BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                      



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          |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE            |                  AB 2692|
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                                 THIRD READING


          Bill No:  AB 2692
          Author:   Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee
          Amended:  As introduced
          Vote:     21

           
           SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMEND. COMM.  :  5-0, 6/19/12
          AYES: Correa, La Malfa, Gaines, Lieu, Yee

           ASSEMBLY FLOOR  :  73-0, 5/10/12 (Consent) - See last page 
            for vote


           SUBJECT  :    Electoral districts and precincts

           SOURCE  :     Author


           DIGEST  :    This bill makes various minor and technical 
          changes to state law governing elections.  This bill (1) 
          repeals obsolete provisions of existing law that specified 
          the boundaries of Assembly districts that were used for 
          elections to the Assembly for terms commencing between 2002 
          and 2010.   Repeals obsolete provisions of existing law 
          that specified the boundaries of congressional districts 
          that were used for elections to the United States House of 
          Representatives for terms commencing between 2003 and 2011, 
          (2) provides for the repeal, on January 1, 2015, of 
          provisions of existing law that specified the boundaries of 
          Senate districts that were used for elections to the Senate 
          for terms commencing between 2002 and 2010.  Provides for 
          the repeal, on January 1, 2015, of provisions of existing 
          law that specified the boundaries of Board of Equalization 
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          (BOE) districts that were used for elections to the BOE for 
          terms commencing between 2003 and 2011, (3) repeals a 
          provision of law that requires elections officials, when 
          establishing precinct boundaries, to avoid crossing census 
          tract or enumeration district lines to the extent possible 
          and without subjecting voters to significant inconvenience, 
          and (4) repeals a provision of law that requires elections 
          officials, when providing the Legislature with information 
          and statistics necessary for use in connection with the 
          drawing of legislative districts, to identify each precinct 
          according to the census tract or enumeration district in 
          which it is located.

           ANALYSIS  :   

           Existing law 
           
          1. Establishes the boundaries of Senate, Assembly, BOE, and 
             congressional districts based on the 2000 census.

          2. Establishes the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC), 
             and gives it the responsibility for establishing the 
             district lines for Senate, Assembly, Congress, and the 
             BOE.

          3. Prohibits elections officials, when establishing 
             precinct boundaries, from establishing any precinct so 
             that its boundary crosses the boundary of any 
             supervisorial district, congressional district, 
             senatorial district, Assembly district, BOE district, 
             judicial district, incorporated city, ward, or city 
             council district.  Requires elections officials, to the 
             extent possible and without subjecting voters to 
             significant inconvenience, to avoid crossing census 
             tracts or enumeration district lines when establishing 
             precinct boundaries.  

          4. Requires the county elections official in each county to 
             compile and make available to the Legislature or any 
             appropriate committee of the Legislature any information 
             and statistics that may be necessary for use in 
             connection with the creation of new legislative 
             districts, including election returns for each precinct. 
              Requires the elections official, when providing this 

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             information, to identify each precinct according to the 
             census tract or enumeration district in which it is 
             located.  

           Comments
           
          This is one of the Assembly Elections and Redistricting 
          Committee's annual omnibus bills, containing various minor 
          and technical changes to provisions of state law governing 
          elections.  

           Legal Descriptions of Legislative, Congressional, and BOE 
          Districts  .  With the approval of Propositions 11 (2008) and 
          20 (2010), the authority for establishing the boundaries 
          for Assembly, Senate, congressional, and BOE districts was 
          transferred from the Legislature and the Governor to the 
          newly-established CRC.  Because the CRC establishes 
          districts by adopting a resolution, and not through the 
          enactment of a statute, the legal descriptions of the 2001 
          districts that were established by the Legislature remain 
          in the Elections Code (see generally Elections Code 
          Sections 21100-21140 for Senate districts, Sections 
          21200-21280 for Assembly districts, Sections 21300-21304 
          for BOE districts, and Sections 21400-21453 for 
          congressional districts).  In printed versions of the 
          Elections Code, these legal descriptions of outdated 
          district lines can take up a few hundred pages.  

          This bill repeals the legal descriptions of the 2001 
          Assembly and congressional districts effective January 1, 
          2013.  Additionally, this bill repeals the legal 
          descriptions of Senate and BOE districts effective January 
          1, 2015.  The Senate and BOE district boundaries would 
          remain in statute until 2015 because members of those 
          bodies elected in 2010 will continue to represent those 
          district boundaries until their terms expire in late 2014 
          (in the case of the Senate) or early 2015 (in the case of 
          the BOE).  Additionally, the Senate district boundaries 
          will remain in the code until 2015 because any special 
          election held to fill out the remainder of a term of a 
          Senator who was elected in 2010 will be conducted using 
          these 2001 district lines.  

           Precinct Boundaries  .  Existing law requires elections 

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          officials, when they are creating precinct boundaries, to 
          avoid crossing census tract lines to the extent possible.  
          Additionally, when elections officials compile and report 
          precinct-level information and statistics that are used for 
          redistricting purposes, the officials are required to 
          identify each precinct by census tract.  While census data 
          is vital to the redistricting process, census tracts are no 
          longer used in describing district boundaries.  As a 
          result, the requirements in existing law that precincts be 
          identified by census tract needlessly add additional cost 
          and complexity for elections officials when creating 
          precincts and reporting election information.  

          This bill removes references to census tracts in the 
          process of creating precincts and reporting election data.  
          This provision was requested by the California Association 
          of Clerks and Election Officials.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :    Appropriation:  No   Fiscal Com.:  No   
          Local:  No

           SUPPORT  :   (Verified  6/20/12)

          California Association of Clerks and Election Officials


           ASSEMBLY FLOOR  :  73-0, 5/10/12
          AYES:  Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, 
            Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford, 
            Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos, 
            Carter, Cedillo, Chesbro, Conway, Davis, Dickinson, 
            Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fong, Fuentes, Beth Gaines, 
            Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, 
            Halderman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Roger Hernández, Hill, 
            Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Jones, Knight, Lara, Logue, Bonnie 
            Lowenthal, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell, 
            Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Pan, Perea, 
            Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Swanson, 
            Torres, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, 
            John A.  Pérez
          NO VOTE RECORDED:  Cook, Fletcher, Furutani, Jeffries, 
            Norby, Olsen, V.  Manuel Pérez



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          DLW:dk  8/25/12   Senate Floor Analyses 

                         SUPPORT/OPPOSITION:  SEE ABOVE

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