Assemblyman Joe Nation dropped by The Light a fortnight ago, obviously feeling a need to explain why he did not vote in favor of State Senator Jackie Spier’s so-called Financial Information Privacy Act (SB 773).
The bill failed last month when Nation and 17 other Democrats declined to vote, which amounted to voting "no" and thereby joining the Republican opposition. Newspapers in Marin County have been divided over whether Nation voted correctly. The Marin Scope, Ross Valley Reporter, San Rafael-Terra Linda Newspointer group of papers castigated him in a column by local pundit Dick Spotswood. The Marin Independent Journal applauded him in an editorial.
As described by the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, the bill would require a financial institution "to provide specified notice to, and obtain the consent of, a customer before disclosing to or sharing confidential consumer information...with any non-affiliated third party, subject to certain exceptions."
It’s the exceptions, claimed Nation, that made him an opponent. "We could have passed a bill that pretends to protect your privacy, [but] that’s not what I’m there to do he said." Just 24 hours before the bill was voted on, it was amended 58 times, he noted, repeatedly creating exemptions that benefited various large corporations. "All supporters of the bill from the business community had an exemption," the assemblyman claimed.
As amended, the bill failed to protect people’s privacy, he said, and in the business world, created "winners and losers." American Express supported the bill because it could share financial information with other operations of City Group, which include banking and credit cards, he said.
Large "integrated" financial companies, including car dealers, some retailers, and some insurance companies would have been allowed to trade information among themselves. "The group really hit hard in the bill were small community banks and credit unions," he said, because "they don’t do their own marketing." Instead, "they contract out." Under the bill, contract marketers could not use information about the credit unions’ or small-banks’ customers although large companies whose marketing is in-house could use information on their firms’ customers.
Where Speir’s bill went wrong, the assemblyman said, was in basing privacy regulations on the legal and financial structure of a company. "It would have been better to define what is private information: bank [records], health, purchases..."
Another bill Nation took heat for opposing was SB 771 by State Senator Liz Figueroa. The bill would have created a no-call list of telephone numbers of people who don’t want to hear from solicitors. Telemarketing to private individuals on the no-call list could draw a $500 fine the first time and a $1,000 fine the second time. Sounds fine, doesn’t it?
But here too, as the Legislative Counsel’s Digest noted, the prohibitions would be "subject to certain exceptions." The worst exception, said Nation, is that the no-call lists would not apply to businesses that "have an existing or prior relationship with an individual."
Think what that means, said Nation. Regardless of the no-call list, any Internet user who is a customer of AOL could receive solicitations from any of Time-Warner’s many companies since Time-Warner owns AOL. Anyone who is customer of Pacific Bell could receive solicitations from Pac Bell or Pac Bell-related firms. Since most people here are Pac Bell customers, that’s a pretty big exception. And it’s only one of many. In contrast, there would be very few exemptions for businesses that are small but have more than six employees.
The assemblyman was also unhappy that the bill excepted politicians and candidates from the no-call list. "I have a problem when we pass laws that apply to everybody but us," said Nation. Finally, he said, nonprofits would also be excepted, regardless of their political stripe or goals. "People complain to me as much about nonprofits as businesses," Nation noted.
Assemblyman Nation, of course, has done more than oppose bills this past year in the State Capitol. He has successfully sponsored legislation on behalf of the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists (two bills), the State Water Resources Control Board (for the underground-storage-tank-cleanup program), the Department of Consumer Affairs (revision of smog-check laws).
But in Nation’s mind, his biggest accomplishment was Assembly Bill 1460, which he dubbed the San Quentin Safety Bill. Sponsored by the Department of Corrections, the bill (which Gov. Gray Davis has signed) "provides the director of Corrections and the warden of San Quentin with clear discretionary authority to temporarily relocate a small number of the condemned inmates from San Quentin," Nation said.
"The transfer could only occur when either the safety or security of staff and inmates is seriously jeopardized or when critical medical or mental health needs for that inmate cannot be met.
"Current law requires that all condemned inmates be housed and executed at San Quentin," Nation noted. At present, "disruptive condemned inmates are moved to the Adjustment Center, an extremely inadequate and dangerous facility." After the new law takes effect on Jan. 1, such inmates will be moved to the state prison in Sacramento.
Nation may be playing the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike while improving conditions on San Quentin’s death row, but the rest of Legislature of recent has appeared fairly ineffectual.
Nation blames this on the animosity between Gov. Davis and State Senate Pro Tempore John Burton, who are both Democrats. When Davis handed down one veto message, Nation confirmed, Burton waived it from his dais and announced the governor had "f-cked himself with this one." Burton then said he had his own message for the governor and while standing in front of the State Senate made an obscene gesture with his middle finger.
Fun times in Sacramento.