California Assembly Bill 386, which one might charitably describe as a bill to encourage more innovative investment by the great California public pension manager, CalPERS, died in committee in the state Senate recently. I don't mourn its passing, for a reason to which I'll come in tomorrow’s posting. Today, I’ll try to explain what the bill in question was. The California Public Records Act requires state agencies and localities to make their records available for public inspection,unless a specific exemption from disclosure applies. There is as the law stands an exemption for certain records regarding alternatives investments in which public investment funds invest. This protects the arrangements that CalPERS makes with investment funds, "vehicles," including those which employ a private debt strategy. So in effect CalPERS can get into the private debt market only once it partners with a private investment fund already in that business. Then its records, for th...