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California lawmakers are poised to kill legislation that would have forced them to immediately release lobbying letters from business and advocacy groups and given the public a new window into the secretive world of Capitol lobbying.

Two bills that would have required the Legislature to post the letters lawmakers receive from registered lobbyists and groups trying to influence legislation never received a hearing in the California Assembly.

CalMatters has been trying for more than a year to get real-time access to these public records to add transparency to the legislative process.The letters detail the concerns or approval groups express about the hundreds of bills lawmakers introduce each year, often passing them after just a few minutes of debate and public testimony.

Now, the Democratic lawmaker in charge of the committee that would have to approve the measures for them to advance says the Legislature doesn’t need a law to put the letters online.

Assembly Rules Committee Chairperson Blanca Pacheco “supports the goal of improving public access to position letters,” and is “interested in identifying practical ways to make that information more accessible without requiring legislation,” according to her spokesperson, Alina Evans.

Evans’ emailed statement makes clear it’s unlikely the public will be able to read the letters online any time soon.

“Before any letters could be posted or distributed outside of the Assembly network, there are technical, privacy, accessibility and cost considerations that need to be addressed,” Evans said.

She added that Assembly employees are assessing whether the current system used to submit the letters “can be updated in a way that is secure and adheres to accessibility requirements. A larger rebuild may require a more formal process and funding discussion.”

The bills’ likely demise disappoints a prominent good-government group, which is pushing for the legislation.

“We think allowing the public to have access to these position letters is just going to make the policymaking process fundamentally more transparent,” said Daniel Conway, a lobbyist for Common Cause California.

The group notes that at least 10 state legislatures post advocacy letters online. That includes Republican-controlled states such as West Virginia and Democratically-controlled states such as Hawaii.

“If advocacy materials are important enough for legislators and staff to review while making policy decisions, the public should generally have timely access to those same materials,” Common Cause wrote on its website.

Common Cause says that posting letters for every bill online would help people better understand legislation, identify policy disputes earlier and encourage constructive dialogue and compromise.The measures are Assembly Bill 2063 by Republican Greg Wallis of Rancho Mirage and Assembly Bill 2557 by Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Democrat who represents the San Ramon area.

Neither lawmaker responded to CalMatters’ interview requests. A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of Salinas referred CalMatters to the Assembly Rules Committee.

CalMatters seeks to make letters public

CalMatters has sought to obtain the letters as they are filed through the Legislature’s online position-letter portal, which lawmakers and their employees can access but the public cannot.

Under the current system, legislative staff provide the letters upon request for individual bills, a process that’s time-consuming and tedious.

CalMatters seeks to post every letter from every lobbyist and advocacy group for every bill on its Digital Democracy database, which is free to the public.

The letters would help Digital Democracy create a more accurate assessment of who supports and opposes each bill in the Legislature.

Without the letters, Digital Democracy can only track lobbyist and other advocate positions through their brief testimony at committee hearings or if their positions are listed in the public bill analyses written by legislative staff.

The Legislature denied CalMatters’ request, made under the Legislative Open Records Act, to get direct access to the position letter portal.

Instead, CalMatters has begun requesting the letters in bulk from the Assembly and the Senate. They have provided some of the letters but long after they are most valuable.

For instance, CalMatters asked for the letters the Assembly received from Jan. 1 to Feb. 10. The Assembly provided them earlier this month.

By then, many of the bills had advanced to the next chamber, been heavily modified or had already died.

Common Cause said that’s a problem. Ordinary Californians and small advocacy groups who don’t have the direct access to lawmakers and their staffers that well-funded, sophisticated lobbying organizations have, limiting their ability to shape legislation.

“Journalists, advocates, and members of the public frequently need access to advocacy materials before hearings and votes occur — not after legislation has already moved forward,” Common Cause said on its website.