What Is ‘Nongeneral Legislation’?

Have you ever heard of “nongeneral legislation”? It is defined in the California Government Code. Section 87102.5 provides general prohibitions for any Member of the Legislature who makes, participates in making, or in any way attempts to use the Member’s official position to influence any type of specified governmental decisions in which the Member knows or has reason to know that the Member has a financial interest in the decision.

One prohibited action is the “introduction as a lead author of any legislation that the Member knows or has reason to know is nongeneral legislation.” In addition, Members are prohibited from voting in a legislative committee or subcommittee on what the Member knows or has reason to know is nongeneral legislation, or taking any rollcall vote on the Senate or Assembly floor on an item which the Member knows is nongeneral legislation.

In this Government Code section, “nongeneral legislation” means legislation that is described in Section 87102.6 (which is set forth below) and is not of a general nature pursuant to Section 16 of Article IV of the Constitution.

Article IV, Section 16 provides:

(a) All laws of a general nature have uniform operation.

(b) A local or special statute is invalid in any case if a general statute can be made applicable.

Additionally, a Member of the Legislature has reason to know that legislation is nongeneral legislation if facts have been brought to the Member’s personal attention indicating that it is nongeneral legislation.

Government Code Section 87102.6 defines the term “mongeneral legislation” to mean legislation as to which both of the following apply:

(1) It is reasonably foreseeable that the legislation will have direct and significant financial impact on one or more identifiable persons, or one or more identifiable pieces of real property.

(2) It is not reasonably foreseeable that the legislation will have a similar impact on the public generally or on a significant segment of the public.

Finally, this Code section provides that the Budget Bill as a whole is not nongeneral legislation. And, legislation that contains at least one provision that constitutes nongeneral legislation is nongeneral legislation, even if the legislation also contains other provisions that are general and do not constitute nongeneral legislation.

So, nongeneral legislation is a term to describe legislation that does not have general application to the public generally, but rather is legislation that would create personal benefit to the Member of the Legislature, who is prohibited from authoring or voting on such legislation.