By Ashley Zavala
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —The California Legislature this week approved a bill that would ban state lawmakers from signing non-disclosure agreements when they decide how to use taxpayer dollars or create state laws.
Non-disclosure agreements are legally binding contracts that force people to keep information secret.
The California Assembly unanimously passed the measure in its final legislative vote Wednesday and sent it to Gov. Gavin Newsom to decide whether it becomes state law.
The legislation is a direct result of KCRA 3's reporting on how California's government has either used them or allowed special interest groups to use them on a major public project and state laws.
The bill, AB 1370, would make it a crime for California lawmakers to sign or force anyone to sign the secrecy agreements as they craft legislation. It would be enforced by local law enforcement and give prosecutors the power to charge lawmakers with either a misdemeanor or a felony depending on the circumstances.
"I think us as legislators and the governor should not be signing away the public's right to know the deliberations of important things that will impact their lives," said Assemblyman Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, who wrote the proposal. "This is one step to bringing more transparency but more trust in the government, more trust in the work we do here in the legislature."
No Democratic lawmakers have spoken publicly about the proposal this year.
KCRA 3 was the first to report the use of NDAs in the California Legislature’s construction of a new $1.1 billion office building for state lawmakers. The Legislature directed 2,000 people, including five state lawmakers and dozens of government workers, to sign NDAs to keep broad information about the project secret. Democratic leaders haven't given an update on the project in years.
KCRA 3 also first reported last year that state lawmakers were entirely left out of the negotiations of California's fast-food minimum wage law, which raised pay to $20 an hour for fast-food workers across the state but provided a mysterious exemption for bakeries that sell and bake their own bread.
Gov. Gavin Newsom's office oversaw the negotiations and allowed NDAs to cover the secret talks at the insistence of a major labor organization, SEIU California. Newsom's office has said neither the governor nor his staff signed them. Since then, no one has been able to explain the bakery exemption, but multiple sources have told KCRA 3 it was for one of the governor's billionaire donors, who is also a Panera franchisee.
Joseph Bryant, an SEIU official who is also a member of California's Fast-Food Council, which is meant to set the wages and working conditions for the workers across the state, would not confirm or deny that he signed the NDA.
Republican lawmakers twice last year tried to introduce legislation that would have broadly restricted the use of NDAs by lawmakers, staff, other government officials and lobbyists when crafting public policy. Democrats in the Assembly claimed the measure was too broad.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta earlier this year would not confirm or deny if he would try to enforce the existing NDAs on the fast-food law and Capitol Annex project if anyone were to violate them.
Gov. Newsom has until mid-October to sign or veto legislation.
