Donna Frye: ‘Public Gets Kicked in the Gut: Sacramento Politicians Use the Gut-and-Amend Process to Pass SB 344 — Midway Rising Legislation’

Nearly Impossible for Public to Participate in Last-Minute Legislative Procedure

By Donna Frye

On Sunday, August 30, a little after 3 p.m. the California State Assembly voted to support Senate Bill 344 (SB 344) and eliminate the public’s ability to challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. The official vote was recorded as 72 Ayes, 2 Noes (Castillo and DeMaio) and 5 No Vote Recorded (Addis, Boerner, Connolly, Hart, Muratsuchi).

Shortly thereafter, the California State Senate followed suit and voted 39 to 0 to support SB 344.

It now goes to Governor Newsom for his signature or veto. He has until September 30 to do so.

SB 344 eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from any legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project.

This legislation was driven, in large part, by the City of San Diego’s failure to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project. The City of San Diego was sued in court and lost because of that failure.

It’s no surprise that you may not be aware of this legislation because it was brought forward at the last minute in a legislative procedure known as “gut and amend.” This procedure allows amendments to be made to legislation to remove the current contents in their entirety and replace them with different provisions.

Instead of going through the normal legislative process, the gut-and-amend procedure allows a last minute change to legislation that does not necessarily have anything to do with its original intent. This makes it next to impossible for the public to participate in a meaningful way because often times they have no idea it is even happening before it’s too late.

That’s what happened here. SB 344, a bill about the disposal of human remains at sea, was moving through the usual legislative process but was placed in the inactive file in July 2025. Then, in mid August, 2026, SB 344 was removed from the inactive file where it was gutted and amended for the Midway Rising project. Best as I can tell, there was no public hearing on the amended legislation until August 26 when it rose through the ashes.

What began as legislation about the disposal of human remains at sea turned into a shameful end run around the public process. The legislative branch of government eliminated the public’s ability to have full access to the judicial branch of government for the Midway Rising project.

So what can be done to address the gut-and-amend process and make it more difficult for Sacramento elected officials to do stinky stuff like this?

It seems to me that there needs to be a process that requires the California Legislative Counsel to prepare a written legal analysis in advance of a Assembly or Senate vote for any bill that uses the gut-and-amend process. Ensure that the analysis can be challenged by the public as to whether the change is germane to the original intent of the bill.

Currently, the legislators get to decide what is germane and they just showed us they can’t be trusted to make a reasonable or sensible decision about the meaning of the word.

I have yet to hear any of the elected officials who voted for SB 344 explain how the “burial of remains at sea” is related to a new sports arena and development project in San Diego. I suspect we won’t get that explanation any time soon, but I sure am tempted to ask some of them.

Open government matters and the public right to know and participate matters. But when those basic rights are circumvented and ignored, we need to do more than just throw out the current elected officials and elect someone new under the same old public -process -crushing rules. We need to change those rules and make sure that whoever is elected has to follow them.

That does not mean we should not stay fully engaged in the current public process that is available for the Midway Rising project because there is a lot that needs to be done and can be done.  It also doesn’t mean we should not engage at the ballot box to hold our elected officials accountable for their votes.

We can stay involved by sending letters and emails, making phone calls and attending public hearings. We can educate ourselves about the myriad documents that will be discussed and voted on in the coming months and make sure to vote in every election.

But I believe there are additional actions we can take to prevent this type of legislative stunt from happening in the future; changing the gut-and-amend process seems like a good next step.