Trailer Bills Are a Way to Avoid Public Scrutiny

Legislators attach trailer bills to the budget, which take effect immediately.

It came as a surprise to Pacific Palisades residents that they were not entitled to hearings concerning the replacement of Gladstone’s with a new proposed restaurant and parking lot change at Sunset and Pacific Coast Highway. They were told that it was state law AB 178, a trailer bill, that specifically prevented Will Rogers hearings.

What is a trailer bill?  According to a 2023 Cal Matters story (Trailer Bills: A Sneaky Way to Make a Big Change in California Law”) “The so-called ‘budget trailer bills’ are often passed in batches coincident with the budget each June after minimal hearings and debate. Like the budget, they take effect immediately and are shielded from being challenged via referendum.

“It can take weeks or even months for those outside the Capitol to figure out the real-life impacts and decipher the dense legalese of trailer bills, which often run hundreds of pages.”

At the California Coastal Commission Hearing on October 8, residents were told there was nothing they could do because of AB 178, a trailer bill, attached to the budget and passed in 2024 by the State.

The law stated “This bill would require, notwithstanding any other law or any other agreement, in furtherance of specified concession agreements between the County of Los Angeles and a private entity at the state-owned Will Rogers State Beach, development or renovation of capital improvements, and related public access and recreation improvements, to be exempt from specified permits required by state law or municipal building and zoning codes or from approvals by municipal agencies and to be subject only to the approval by the County of Los Angeles and a coastal development permit or amendment to a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission.”

CalMatters in a February 2024 story  (“Trailer Bills Allow California Lawmakers to Enact Policies with Little Public Input”) https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/02/california-trailer-bills-sneaky-law/ described the history of how they came into being and how they now have become routine.

“Democratic governors and legislators would often draft last-minute bills containing sweeping policy changes, insert token $1,000 appropriations to tie them to the budget and pass them with little or no opportunity for the public or affected interests to know what was happening. Since trailer bills take immediate effect, they could not be challenged via a referendum ballot measure.”

Proposition 25, which passed in 2010, was a measure sponsored by Democratic politicians and public employee unions to change the required vote on the budget from two-thirds of both legislative house to simple majorities. It also gave budget trailer bills legal standing, declaring that they, too, could be enacted with simple majority votes and – like the budget – would take effect immediately upon being signed by the governor.

Cal Matters writes “the misuse of the trailer bill loophole finally became so blatant that voters passed another initiative in 2016, Proposition 54, requiring bills to be in print for 72 hours before final passage, although legislative leaders, who opposed the measure, often use parliamentary tricks to minimize opportunities to see the contents of trailer bills.”

In 2024, the author of the article noted that while the budget process was underway, Newsom’s Department of Finance released a list of 77 trailer bills attached to the proposed 2024-2025 budget.

“The opportunity for political mischief looms large,” the author concluded.

(Editor’s note: Senator Ben Allen and Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin voted for AB 178.)