CALIFORNIA, USA — This story was originally published by CalMatters
Forget about new protections for California kids cruising the internet. There will be no new requirements for crime labs to process old rape kits. And some households behind on their water bills won’t get more time to pay them back before their pipes get shut off.
Those were some of the more than 200 bills California lawmakers killed today in the rapid-fire and often mysterious procedure known as the suspense file.
Officially, the procedure promotes fiscal responsibility, allowing lawmakers to consider costly bills together and weigh their priorities. But it’s well known at the state Capitol that the suspense file is also a political tool that allows the most powerful legislators to keep controversial bills from reaching the Assembly or Senate floor — typically with no explanation, and sometimes without a public vote.
“It’s driven by a hundred different factors, some of which we can never explain and maybe the transparency is weak on,” said Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, the San Diego Democrat who chairs the appropriations committee.
“But I’ve never once had the Speaker come to me and say, ‘This isn’t politically feasible.’”
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With more than 350 bills on the Senate’s suspense file and more than 500 on the Assembly’s, the lobbying leading up to today is intense: “Everybody but God himself has contacted me on a bill,” Gonzalez said.
Though she downplayed the role of politics, one of her predecessors said the job is like being the “Speaker’s henchman.” They can use the suspense file to prevent an idea they don’t like from becoming law, exact revenge on a fellow lawmaker or shield their colleagues from having to take a position on a controversial proposal.
“You’ve got to be prepared to take really tough decisions for the caucus,” former Assemblymember Mike Gatto said on a recent podcast.
Governors also try to bottle some things up in the suspense file, Gatto said, adding that when he left office in 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown thanked him for keeping legislation from reaching his desk.
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The suspense file, of course, is not the only tool for slaying bills. Lawmakers can also kill them simply by doing nothing. For the last two years, the Assembly has allowed policy committee chairpersons to decide whether to give bills a hearing. That means they can silently snuff them just by not taking them up for a vote.
This is how Democrats, who control the Legislature, have killed some of the most progressive bills introduced this year, including proposals to develop a single-payer health care system, ban fracking and levy a wealth tax. It’s also what doomed an attempt to repeal a ban on local soda taxes.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will not sign tax increases this year, with the state awash in COVID-19 relief money from the federal government and taxes paid by wealthier residents benefiting from a booming stock market.
“When you’re enjoying a $76-plus billion — and growing — operating surplus, I don’t think it’s the time to do tax increases,” Newsom said last week as he presented his updated budget.
Still, one major tax increase survived the suspense file today — a proposal to increase taxes on international corporations to fund homeless services.
