SACRAMENTO -- An Assembly committee on Tuesday rejected a heavily lobbied bill that would have overturned a state Supreme Court decision blocking the release of police discipline records.
The measure by Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, failed to get a motion for a vote in the Public Safety Committee.
"I am disappointed that not one member of the committee made a motion to allow for a vote on the bill," Romero said. "We come to Sacramento to vote -- not remain silent. I would have had more respect for committee members had they voted up or down and not let the bill die in silence."
The bill would have overturned an August 2006 ruling in which the Supreme Court said the public did not have a right to see personnel records of law enforcement officers who challenge disciplinary actions taken against them.
Since discipline records aren't made public until law enforcement agencies receive a complaint against an officer, the decision effectively shuts public access to those records, supporters of the Romero bill said.
The decision only allows police personnel records to be divulged in a criminal or civil court proceeding.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Copley Press Inc., owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune. It challenged the San Diego County Civil Service Commission's sealing of the record regarding an unnamed officer who fought dismissal in 2003.
"This bill clearly threatens an agency's ability to keep its enforcement tactics out of the hands of criminals and threatens the lives of undercover officers and their families," said Ron Cottingham, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California.
The bill would have allowed police chiefs or sheriffs to withhold a discipline record if they decided there was a substantial probability the release of the information would jeopardize an officer's safety or the security of department operations.
The committee gave police officer unions "exactly what they want -- a cloak of secrecy over police misconduct and a lack of public accountability," said Mark Schlosberg, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
