[Jim March]

Folks,

AB1044, that nefarious piece of junk, is about to be heard in the Senate Public Safety Committee. It will probably be heard in that committee on June 10th - I will be personally up there for that hearing, and would hope others can also make it.

I've created a contact page for the members of the committee and the bill's author.

PLEASE - be polite, use the talking points focused for each legislator, oppose this bill. It sanctions multiple violations of the Public Records Act, it covers up corruption, racism and gender bias, and it masks misconduct by law enforcement.

If it passes with all provisions intact, we won't be able to do a thorough job of exposing the problems in "discretionary" gun control in California. And we don't have the tools available to dig into it anywhere else - so far, most other discretionary states seal the permitholder lists, and NO other state allows public access to the "good cause for issuance" records. In that sense, this is a national-level issue - this sort of gun control stinks, and needs exposing.

http://www.equalccw.com/ab1044.html#legcontact

If this is the first you've heard of it, scroll up on that page for the whole scoop. I've also provided links to the Second Amendment Foundation and California First Amendment Coalition reporting on the same bill (top of the page).

[Jim March]

Hey y'all: if you think this is hopeless, think again - five minutes ago I was informed that the California First Amendment Coalition will be filing formal opposition to this bill, based on it being a violation of the Public Records Act.

This is HUGE. CFAC is essentially a media lobbying group on public records/sunshine law issues.

Last year Senator John Burton (Dem) came to THEM and asked what bill he could propose for them :eek:. He sponsored an attempted Constitutional amendment specifying a civil right to open records, which failed, but he's sponsoring it again and one of the co-sponsors is Senator McPherson (GOP).

BOTH those guys are on the Senate Public Safety Committee.

This just went from "crapshoot fight" to something else entirely. We only need three out of the six to kill this thing, the other side needs four :).

I'll post the CFAC official statement of opposition when I have it, it's being drafted over the weekend.

:cool:

[dustind]

good luck in your fight, if it wasn't a 22 hour drive i would be there. Great website by the way.

[Jim March]

Here's a first draft of my statement of opposition to the committee:

(I'm deleting this first draft here, as it's been replaced by the slightly altered version just after Giant's post.)

Jim again. Any comments or suggestions on that are welcome, it's not due until late next week.

We don't want to flood them with such statements. SAF (or CCRKBA) will be filing one, possibly Second Amendment Sisters, and the newspaper folks of course. This is one time when quantity (in the official bill digest prepared by the committee) isn't what's needed.

Contact with the actual Senators is another matter, for that see also:

http://www.equalccw.com/ab1044.html#legcontact

[Standing Wolf]

I wish you all the success in the world! Fight the good fight—and may the Second Amendment win!

[Desertdog]

From looking at the list of committee members, there is not one conservative area represented on the committee.
Gee, I wonder if it will pass; not!:cuss:

[Jim March]

We're actually in good shape here, despite all :). Sen. Bob Margett is quite good on guns. Burton and McPherson are NOT, but they ARE good on public records issues.

That's three, guys. The other three will at a minimum be influenced by the newspaper guys being on *our* side. Jeez, how often does THAT happen?

Again: when making calls, complain about AB1044 being a violation of public records laws!

We're gonna stuff this thing back down their throats.

[Giant]

Jim, good letter. One thing might be added, providing you have not already done so. In 1999 the California Dept. of Justice made changes to the CCW application process, without benefit of legislation. You touched upon that in your letter to the California Public Safety Committee. Would it rock the Calif. Dept. of Justice boat even more if you explained in detail how Justice defied the legislature, and hid what was done?

The reality of what California Department of Justice did is way over the top. Now this attempt to destroy public records via AB 1044 -- Wow! Makes one wonder how much more time will pass before this thing hits the front page of mainstream news media. And is it possible the public records in question have already been destroyed, with AB 1044 being the vehicle to cover destruction of public records that by law must be retained.

Giant

[Jim March]

OK, I've tweaked the statement some - Giant, you helped clarify some things I was already thinking.

I've marked the new/changed stuff in bold so y'all don't need to re-read the whole thing:

---------------
Statement of opposition to AB1044

Filed by Jim March, webmaster, Equal Rights for CCW Home Page:
www.equalccw.com

Members of the Senate Public Safety Committee,

As some of you are aware, trying to pry public records loose from various local police departments and sheriff’s offices is difficult under any circumstances. It’s much more difficult when the public records in question, where available even in limited amounts, reveal widespread racism, gender bias and a suspicious pattern of campaign contributions in the area of gun carry permit (“CCW”) issuance.

AB1044 was written by the California Department of Justice after a group of reform activists realized that copies of all the local records of issuance were also being stored at a single central location – Cal-DOJ. DOJ’s claim that the records are public when requested from a local agency but private when the same data is held by DOJ is patently ridiculous and will fail in court – AB1044 therefore tries to destroy documents already the subject of a lawsuit under the Public Records Act.

In 1986, the California Supreme Court ordered the records of “good cause for issuance” of the permits opened, explaining that this was to “ascertain whether the law is being fairly and impartially applied” (equal protection). The entire thrust of the CBS vs. Block decision can be summed up as “we smell a rat and this needs public scrutiny”.

Activists realized in mid-2002 that the Cal-DOJ had violated the Public Records Act, Penal Code 12051 and Government Code 11340 et. seq. in a scheme dating back to 1999 to mask the “good cause for issuance” data statewide, in all archives. Cal-DOJ created a new CCW application form in 1999 that falsely labeled the “good cause” material “police investigator’s notes” when it was no such thing. To support this change, Cal-DOJ invoked their “regulatory authority” but the legislation enabling the form (Penal Code 12051) specifically required the full “regulatory rules” (starting at Government Code 11340) if the changes to the form were significant. The provisions of GC11340 were utterly ignored because any public commentary would have included the magic phrase: “CBS vs. Block says y’all can’t DO this”.

AB1044’s provision regarding the ability to make changes to the CCW application form isn’t there because they want to change the form – it’s there to legitimize a past change of the form that was patently illegal. All they’ll need to do is change one word in the form, and they’ve produced a “new form” not subject to the GC11340 rules.

AB1044 orders the destruction of ALL records of permit denial, both central archive and local, masking the abnormally high denial rates to minorities and women and making equal protection analysis more difficult.

AB1044 legitimizes the existing cover-up of the “good cause”, destroys most of the central archive so as to leave activists scrambling among 58 sheriffs and hundreds of police chiefs, and orders the destruction of the local agency records of denial critical to making equal protection analysis and claims. Because the records in question show “who is buddy buddy with law enforcement and sheriffs”, they are important to any researcher in government corruption and police misconduct issues, not just the “pro gun lobby”.

AB1044 is an insult to the entire concept of good government and open records. It was written so as to “appear harmless”, which is why it went through the Assembly unopposed. I am confident that once exposed as a secretive rape of the Public Records Act, it will be stopped cold and I ask for your resounding “no” vote on this nefarious legislation.

[Jim March]

Guys, *another* letter of opposition to AB1044 just got officially filed :). This one is from the Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), which is the political sister-org to the Second Amendment Foundation.

Yet another letter is due soon from the newspaper folks (CFAC). I'll post that when I get it. I'll also be sharing copies of all of these with the GOP policy analysts.

Oh ya. We got us a nice little political brawl coming :cool:.

Complete text:

------------------------

Opposition statement: AB1044
Organization: Citizen’s Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).
Web address: http://www.ccrkba.org

CCRKBA is a national organization chartered to preserve self defense rights.

On behalf of our organization’s membership and financial supporters in California, we oppose AB1044 and respectfully ask for the committee’s "no" vote.

Our organization has been involved in self defense litigation in California dating back to 1984. We are currently backing litigation efforts in Ohio, challenging their restrictions on personal defensive firearms based both on the Ohio state “right to bear arms” clause but also on causes of action involving equal protection violations which to date have been upheld by two trial judges, a unanimous 3-Justice appellate decision and is now pending before the Ohio Supreme Court.

We have very serious concerns as to potential equal protection violations in California’s Carry Concealed Weapons permit program (CCW). To date, the Ninth Circuit in Guillory vs. Gates (731 F.2d 1379, 1982) has upheld an equal protection principle in CCW issuance, and the California Supreme Court has opened up CCW records to public inspection (230 Cal.Rptr. 362, 1986) for the specific purpose of allowing the public to “ascertain whether the law is being fairly and impartially applied”.

We consider this a direct reference to doing equal protection analysis, including analysis on the basis of age, race, gender, religion and/or national origin. The California Attorney General’s conduct in handling the 1999 mandate to create a CCW form directly contradicted this California Supreme Court ruling. Every element of AB1044 is designed to hinder such analysis either by elimination of critical records, or allowing the AG’s office to legitimize the misconduct of 1999 by filing a new form once the public scrutiny provisions of Government Code 11340 are removed from the forms process.

On that basis, should AB1044 pass, our organization (in concert with others) is prepared to go before a Federal Judge and seek an injunction against the bill taking effect. Since both the state and Federal courts have upheld a Federal equal protection principle in this area of law, and given the outrageous nature of the attempted concealment of such violations, we are very confident of success.

We ask the members of the committee to therefore act to prevent a wasteful, unnecessary and obvious courtroom misadventure by stopping AB1044 before it gets that far.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

(signed)
Joe Waldron,
Executive Director