The bill also allows for cost-of-living increases every two years. Salary limits for city council seats have not been adjusted since 1984. The bill will be considered Wednesday by the Assembly Local Government Committee, and could create compensation for city council members salaries from $600 a month in cities with less than 35,000 residents to as much as $2,000 per month in cities with more than 250,000 people. If passed the law’s implementation would be left up to each individual city council to decide if they want to raise its members' pay to those levels. Currently the limits are half those amounts. The increases would take effect after the next city council elections.

The bill also keeps the door open for the pay raise to be voted on by the people of each city as for authorization to raise or lower pay levels. Author De La Torre said the salary limits in the bill might change as it moves though the Legislature. "We are very early in this," he said. "Those numbers might not be the final numbers." Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told the Sacramento Bee that his group hasn't taken a position on the bill but is concerned that it could lead to turning part-time city councils into full-time ones. "The total dollar amounts don't seem that large," he said. "I think the thing we have a problem with is the doubling. Our concern would be that we do not want to see the professionalization of city council members in general law cities. "In most general law cities, the council person is just a member of the community who has ... a real job in the real world." The bill does not impact 108 cities in the state, which operate under their own charters and have more autonomy than general law cities. Another bill being looked at this week is bound to be popular with consumers that have tried to have honored those mail away rebates so popular on electronics. A bill by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, would require stores that included a rebate as part of the posted or advertised price of an item to deduct the rebate at the store instead of requiring the customer to send away for it. The measure is on the Assembly Judiciary Committee's agenda on Tuesday.