BILL ANALYSIS AB 1958 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 23, 2008 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mark Leno, Chair AB 1958 (Swanson) - As Amended: March 25, 2008 Policy Committee: Transportation Vote: 13-0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill adds firefighters, code enforcement officers, and certain veterinarians to the list of peace officers and other public officials who may request the DMV to keep their home addresses confidential from disclosure to the general public. FISCAL EFFECT 1)Moderate costs, in the range of $720,000 primarily in 2008-09, to the DMV to modify its public official confidentiality process and to add potentially several thousand names to the confidentiality list. (Motor Vehicle Account (MVA).) 2)Moderate ongoing costs, in the range of $400,000 annually starting 2009-10, to the DMV to continue to add and delete names from the public official confidentiality and to "blackout" these home addresses if the general confidentiality provisions of existing law are ever repealed and the DMV decides to divulge this information to the general public. (MVA) COMMENTS 1)Rationale . The author believes public access to personal information regarding firefighters, code enforcement officers, and certain veterinarians whose jobs may require them to be placed in sensitive positions, should be limited to a handful of "need-to-know" public entities. The author is concerned these officials and veterinarians periodically become potential targets for retaliation from a disgruntled person. AB 1958 Page 2 2)Background . Until 1989, DMV records were considered public records and any person who had a legitimate reason to seek a home address of a particular person in the DMV files could obtain it simply by producing the relevant driver's license number or a license plate number. In 1986, legislation was enacted creating a list of public officials whose home addresses were to be kept relatively confidential by the DMV. The original list of persons whose home addresses are to be kept confidential by the DMV, included the Attorney General and Department of Justice attorneys, the State Public Defender and deputy defenders, members of the Legislature, judges or court commissioners, district attorneys and their deputies, public defenders, and peace officers and their families. Since then, the list has expanded to encompass tens of thousands of other public employees and their families. In 1989, actress Rebecca Schaeffer was stalked and killed by a man who obtained her address through a private investigator who, in turn, obtained her address from the DMV. In response to this murder, the Legislature enacted AB 1779 (Roos) - Chapter 1213, Statutes of 1989, which made confidential the home addresses of all individuals with records at the DMV. Since 1990, when AB 1779 went into effect, there has been no useful reason for the DMV to maintain the separate and explicit confidentiality list of public officials and employees. Despite the fact that all home addresses are kept confidential by the DMV, the Legislature has considered and enacted several bills since 1990 proposing to add select categories of persons to the public official confidentiality process. The DMV is not aware of any instance since the enactment of AB 1779 in which the department's home address information has been used to commit any crime. 3)Alternative Action . Since the enactment of AB 1779 in 1989 eliminates the need for the separate home address confidentiality protections afforded to public officials and employees under Vehicle Code sections 1808.2, 1808.4, and 1808.6, a more appropriate course of action would be to repeal these three outdated sections. 4)Related Legislation . AB 2039 (Arambula) removes peace officers who have been convicted of a crime and have left their positions from the public official confidentiality AB 1958 Page 3 list's three-year moratorium on public access to home address information. AB 2039 passed this committee April 9. AB 966 (Spitzer), which passed the Assembly last year as a measure related to parole, was amended April 9 to delete all confidentiality provisions and instead allow government agencies access to the public official confidentiality list of home addresses in an effort to better collect traffic, parking or toll road violations. Analysis Prepared by : Steve Archibald / APPR. / (916) 319-2081