Artificial intelligence: transparency and governance.

The California Constitution provides that people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business. Various provisions of existing law, including the California Public Records Act, the Legislative Open Records Act, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, and the Ralph M. Brown Act, provide, with some exceptions, for public access to government records and meetings of government bodies. Among those acts, the California Public Records Act defines “person” to include any natural person, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, firm, or association.

Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, governs, among other things, the procedures for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law.

Existing law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA defines “person” to include any person, firm, association, organization, partnership, business, trust, corporation, limited liability company, company, district, county, city and county, city, town, and, among other things, the state.

Existing law, the California Coastal Act of 1976, establishes the California Coastal Commission and prescribes procedures for the preparation, approval, and certification of local coastal programs that regulate development in the coastal zone, as defined, in jurisdictions that have a certified local coastal program.

This bill would specify that, for purposes of the California Public Records Act, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, the Ralph M. Brown Act, the Legislative Open Records Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the California Coastal Act of 1976, and CEQA, “person,” “interested person,” “participant,” “member of the public,” as applicable, and any other similar terms under each act referring to those who may engage with governmental agencies, do not include artificial intelligence, as defined, systems, autonomous agents, or robots, whether physical or digital. The bill would authorize governmental agencies to use an artificial intelligence detection a disclosure verification tool to determine if artificial intelligence is present. The bill would make findings and declarations related to these provisions.

The California Constitution requires local agencies, for the purpose of ensuring public access to the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies, to comply with a statutory enactment that amends or enacts laws relating to public records or open meetings and contains findings demonstrating that the enactment furthers the constitutional requirements relating to this purpose.

This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

SECTION 1.

 (a) (1) Subdivision (b) of Section 3 of Article 1 of the California Constitution establishes that “the people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business.” California’s transparency and governance laws, including the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340), Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 11370), Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 11400), and Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 11500) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code), the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act (Article 9 (commencing with Section 11120) of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code), the California Environmental Quality Act (Division 13 (commencing with Section 21000) of the Public Resources Code), the California Coastal Act of 1976 (Division 20 (commencing with Section 30000) of the Public Resources Code), the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government Code), the Legislative Open Records Act (Article 3.5 (commencing with Section 9070) of Chapter 1.5 of Part 1 of Division 2 of Title 2 of the Government Code), and the Ralph M. Brown Act (Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 54950) of Part 1 of Division 2 of Title 5 of the Government Code), implement this constitutional mandate by enabling natural persons to participate in and observe governmental processes.

(2) Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can now be programmed to automatically and continuously engage with governmental processes at scales and speeds that far exceed human capacity. AI systems have the ability to submit thousands or millions of automated public records requests, generate mass public comments on proposed regulations, file automated petitions for rulemaking, or otherwise flood governmental agencies with interactions that simulate human participation but lack genuine human deliberation or judgment.

(3) Automated mass engagement would overwhelm government agencies, divert limited public resources from serving actual constituents, drown out genuine human participation, and transform deliberative processes into meaningless exchanges with machines. Public comment periods would become ineffective if agencies must process thousands of AI-generated submissions, and the administrative burden would undermine the purpose of California’s transparency laws. This threat is not theoretical. In the United Kingdom, AI-powered platforms have already enabled automated generation of planning objections, prompting warnings from experts that such systems will overwhelm public agencies.

(4) California’s transparency and governance laws referenced in paragraph (1) presuppose participants who possess consciousness, moral agency, deliberative judgment, and membership in the political community. AI systems, regardless of their sophistication, lack these essential attributes of personhood. Consistent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s November 2025 guidance recognizing that AI systems are tools to support human activity rather than independent actors, and with the European Union’s AI Act adopted in 2024 protecting the fundamental rights of natural persons, California law maintains the distinction between human beings and artificial intelligence.

(b) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to clarify that, for purposes of California’s transparency and governance laws referenced in subdivision (a), the terms “person,” “interested person,” “member of the public,” and any other similar terms referring to those who may engage with governmental agencies under those laws, refer to natural persons and legally recognized entities capable of genuine participation in democratic governance, not AI systems that could be programmed to simulate participation at scales that would overwhelm governmental processes.

(c) The changes made by this act are not to be construed to imply that the terms “person,” “interested person,” “participant,” “member of the public,” and any other similar terms as used in any law other than those laws referenced in subdivision (a) include artificial intelligence systems, autonomous agents, robots, or other nonhuman entities, whether physical or digital.

SEC. 12.SEC. 13.

 The Legislature finds and declares that Section 2 of this act, which amends Section 7920.520 of the Government Code, and Section 8 9 of this act, which adds Section 54951.5 to the Government Code, further, within the meaning of paragraph (7) of subdivision (b) of Section 3 of Article I of the California Constitution, the purposes of that constitutional section as it relates to the right of public access to the meetings of local public bodies or the writings of local public officials and local agencies. Pursuant to paragraph (7) of subdivision (b) of Section 3 of Article I of the California Constitution, the Legislature makes the following findings:

The clarification made by this act serves the public interest by preserving the integrity and functionality of California’s democratic institutions, preventing automated systems from displacing genuine human participation, protecting public resources from being consumed by responding to machine-generated requests, and ensuring that governmental decisions remain responsive to the people of California.