Instruction Amendments - and a discussion of "pre-consolidation"

[Grant Vergottini <grant.vergottini@xcential.com>]

Hi Monica, Fabio, All,

 

As promised, here is information on instruction amendments. An instruction amendment is a document, composed of "instructions" which identify amendments to bills (or resolutions)

 

Our amendment generator automatically generates this document by analyzing a proposed version of a bill and extracting the strikes and inserts and computing the locations of the changes based on page and line annotations in the document.

 

The language of these amendments is very rigorous (to support automation) and the definition of the language is also included in the attachments with this email.

 

Here is the process for instruction amendments (IAs):

 

1. When a bill is to be amended, an instruction amendment document (or IA) listing the proposed changes is created. Those changes are expressed as strikes and inserts relative to the published text of the prior version of the bill. For this reason, the changes are expressed relative to page and line numbers. The individual changes listed in this document are called instructions or amendments.
2. If multiple legislators wish to propose changes, all those changes are "pre-consolidated" into a single instruction amendment document. This is an important concept - the consolidation takes place before the instruction amendment is voted on. In this way, all legal interpretation and legal analysis is performed prior to a vote rather than afterwards.
3. If there are conflicts in the changes proposed by legislators and those conflicts cannot be resolved before hand, then alternative instruction amendments will be created. These instruction amendments are "variants" to use the terminology used by Monica. It is possible that alternative amendments contain some of the same proposed changes if those individual changes are not part of the controversy.
4. When put to the vote, an instruction amendment passes or fails in its entirety (individual instructions or amendments within the IA cannot be voted on). When there are alternative (or variant) IAs, only one alternative may pass. The chosen alternative resolves the controversy. As only one instruction amendment may pass, all non-controversial changes proposed are pre-consolidated into all the alternatives before the vote.

 

This process of pre-consolidation of amendments is something that is a "Californian" methodology. Some other states have adopted this practice as well. However, this is not the rule. Other states allow multiple instruction amendments to be proposed and individual instructions within the instruction amendment documents to be individually passed or failed. In this case, the consolidation task occurs after instruction amendments have been voted on.

 

The term engrossing the amendments is generally used to refer to the task of incorporating the changes to produce the next version of the bill - or the engrossed bill.

 

However, that term does not seem to be quite so common within California. Perhaps it is because engrossing amendments is simpler,  but the term that seems to be more common is simply the amended bill. I have seldom heard anyone use the term engrossing within California.

 

-- Grant

____________________________________________________________________

Grant Vergottini

Xcential Group, LLC.

email: grant.vergottini@xcential.com

phone: 858.361.6738

 

Heading
Below line 1 of the heading, insert: (the most common form)
Below line 2 of the heading, insert:
In line 1 of the heading, strike out "Member Nation" and insert:  (the second most common form)
In line 1 of the heading, strike out "Committee on Judiciary (Corbett (Chair), Hancock," strike out line 2, and insert:
In line 1 of the heading, after "Members Correa," insert:
In line 2 of the heading, strike out "Member Maze)" and insert:
In line 7 of the heading, strike out "Florez, McPherson, Ortiz, and Scott)" and insert:
In lines 6 and 7 of the heading, strike out "and Steinberg" and insert:
Between lines 1 and 2 of the heading, insert:
Strike out line 2 of the heading and insert:
Strike out lines 3 and 4 of the heading, and insert:
In the heading, below line 1, insert: (error?)
In line 1 of the heading strike out "Committee on Governmental Organization (Jerome" strike out lines 2 to 5, inclusive, of the heading, and insert:


Title
In line 1 of the title, after "act" insert: (very common form)
In line 1 of the title, after the first ""to'' insert: (common form)
In line 1 of the title, after the second ""to'' insert a comma
In line 2 of the title, after the comma insert:
In line 2 of the title, after the first comma, insert:
In line 1 of the title, strike out "relating to taxation." and insert: (very common form)
In line 6 of the title, strike out the second "and"
In line 1 of the title, strike out the second "to" and insert:
In line 3 of the title, strike out ", and making an appropriation therefor"
In line 7 of the title, strike out "14139.38,"
In lines 2 and 3 of the title, strike out ", and making an appropriation therefor"
Strike out line 1 of the title and insert:
Strike out line 2 of the title, and insert:
Strike out lines 1 and 2 of the title and insert:
Strike out lines 1 to 4, inclusive, of the title and insert:
Strike out lines 1 to 55 of the title and insert: (error?)
Strike out line 1 of the title, in line 2, strike out "and to add Section 1250.12" and insert:
Below line 1 of the title, insert:
Between lines 2 and 3 of the title, insert:

Body
On page 2, between lines 7 and 8, insert:
On page 8, below line 26, insert:
On page 7, line 3, after "Constitution" insert:
On page 7, line 1, after "Third--That" insert:
On page 3, line 10, after "SEC. 1.3." insert:
On page 2, line 12, after "60200.3." insert:
On page 2, line 34, after "(e)" insert:
On page 7, line 35, after "5,000,000" insert a comma
On page 2, line 22, after "XIII{TH}A" insert:
On page 3, line 3, after "Article XIII C" insert:
}On page 3, line 2, after "Title 1" insert:
On page 2, line 34, after "a" insert:
On page 7, line 12, after "Fifth-" insert:
On page 4, line 35, after "II" insert:
On page 3, line 18, after "____" insert a comma
On page 4, line 4, after "CD-ROM" insert:
On page 2, line 25, after "(40 C.F.R. 132.36)" insert:
On page 2, line 13, after "animal's" insert:
On page 2, line 11, after "30000)" insert:
On page 1, line 1, after "WHEREAS," insert:
On page 2, line 4, after "arts," insert:
On page 2, line 19, after "(WSCC)" insert:
On page 3, line 39, after "Ch{STD}e1{/STD}vez" insert a comma
On page 2, line 6, after "August 30" insert:
On page 1, line 14, after "direct-to-consumer" insert:
On page 9, line 14, after "organizations." insert: (error?)
On page 4, line 25, after "(eurasian milfoil)," insert: (error?)
On page 2, line 15, after the semicolon, insert:
On page 5, line 4, after the first comma insert:
On page 3, line 12, after the second "the" insert:
Strike out pages 2 to 4, inclusive 
On page 5, line 1, strike out the blank and insert:
On page 3, line 1, strike out the comma and insert a semicolon
On page 3, line 37, strike out "expenses that" strike out lines 38 to 40, inclusive, on page 4, strike out lines 1 to 6, inclusive, in line 7, strike out "a successor agency," and insert:
On page 3, line 12, strike out "all of the" strike out lines 13 to 26, inclusive, strike out pages 4 to 6, inclusive, on page 7, strike out lines 1 to 18, inclusive, and insert:
On page 1, line 3, strike out the second "and" strike out lines 4 to 8, inclusive, on page 2, strike out lines 1 to 28, inclusive, and in line 29, strike out "open-source software;"
On page 3, line 22, strike out "is," strike out line 23, in line 24, strike out ""current fiscal year to be deposited'' and insert:
On page 3, line 24, strike out "The project is programmed in the State Transportation" strike out line 25, and in line 26, strike out "(6)"
On page 2, strike out lines 2 and 3, in line 4, strike out "(b)" and insert:
On page 4, strike out lines 2 to 39, inclusive, strike out pages 5 to 7, inclusive, on page 8, strike out lines 1 to 32, inclusive, in line 33, strike out ""SEC. 5.'' and insert:
On page 3, strike out lines 14 to 40, inclusive, on page 4, strike out lines 1 to 24, inclusive, in line 25, strike out ""Third-That'' and insert:

Attachment: AGIA Instruction Amendments - Current v1.1.doc
Description: MS-Word document

Attachment: AIC AB76 Instructions.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: AIC AB559 Instructions.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Attachment: AIC AB1706 Instructions.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document