Yee Reintroduces Bill

Leland Yee

(CSULA – UT) On January 12, California State Senator Leland Yee reintroduced two bills to state Legislature, directly affecting the UC and CSU systems.
The first proposal, Senate Bill (SB) 330, would enhance the California Public Records Act (CPRA) by forcing wholly owned subsidiaries created by California schools to make their records open to the public. The bill was created in response to incidents of alleged misappropriation of university funds at several CSU campuses.

The second bill, SB 650, would, under the California Whistleblower Protection Act (CWPA) provide employees of UC’s and CSU’s with the same legal protection as other state employees, allowing them to seek damages in court instead of going through the administration system.

“These bills are imperative to rid the University of California and California State University of waste, fraud and abuse,” said Yee. Through this legislation we will give the Governor a second chance to do the right thing. Tax payers and students deserve to know how their public universities are run”

Bills 218 and 219, both containing many of these provisions, were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger last October. These newer bills have been rewritten to strengthen their appeal.

SB 330 is a response to a situation that had arisen on a CSU campus involving a case at CSU-Fresno. In that case, the Fresno Bee’s CPRA request for information was made in October 1999, but was dismissed. This case established that auxiliary associations acting on behalf of public bodies are not in themselves public bodies and are therefore not subject to public records requests.

In his October 12, 2009 veto of SB 218, Schwarzenegger wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee, “This bill inappropriately defines private auxiliary organizations as a state or local public agency for purposes of the California Public Records Act.”

SB 650, which would address fears of Government employees in reporting corruption, would overturn the California Supreme Court’s decision in Miklosy v. The Regents of the University of California, which was the California Supreme Court’s first major decision applying the CWPA. The act prohibits retaliation against employees of the UC and CSU systems who “report waste, fraud, abuse of authority, violation of law, or threat to public health.”

Both Bills are currently in their third reading.