It is the responsibility of a government to allow for public oversight of its decisions. The information, as well as the rationale, behind everything it does should ideally be available for review — and most of the time, it is.

So when a monumental bill that concerns the daily lives of over 10,000 students — of nearly 32 percent of our own students — is killed with no immediate explanation provided, it’s no wonder that people have been particularly vocal about their concerns.

The District of Choice bill, SB 1432, had been progressing through the California legislature; it had passed the state Senate near-unanimously, and received consensus in various committees. The bill was set up for success — until it was swallowed up by the legislative process, and held to die in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Over the course of one day, it ceased to exist. It did not even come to a vote.

Since then, parents, lobbyists, teachers and even students have launched into action: attending rallies advocating the bill, calling senators day and night and flooding social media with their protests.

But no amount of protesting, complaining or posting on social media can compel an explanation for why the bill died. The committee is not obligated to provide an explanation. The chairwoman of the committee is not obligated to provide an explanation.

Still, after more than two weeks of silence, she released a rare statement as to why the bill was not brought to a vote. She mentioned problems of inequity, about how low-income students were unintentionally excluded from the program — and those concerns are fair. Those concerns deserve attention and discussion.

The Appropriations Committee, though, is not tasked with examining the policy of a bill. Its role is merely to examine the fiscal impact bills have on the state of California — of which, by the way, is only the inconsequential cost for reporting the results of SB 1432. That is why it does not need to provide formal reports on its decisions.

Therein lies the problem. Through lack of oversight, an essential, even indispensable, committee is able to overstep its bounds without fear of consequences. A tool for preserving the financial stability of the state becomes one for quietly filtering bills that would otherwise receive backlash from the public.

The people of Colorado faced a similar problem before 1988, where committee chairs would refuse to hold a vote on disagreeable bills. In response, the people of Colorado held a referendum to amend the state’s constitution, to Give A Vote to Every Legislator.

The GAVEL amendment was a step in the right direction, but its language unfortunately left too much open to interpretation. The Colorado House proceeded to create new rules to restore power to committee chairs.

The fact that the people of Colorado tried to Give A Vote to Every Legislator, something that would seem inherent to the way a legislature works, speaks to the size of the problem.

It’s not just in California. Some elected representatives have more power than others, and in many circumstances, the people can do painfully little to change that.

So when seeking an answer to the unjust death of a bill, know that it lies not within a single legislative committee, but rather, in a reformed system — one that can be achieved only by popular support for transparency within our democracy.