Last Wednesday, June 22, the Senate Governance and Finance Committee had been set to hear Assembly Bill 1944 (Lee), which sought to amend the Ralph M. Brown Act. The bill would have allowed local agencies to use teleconferencing without identifying each teleconference location in the notice and agenda of the meeting, and without making each teleconference location accessible to the public under specified circumstances.
The committee analysis for AB 1944 made reference to Assembly Bill 2449 (Rubio), a different bill that also seeks to amend the Brown Act; the committee analysis asserted that of the two bills, “AB 2449 provides more limited flexibility but greater transparency compared to AB 1944. The Committee may wish to consider which approach strikes a better balance between flexibility for members of legislative bodies and transparency for the public.” Reportedly, the committee sought to include amendments to the provisions of AB 1944 that would have gone against the spirit and purpose of the bill, likely to include provisions that would have hampered the utility of the proposed measure. Ultimately, the bill was pulled from the Senate Governance and Finance Committee hearing and was not put up for a vote. With the author’s office opposed to spoiling their bill, this meant that the measure would not be moving any further this year.
AB 2449, also up for a hearing on June 22, was passed by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on a 5-0 vote; the bill heads now to the Senate Judiciary Committee for a June 28 hearing. Though other measures amending the Brown Act remain alive (e.g., Senate Bill 1100 and Assembly Bill 2647), AB 2449 represents the sole remaining Brown Act bill related to teleconferencing that is still active and moving through the Legislature.
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