This past January, the state Legislature began a new two-year legislative session. The 1999-2000 Legislative Session has not only been marked by the unprecedented election of a Green Party member to the state Legislature, but also by the introduction of over 3,000 new bills--1,313 measures by state Senators and nearly 1,700 by the state's 80 Assemblymembers. To get a bill to the Governor's desk for consideration, each bill must overcome a number of obstacles, including at least one hearing of the bill in a committee in each house.
    This is an ideal time for an update on legislation making its way through the California State Legislature as many of the measures have already faced their first significant hurdle: a hearing in an Assembly or Senate policy committee. In most cases, these bills will be referred from the policy committee to the Appropriations Committee or the Floor for consideration by the full Assembly or Senate.
    This year, state Assemblymembers and Senators have introduced a number of bills that deal with the Internet in one way or another. As more people go online, and discover the Internet's potential as a clearinghouse for information, it is not surprising that the source of the ideas for these potential new laws have come from varied sources, including state agency officials, law enforcement, consumer groups, and private industry representatives. The list of bills that follows represents a sample of the Internet-related legislation moving through the Legislature this session. Unless otherwise noted, all of the following measures have been referred to the Appropriations Committee in the house where the bill was introduced:

AB 347 by Assemblymember Jim Battin (R-La Quinta) 
This measure taps the Internet as a means by which to disclose sex offender information, which is currently available to the public through local law enforcement on CD-ROMs, and through a "900" telephone line maintained by the Department of Justice (DOJ). This measure requires the DOJ to make available to the public a Web site containing information about sex offenders. Information available on the site would include the offender's name, photograph, physical characteristics, and the city, county and ZIP code in which the registered offender resides. According to the bill's author, Alaska, Florida, and Indiana are already using the Internet to make this information available to the public.
    Recent amendments to the bill would require the public to complete and submit an online application. After review by the DOJ, the applicant would be mailed a Personal Identification Number, which must be used to access the site.

Status: Approved by the Assembly Committee on Information Technology by a vote of 3-1.

AB 365 by Assemblymember Roderick Wright (D-South Central Los Angeles)
This measure authorizes the California Public Utilities Commission to require telephone service carriers that provide residential local and long distance telecommunication services to post the rates they charge for various services on their Web site. Assembly Bill 365 is modeled after a Federal Communications Commission rule requiring long distance carriers to make similar information available on their Web sites.

Status: Measure was approved by the Assembly Committee on Information Technology by a vote of 5-0.

AB 374 by Assemblymember Jim Cunneen (R-San Jose)
This measure, sponsored by the state Department of Insurance, requires the adoption of a state standard for the use of digital signatures and public keys in insurance-related on-line transactions.

Status: Approved by the Assembly Information Technology Committee.

AB 451 by Assemblymember Ken Maddox (R-Garden Grove)
AB 451 authorizes the seizure of computer equipment if used in the commission of certain crimes, including counterfeiting and the willful introduction of a virus into another system.

Status: Awaiting consideration by the full Assembly on the Assembly Floor.

AB 1007 by Assemblymember Howard Wayne (D-San Diego)
This measure prohibits Internet service providers from making available information about service subscribers to third parties for marketing purposes without first obtaining a subscriber's consent.

Status: Issue will be one of the topics considered by the Assembly Consumer Protection Committee during the session's interim recess.

SB 217 by Senator Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino)
This measure requires the Department of Insurance to post comparative data on health care service plans on the agency's Web site. It further requires health plans to link their company's site to the agency's Web site.

Status: Approved by the Senate Insurance Committee on a 7-2 vote.

SB 238 by Senator Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino)
This bill would require public libraries that offer public access to the Internet to install filtering/censoring software in order to protect children from pornography and other obscene content.

Status: Failed passage in the Senate Public Safety Committee, but was granted reconsideration at a future hearing.

SB 531 by Senator Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino)
Requires the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to establish an electronically based informal consumer complaint process. The PUC oversees utilities services and is the state agency responsible for resolving issues that may arise between the companies that offer these service and their customers. SB 531 would permit consumers to file complaints with the PUC over the Internet in instances where the damages sought do not exceed $5,000. Measure is sponsored by GTE.

Status: Measure was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 8-0.

SB 992 by Senator Pete Knight (R-Palmdale)
Like Senator Baca's SB 238, this measure requires public elementary and secondary schools to install computer software that blocks "harmful" content on the Internet on computers used by students.

SB 1066 by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach) 
This legislation calls upon the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct proceedings on telephone line-sharing in California. Line sharing would enable the frequency transmitted by the copper wiring, which is usually owned by local telephone companies and used to supply residential telephone phone service, to be used or shared by local telephone companies and providers of high-speed data services. The Federal Communications Commission recently concluded that sharing was "technically feasible."

Status: Awaiting consideration by the full Senate on the Senate Floor.

More information on these bills is available on the California Legislative Counsel Web site, located at www.leginfo.ca.gov, the state Senate's Web site at www.sen.ca.gov, or the Assembly's Web site at www.assembly.ca.gov. The Senate and Assembly Web sites include a feature that allows Internet user to listen to committee hearings and floor sessions live on the Internet using RealAudio software. For more information on this feature, visit www.sen.ca.gov/htbin/testbin/noframe
_raudio for Senate proceedings and www.assembly.ca.gov/committee
_hearings/defaulttext.asp for Assembly proceedings.