California’s Petition Law Is Simple. So Where Is the Decision?
California Government Code §11340.7 is at the center of our lawsuit over Petition 2025-003. The statute is surprisingly short—and when you read all of it, the dispute becomes much easier to understand.
One thing is important at the outset: we are not arguing that the Fish and Game Commission did nothing.
It followed part of the statutory process.
The real question is whether it was allowed to stop where it did.
This is the entire statute
California Government Code §11340.7 is not a long statute with dozens of provisions.
The entire section consists of four subdivisions: (a), (b), (c), and (d). The table below walks through all four of them, in order, and compares each one with what happened to Petition 2025-003.
| § | What the law says | What happened with Petition 2025-003 | Where things stand |
|---|---|---|---|
| (a) | The agency acknowledges the petition and, within 30 days, either denies it on the merits in writing or schedules it for public hearing. | The Commission did not summarily deny Petition 2025-003. It put the petition before the Commission for public consideration. | This appears to be the strongest area of compliance. |
| (b) | The agency may grant or deny the petition in part, grant other relief, or take “any other action as it may determine to be warranted by the petition.” | The Commission unanimously referred Petition 2025-003 to the Department of Fish and Wildlife “for review and recommendation.” | This is the central dispute. The State says the referral completed the Commission’s obligation. We say it was a step in the process. |
| (c) | An interested person may request reconsideration of an agency’s decision within 60 days after that decision. | There has been no subsequent Commission decision granting or denying Petition 2025-003. | What decision are we supposed to ask them to reconsider? |
| (d) | A decision granting or denying a petition, in whole or in part, must be in writing and transmitted to the Office of Administrative Law. | Petition 2025-003 has not been granted or denied. | This apparently has not been triggered. |
The Commission did act
That point matters.
Under subsection (a), the Commission chose the hearing route instead of summarily denying Petition 2025-003.
Then, under subsection (b), it exercised its discretion.
The staff recommendation was:
The Commission adopted that recommendation unanimously.
So our argument is not that the referral was unauthorized.
Then comes subsection (c)
Subsection (c) allows an interested person to request reconsideration of an agency’s decision on a petition.
The request must be made within 60 days after the decision.
To be clear: this does not mean the Commission had 60 days to decide Petition 2025-003.
But it does raise a simple question.
What a completed review process looked like before
The Commission’s own history gives us an interesting comparison.
In 1997 and 1998, a petitioner asked the Commission to remove Asian water buffalo from the prohibited-species list in Section 671.
The Commission directed the Department to investigate possible disease and agricultural risks.
The Department conducted that review, consulted other agencies and experts, changed its recommendation from denial to support, and recommended that the Commission remove Asian water buffalo from the restricted list.
The Commission then proceeded through the rulemaking process and amended Section 671.
Petition 2025-003 was also referred to the Department “for review and recommendation.”
More than a year later, there has been no resulting Commission decision.
So what is the real dispute?
The State points to subsection (b) and says the Commission was permitted to “take any other action” it determined was warranted by the petition.
We agree that the Commission could make the referral.
The question is what that referral meant.
That is one of the questions now before the Sacramento Superior Court.
Our lawsuit does not ask the judge to legalize ferrets.
It asks what California’s petition statute requires after an agency accepts a petition, sends it for review and recommendation, and then never produces a resulting decision.