Letter writers needed ASAP! This is the bill that will open up legislative databases to the masses and serve as a model for other states and even the country! cypherfolks, do you have any idea what these efforts are the faint glimmers of? Imagine a future society where *anyone* can propose laws, not just the elite few called Legislators and identified in an exceedingly time-consuming, tedious, and troublesome process. Imagine that everyone has complete access and full understanding of all the laws that affect one's life, and the ability to propose and *pass* superior modifications. It would be a sort of Legislative Free Enterprise, a competition in the marketplace of laws such that superior ones would prosper and inferior, archaic, and absurd laws would be rooted out and expunged by the citizenry itself, in a very dynamic, interactive, and responsive process! Far from this bureacratic nightmare we lumber in daily! Write that small letter to set in motion this grandiose cyberspatial karma! ------- Forwarded Message
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 17:14:01 -0500 Newsgroups: austin.eff From: jwarren@well.sf.ca.us (Jim Warren) Subject: UPDATE #21-AB1624: *ACTION ALERT*: END-GAME APPROACHING (& misc notes)
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is a California bill, but its outcome could set a precedent which would help or hurt similar efforts in other states, including Texas. If you've got friends in California, you might want to pass this along to them. -- Prentiss Riddle, riddle@tic.com]
August 9, 1993
*** PLEASE WRITE, NOW!*** PLEASE, DON'T STOP NOW!
Assembly Bill 1624, mandating online public access to public legislative information via the public networks (i.e., the Internet and all the nets connected to it - including wherever you are receiving this msg), will either pass the Legislature by Sept. 10th, or will die - and we have to re-fight the whole battle, year after year. LETTERS & FAXES ARE *NEEDED*!. THEY *WILL* DETERMINE THE OUTCOME.
REMAINING 1993 LEGISLATION SCHEDULE Jul 16th, the Legislature went into remission - uh, recess. Aug 16th, the Legislature reconvenes to diddle remaining 1993 business. Sep 10th, the Legislature quits working in Sacramento for the year. Oct 10th, the Governor must veto legislatively-approved bills he opposes. On AUGUST 18TH, the Senate Rules Committee run by Sen. Dave Roberti (D-Van Nuys area) will hear AB1624. If Roberti doesn't like it, he can and will kill it. If Roberti passes it, it will almost-certainly pass the Senate. Then we need for the Assembly to "concur in amendments" and the Governor to not veto it.
Address letters/faxes to "State Capitol, Sacremanto CA 95814."
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, send a one-page letter supporting AB1624 to the Senate Rules Committee - who have seen essentially *no* support for it: Sen. David Roberti, Chair, Room 400; fax/916-323-7224; voice/916-445-8390. and to the other four members (tiny, *powerful* committee!): Sen. Ruben Ayala (D-Chino area), Room 5108; f/916-445-0128; v/916-445-6868. Sen. Robert Beverly (R-Long Bch), Room 5082; f/not avail.; v/916-445-6447. Sen. William Craven (R-Oceanside), Room 3070; f/not avail.; v/916-445-3731. Sen. Nick Petris (D-Alameda), Room 5080; fax/916-327-1997; v/916-445-6577.
Important: Please send COPIES of ALL letters to the AB1624 author: Hon. Debra Bowen, Room 3126; voice/916-445-8528; fax/916-327-2201.
CAN EMAIL VIA ME, IF YA CAN'T FIND TIME FOR SNAIL-MAIL If you don't have time to send snail-mail, you can email your message via jwarren@well.sf.ca.us. Write it exactly as you would snail-mail, but be SURE TO INCLUDE your name, address and phone #s for legislators' independent verification. Upon receipt by email, I will print and/or fax the entire message to Bowen and to the legislator(s) to whom you address it. (Please allow for that delay.)
LEGI-TECH'S OLDER BROTHER DONE GOOD! The McClatchy organization is the owner of Legi-Tech, one of the two largest online distributors of California legislative information. They are also owner of a number of newspapers - their flagship being the powerful Sacramento Bee. On Jul 26th, the Bee ran an editorial *strongly* supportive of AB1624 - laudible, principled action by The Bee, McClatchy, and presumably by Legi-Tech in the face of a difficult trade-off between the public's interests versus their business interests. Applause! Applause!
CALIFORNIA LEGISPEAK: "AUTHOR" VS. "SPONSOR" VS. "SUPPORTER" In California legislative circles: A bill's AUTHOR is a legislator who introduced the bill. A bill's SPONSOR(S) is a person or organization, if any, that requested that the bill be introduced by the bill's author. A bill's SUPPORTER(S) is a person or organization that is officially listed as being in favor of the bill, usually including its sponsor(s), if any. All bills have one or more authors. Some bills do NOT have sponsors. AB1624's author was Assembly Member Debra Bowen. It had no sponsors, but has a growing number of supporters.
PROGRAMMERS: SAMPLE LEGISLATIVE DATA-FILES ALSO AVAILABLE AT CPSR.ORG AB1624 Update #19 detailed a set of sample data-files for review and test-programming, available from Tim Pozar's KUMR.LNS.COM by anonymous ftp. As of Jul 22nd, those Legislative Data Center sample files were/are also online at cpsr.org in /ftp/cpsr/states/california/ab1624/sample_data for binary ftp access. For questions about accessing them there, contact: Al Whaley al@sunnyside.com +1-415 322-5411(Tel), -6481 (Fax) Sunnyside Computing, Inc., PO Box 60, Palo Alto, CA 94302
We have a voice. Use it or loose it. --jim Jim Warren, columnist for MicroTimes, Government Technology & BoardWatch jwarren@well.sf.ca.us -or- jwarren@autodesk.com 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/415-851-2814
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