Judge Terry Friedman (Ret.

)
May 19, 2016

The Honorable Hannah Beth Jackson

Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear Senator Jackson:

Re: SB 1190 Support

I write as a former member of the State Legislature who represented a coastal

district in Los Angeles from 1986-1994. In 1992, I authored AB 3459, which sought
to prohibit members of the California Coastal Commission from engaging in ex parte
communications. At the time, the Coastal Act was silent on the matter, and although
the Administrative Procedures Act prohibited such contact, there was no associated
penalty. As a result, Commissioners routinely engaged in widely-publicized
improper conversations, resulting in lawsuits and loss of public trust. My goal was
to ensure that the Commission would operate as an independent, impartial body to
weigh coastal permit applications in a fair and transparent manner.
After both houses of the Legislature passed AB 3459 by large majorities, Governor
Pete Wilson signed it into law.

Unfortunately, the disclosure and penalty regime adopted by AB 3459 has not
worked to stop Coastal Commissioners from engaging in ex parte communications
with interested parties, such as lobbyists and developer applicants. Instead, it is
evident that my objective to ensure that important decisions about coastal
development are made in public, not behind closed doors, has been thwarted by a
proliferation of unregistered and unregulated lobbyists, and evasive, boilerplate
disclosures that hide the content of secret communications that likely influence
Commission decisions. In some instances, the disclosure forms are prepared by the
lobbyists themselves.

The Coastal Commission is a quasi-judicial body. There is a fundamental difference

between the policy decisions legislators make and the individual project decisions
made by Coastal Commissioners. My appreciation of this difference was deepened
by my post-Legislative service as a Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. On
many occasions I led workshops throughout the state on the contrast between
legislative and judicial roles.

While legislators properly rely on both public and private communications to decide
how best to fulfill their constitutional obligation to represent their constituents and
advance their policy beliefs, judges and those who act like judges in deciding
individual cases, such as Coastal Commissioners, are expected to be impartial in
order to protect the publics right of due process. That is why Coastal Commission
decisions are subject to judicial review. Yet, there is no way for the public to have
confidence that Commission decisions are made on the merits so long as
Commissioners engage in ex parte communications with interested parties.
SB 1190 would stop improper ex parte communications with Coastal
Commissioners, as I intended to do 24 years ago. I am pleased that, unlike in 1992
when the Coastal Commission opposed my bill, today the Coastal Commission itself
supports SB 1190 in order to impose an absolute and effective ban on ex parte
communications.
Sincerely,

Terry Friedman