Legislature.

(1) The Legislative Open Records Act requires that a legislative record, as defined, be open to public inspection unless the record is exempt from disclosure under the act. The act provides that specified legislative committees are the custodians of all legislative records and requires that requests to inspect legislative records be submitted to the appropriate committee. Under the act, the custodian committee is required, upon receiving a request, to either produce the requested legislative record or justify in writing the withholding of the record by demonstrating that the record is exempt from disclosure under the act. The act exempts from disclosure, among other records, preliminary drafts, notes, and legislative memoranda, and correspondence of and to individual Members of the Legislature and their staff. This bill would require the custodian committee that has received a request for a legislative record to search both the committee files and the individual Member files related to the request and to attest to having done so when responding to the request. This bill would further provide that demonstrating that a legislative record is exempt from disclosure means articulating the exemption claimed and describing the general nature of the record withheld from inspection pursuant to that exemption. In addition, this bill would provide that the exemption for legislative memoranda applies only to preliminary legislative memoranda, and the exemption for correspondence applies only to correspondence between individual Members of the Legislature and their staff. (2) Existing law requires that all meetings, as defined, of a house of the Legislature or a committee thereof be open and public and that all persons be permitted to attend. This bill would provide that each Member of the Legislature who attends a meeting of the Assembly, the Senate, or any committee or subcommittee thereof in violation of the requirement that the meeting be open and public, with knowledge of the fact that the requirement was violated, is guilty of a misdemeanor. (3) Existing law provides that all contracts entered into by any state agency for specified purposes are void unless and until approved by the Department of General Services. Specified contracts are exempt from this requirement, including any contract let by the Legislature. This bill would instead provide that a contract let by the Legislature is exempt from the requirement that it be approved by the Department of General Services only in the case of an emergency where the contract is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public health, welfare, or safety, or protection of state property, or if the total amount payable under the contract is less than $50,000.