BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 168 Page 1 Date of Hearing: July 6, 2011 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Felipe Fuentes, Chair SB 168 (Corbett) - As Introduced: February 3, 2011 Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:5-2 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill: 1)Makes it unlawful for anyone to pay, or be paid, based on the number of signatures obtained for a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition. 2)Makes a violation of the above a misdemeanor, subject to the following penalties: a) For a person or organization that pays someone based on the number of signatures collected, a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment in county jail for up to one year. b) For a person paid based on the number of signatures collected, a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment in county jail for up to six months. FISCAL EFFECT Unknown, likely minor non-reimbursable costs to cities and counties for prosecution and incarceration, offset to some extent by fine revenues. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . According to the author's office, in California and throughout the country there are increasing reports of ballot initiative fraud in the signature gathering process. Critics argue that paying signature gatherers on a per-signature basis encourages fraud, because a circulator who collects more signatures will earn more, and is more likely to forge SB 168 Page 2 signatures or to misrepresent the content of the petition in order to encourage people to sign. (According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, payments typically range from $1 to $3 per signature, and occasionally are as high as $10 per signature.) According to the Secretary of State's Election Fraud Investigation Unit (EFIU), between 1994 and 2010, 240 cases were opened for falsifying petitions, of which 46 were sent to district attorneys for prosecution, resulting in 33 convictions. Since the EFIU was created in 1994, a larger number of convictions have been obtained for falsified petitions than for any other election crime except fraudulent voter registration. 2)Prior Legislation . SB 34 (Corbett) of 2009, an identical bill, was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, who argued that the bill would inhibit the initiative process. AB 2946 (Leno) of 2006, which included provisions establishing penalties for paying or receiving payment on a per-signature basis, was also vetoed. 3)Opposition . A coalition of associations representing business interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Apartment Association, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, argues that the bill will limit the public's role in the initiative process and "would make it prohibitively expensive to do an initiative or a recall and next to impossible to do a referendum." The Humane Society of the United States expresses a similar concern. Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081