Law student, Robb Shecter, who has created the OregonLaws.Org web site, wrote us recently about the fact that California Codes have accessibility issues:

The California Codes are published online (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html) with crucial information absent (removed?) that renders them nearly impossible to use:

No Section names ("leadlines") are present in this version-for-the-public. For example, the Sections relevant to the California Highway Patrol are presented like this:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=02001-03...

The sections are thus relatively unusable, greatly increasing the cost of legal research and defeating access and transparency for nearly all people. The missing information is also crucial for third parties (like me) who'd like to create easy-to-use directories of the codes.

The needed information does seem to exist, however.  The names for this particular section, for example, can be found on the DMV website, for example:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/tocd2c2a2.htm

Those DMV pages are unfortunately the exception that proves the rule. After seeing these Section names, it should be immediately obvious that these represent a crucial element of the codes that should be published along with the codes.

In California, Legislative votes on bills are posted on the web (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html). In fact, a bill cannot become a law without an official record of the vote. But it is possible to "expunge" votes and the L.A. Times reports that happened recently on a controversial bill.

• California Assembly expunges votes on oil drilling bill, By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2009.

Although 28 members of the California Assembly supported a measure to allow new oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast, their votes are nowhere to be found in the official state database.

According to the status page for the Assembly Bill "ABX4 23," on July 24, action was rescinded and the "record expunged whereby a final roll call vote was taken" but no record of the House vote exists on the web site today.

Offshore oil drilling is very controversial in California and both private contractors and the State hoped to reap a lot of money from the drilling. (Plains Exploration Falls On Tranquillon Ridge Rejection >PXP, By Aja Carmichael, Wall Street Journal, JULY 27, 2009).

While voting records are often mis-used, in my opinion, in political contests -- taking votes out of context and viewing them as isolated and simple when they are, in fact, part of a process of conflict, compromise, and (one hopes) consensus -- removing records from the public record is hard to justify on any grounds.

The usual excuses were used for this recent expunging: It doesn't happen often; and: Another vote will be taken later on the same or a different bill; and: You can still find the information somewhere else. These are excuses and not reasons and they are not even very good reasons. This is nothing but an attempt to control political information. As one Republican, who wrote the measure, said: "The message to the public is 'this vote was an inconvenient vote and we would rather you not look at the man behind the curtain.'"

As a documents librarian, it's always been a particular frustration to me that I could give access to the CA Codes to all who asked *except* for Title 24, the CA Building Standards Codes which are under copyright by and must be purchased from various organizations -- for @ $890!

Well, no more. Carl Malamud and his public domain avengers have just liberated Title 24 (download the whole kit and caboodle here!). This is truly a great birthday present on Independence Day!!

A new study says that there are signs that the digital divide is widening for some groups in California, particularly Latino and low-income residents. This conclusion is based on a statewide survey. The study also notes that computer use in California is similar to that in the nation as a whole.

• Californians & information technology, by Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, Jennifer Paluch, and Sonja Petek, The Public Policy Institute of California, in collaboration with The California Emerging Technology Fund. June 25, 2008

Baldassare says:

"...[T]here are tremendous differences in access to critical information that put many at a disadvantage in their everyday lives. At a time when technology's role is growing and in a state that has led the way, this poses a major policy challenge."