Proposition 54, the Public Display of Legislative Bills Initiative, would 1) prohibit California legislators from passing any bill without posting the bill for the public 72 hours beforehand, 2) require that videos of all the state’s public legislative meetings be posted online for twenty years, and 3) allow anyone to record videos of meetings and use them for “any legitimate purpose.” While proponents argue that this initiative is necessary to increase transparency, you should follow the Democratic Party in opposing it because it would unnecessarily slow down the legislative process, discourage bipartisan compromises, and enable misuse of videos in misleading ads. Furthermore, if Proposition 54 fails, you should offer an alternative piece …show more content…
The improvements in this third option would include: reducing the 72 hours to 48 hours; adding an exception for typos; and removing the line that allows using videotape of legislative sessions in political ads. Note that opposing Proposition 54 and offering this similar legislation are not mutually …show more content…
However, the initiative would most likely serve to slow down legislation that would otherwise pass through more rapidly. In this way, as Steven Maviglio, the chairman of Californians for an Effective Legislature, has argued, the initiative would mainly serve conservative interests by hindering California’s famously progressive policies in an inefficient manner. In contrast, an alternative policy to increase transparency would only slow down the process by 48 hours rather than 72 and would not prohibit passing a bill due to a typo, making it a faster