2-Year Bills in the Appropriations Committee

The approach to dealing with bills in the California Legislature has been to distinguish bills held in the respective Appropriations Committees as a permanent hold, or a 2-year bill.

Article IV, Section 10(c) provides, in part: “(c) Any bill introduced during the first year of the biennium of the legislative session that has not been passed by the house of origin by January 31 of the second calendar year of the biennium may no longer be acted on by the house. “

This means that bills (i.e., not resolutions or constitutional amendments) introduced in the first year (odd-numbered year) of Session can be considered in the second year, but only if the bill passes its house of origin by January 31 of the second year.

Some observers believe that bills held on the Suspense Files of the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees during the first year of Session were dead for the entire 2-year session. Of course, subject to Joint Rule 54(c), a legislator can re-introduce that bill in the second year of session.

However, the two fiscal committees have been making a distinction between those bills that are held (and therefore are considered “dead”) and “2-year bills,” meaning they will get a second review and a vote in January of the second year.

This leads to the following issue for those who are following the committee actions: There are differences between how the Assembly and the Senate Appropriations Committees publicly report two-year bills and how these types of bills are set forth in the legislative data system, which is called “LegInfo.”

What do we mean? The following is an example of the status in the “Leginfo” website of an AB on the Senate Appropriations suspense file that remains eligible to move in 2024 (i.e., it is a 2-year bill):

We know that this particular bill is in fact a two-year bill based upon the list that the Senate Appropriations Committee posted online.

The following is an example of the status in the “Leginfo” website of an SB on the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file in the same situation:

So, how does the reader determine whether a bill is a true “held in committee” (i.e., it is dead for the session) or it is a 2-year bill? A couple of points to consider:

First, as a general rule, both fiscal committees treat as a 2-year bill any bill that the committee did not hear (either the committee’s decision or the author’s decision), and any bill the committee referred to the Suspense File, but did not pass or hold by an official action.

Second, just like in other standing committees, a bill in either the Senate or Assembly Appropriations Committee is not truly “dead” until the deadline to move the bill has expired, such as the constitutional deadline of January 31 for 2-year bills.

Third, unless the LegInfo website is changed, there is not a bill history action to designate a bill as a “two-year bill.”

For example, a bill may have been re-referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, but was never heard. The LegInfo website history action will just show the referral, but nothing else. On the other hand, a bill that was heard and sent to Suspense, but was not considered by the committee at the Suspense File hearing, has a LegInfo history action as “hearing postponed by committee.” 

In the Senate Appropriations Committee, the LegInfo history action shows “held under submission” on all bills that were noticed for the Suspense File hearing day, but did not move forward. The Senate fiscal committee also publishes a 2-year bill list.