A tale of two Open Data bills: SB 272 moves ahead, while SB 573 remains “in suspense”

The California State Assembly Appropriations Committee decided today to send SB 272 on to the Assembly floor, while doing nothing to take SB 573 out of the suspense file, a repository for pending bills.

SB 272, authored by California State Senator (D-Van Nuys) Robert M. Hertzberg, would require local California agencies to catalog and publish a list of their data resources.  SB 573, by California State Senator Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), would create a Chief Data Officer for the State of California and mandate the creation of a universal state data portal.

Ray Sotero, Communications Director for Senator Hertzberg, told Etopia News this afternoon that SB 272 would probably be taken up by the full Assembly “sometime next week.”

Shannan Velayas Martinez, Communications Director for Senator Pan, told Etopia News this afternoon that “the bill [SB 573] was unfortunately held in suspense in the appropriations committee.”