California Assembly Chambers. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Record Number of Bills Introduced in the 2023 California Legislative Session
The 2023 California Legislative Session has a higher number of introduction than normal, and the highest number in over a decade
By Chris Micheli, February 18, 2023 8:40 am
Over the past decade, the California Legislature, and its 120 legislators, introduce between 1,900 and 2,500 bills per year, each year of the 2-year legislative sessions. While fewer than 50 additional bills get introduced after the deadline (e.g., due to a rule waiver or a bill introduced by a committee, which are not subject to the introduction deadline), the 2023 California Legislative Session has a higher number of introduction than normal, and the highest number in over a decade.
By the February 17, 2023 deadline for introducing new bills this Session, there are 1,751 Assembly Bills and 881 Senate Bills, for a total of 2,632 bills. There are also six special session bills (3 each in the Assembly and Senate).
Of those bills introduced, there are 495 spot bills and 551 intent bills between the two houses, for a total of 1,046 placeholder measures. That means 40% of the introduced bills are placeholder measures at this time.
For comparison purposes, the following is the list of the total number of bills introduced by the two houses by the applicable deadline each February over the past ten years:
- Total 2022 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,020
- Total 2021 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,369
- Total 2020 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,203
- Total 2019 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,576
- Total 2018 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,177
- Total 2017 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,495
- Total 2016 bill introductions as of the deadline: 1,993
- Total 2015 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,297
- Total 2014 bill introductions as of the deadline: 1,930
- Total 2013 bill introductions as of the deadline: 2,256
The most notable distinction is that, in the second year of the session, there are always fewer bills introduced than in the first year. So, if history is a guide, there will be about 2,000 bills introduced next year, the second year of the 2023-24 Legislative Session.
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Even if one takes our notoriously sneaky and untrustworthy mega-Dem legislature at its word, and bills thought to be “non-substantive” (benign) are actually “substantive” (cancerous) —- OR the fake “placeholder” bills become “gut-and-amend” at a moment’s notice to our further destruction, in the end it looks like we still have 1,586 bills that have been introduced that are seemingly NOT benign.
This is obviously a RIDICULOUS amount of unnecessary busy-work legislation, even for these foolish people. It clearly shows they have WAY too much time on their hands, but aside from that what else does it show? Is the purpose to try to overwhelm the citizenry with trivia to hide the really bad stuff they would like to pass? Are the special interests in the state, who actually write most of the bills —- or so it appears —- working overtime because they see their window of opportunity beginning to close? Meaning are they extra-desperate to get stuff passed? Or are they extra-emboldened and energized by past success? Does anyone else here have any ideas about why we are seeing this —- what looks like legislative panic?
Unfortunately Showandtell, I don’t think there is any window closing. It’s more like business as usual. I believe ego is also involved and the measurement for legislative success is nothing more than volume. “My proposed bills amount to 1,237 pounds of paper. Whereby my opponent on the other side of the aisle has only produced 497 pounds of bills.”
Then there’s the other thing. In Woody Allen’s movie “All You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But were Afraid To Ask” the mad sex scientist played by John Carradine said “I was the first one to establish the relationship between excessive masturbation and entering into politics.” That’s all any of us need to know.
Food for thought, Fed Up. 🙂
All these laws and yet we are less safe then ever. How about enforcing the laws we have.
How about creating laws that are enforceable. When a law is unenforceable, government just passes another law on top of the previous law. In addition, most of the laws are forwarded to agencies (e.g., CARB) who just create regulations on top of regulations.
Instead of addressing major problems like the lack of dependable and affordable power and water supplies that matter most to Californians, leftist Democrats are instead pushing stupid nanny state legislation that oppresses Californians further.
Unicameral legislature, meet for 6 months every other year… One can dream!
Okay, just what we need from a professional fulltime legislature more garbage. To nip this type of activity we need to make this body a parttime organization and eliminate the PUC, Dept of ED, Housing & Community Development and strengthen 3 strikes and you are out. We complain about politicians (Republican Party) that do nothing because of potential failure now is the time for “we the citizens” to rise up and do something to take the power away from the “ruling” class in Sacramento and bring it back to the local level where it can be easily supervised by the citizenry.