"Trailer Bills" Draw Scrutiny From Groups Fearing Major Policy Changes

Advocacy groups are scrambling to check out what’s really in the state budget deal that California Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders agreed to late last week. 

It’s not just the budget bill itself that everyone’s checking out – we’ve got a fairly good idea what’s in there, because it’s been debated in public for months and the terms of the deal were discussed at a four-hour hearing last week.

It’s the"trailer bills" that implement the budget agreement that are drawing line-by-line scrutiny from groups that fear major policy changes could be slipped past them at the last minute.

The text of the bills went into print and were posted online over the weekend.

A vote on the budget itself must come by Wednesday, the Legislature’s June 15th constitutional budget deadline. The trailer bills face no such deadline, but are often approved on the same day as the budget.