Creating the Joint Committee on Economic Stimulus Accountability

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

This joint resolution creates the Joint Committee on Economic Stimulus Accountability (JCESA), consisting of five members from each house. Under the joint resolution, the speaker of the assembly must appoint three members from the assembly, the assembly minority leader must appoint two members from the assembly, the senate majority leader must appoint three members from the senate, and the senate minority leader must appoint two members from the senate.

The joint resolution provides that neither house may pass a bill to appropriate funds received through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or any similar or successor federal legislation signed into law before July 1, 2009, unless JCESA has held a public hearing on the bill and issued a report containing all of the following information: a determination by JCESA that all projects for which the funds are expended in the bill are an appropriate use of public funds; the amount, if any, that the proposed expenditures contained in the bill will increase the state's structural deficit; a determination by JCESA that proper safeguards are contained in the bill to prevent any appropriated funds in the bill from being paid to an individual who or entity that has outstanding obligations to the state; and an estimate of the number of private sector jobs and public sector jobs that will be created by the projects for which the funds are expended. Under the bill, JCESA must hold the public hearing within seven days of the referral of the bill to the committee and issue its report no later than seven days after the public hearing.

Who's behind it

45 lawmakers are its authors⁠. All 45 are Republicans.