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