reflection of what Californians want — not thousands of bills on lots of topics, but fewer bills that address issues such as housing and jobs.

“What this election has taught us is that governing, and particularly in California, is a very complex business,” she said. “I think the voters are saying, we need you all to think about how to do things differently.”

Some lawmakers across the aisle also saw it as a good idea. Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican told CalMatters: “It causes each of us to set priorities, and if we have more than 35 ideas, we have to prioritize within that.”

As CalMatters reported earlier this year, legislative leaders tried to speed up the process by encouraging committee chairpersons to consider bill changes in private, not in public hearings. Good government advocates complained about the practice, but McGuire said “there is real potential for confusion, misunderstanding and disagreement on definitions” when the decisions are made in public.

Today, legislators can request a waiver to exceed the cap on bills they are allowed to introduce. Nineteen of the 40 senators hit or went over the bill limit in the most recent session. In the Assembly, 24 of the 80 lawmakers hit the cap or went over, according to the Digital Democracy database.

In all, legislators introduced 4,821 bills this session and sent 2,252 to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The new rule by Rivas isn’t the first time in recent history the limit has been changed.

In 2002, then-Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg lowered the limit from 40 to 30 bills per member, and limited each person’s committee assignments to three. Instead of more bills, he said he encouraged members with the same ideas to work together.

“There’s too many laws,” he told CaMatters. “But the political industrial complex builds up — everybody’s got to justify their existence and have more and more bills. I think it undermines confidence from the public.”

In 2017, when Assemblymember Anthony Rendon took over as Speaker, he increased the bill limit from 30 to 50. He said it was to make up for the reduced time legislators were allowed to serve in office after voters approved more restrictive term limits that took effect in 2012.

Legislators have mixed reactions about the idea of limiting the number of bills they can introduce.

Former Assemblymember Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco who previously chaired the Budget Committee, had the most bills of any lawmaker with 170. But Ting said he does not think there are too many bills. “It’s frankly not about quantity, it’s about the impact,” he said.

Another former Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, a Democrat from Sacramento, also didn’t see a problem. “I think they get pushed out anyway, just by the process,” he said. “Clearly, not all bills go forward, but California is a complex state. Forty million people, a lot of problems, and a lot of issues to address.”

Others saw merit in the idea.

Democratic Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, was chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee this year when he said there were 64 bills heard in one hearing. He credited legislative staff for their hard work, but added: “It often doesn’t do justice to making sure that we create an effective policy.”

Former Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, a Democrat from San Diego, also said: “Probably lowering the number of bills people could do is a good idea.”

Maienschein said the process works at weeding out many bills, “But overall, I think on balance, it would likely be a good thing to have fewer bills (and) have more discussions and hearings and work on whatever the kind of top issues that term are in California.”

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.