BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1001|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1001
Author: Yee (D), et al.
Amended: 5/17/12
Vote: 27
SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMEND. COMMITTEE : 3-2, 4/19/12
AYES: Correa, De León, Lieu
NOES: La Malfa, Gaines
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 6-0, 5/21/12
AYES: Kehoe, Walters, Alquist, Lieu, Price, Steinberg
NO VOTE RECORDED: Dutton
SUBJECT : Political Reform Act: lobbyists and
committees: fees
SOURCE : California Common Cause
DIGEST : This bill increases the filing fee for lobbyists
from the existing fee of up to $25 per year to a fee of $50
per year, and also requires political committees (recipient
candidate, general purpose, ballot measure committees,
etc.) that receive contributions totaling $1,000 or more in
a calendar year to pay a similar filing fee of $50 per
year. This bill establishes a late filing penalty for
committees equal to three times the amount of the fee.
This bill provides that the increase in the lobbyist filing
fees and the new committee filing fee will be deposited
into the Political Disclosure, Accountability,
Transparency, and Access Fund which the bill creates. The
CONTINUED
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money will be used for the maintenance, repair, and
improvement of the lobbyists' online disclosure system at
the Secretary of State's Office.
ANALYSIS : Existing law, pursuant to the Political Reform
Act of 1974 (PRA), requires the Secretary of State (SOS),
in consultation with the Fair Political Practices
Commission (FPPC), to provide online and electronic filing
processes for use by specified political committees,
lobbyists, lobbying firms, and lobbyist employers. Those
processes must enable a user to comply with all relevant
disclosure requirements. The SOS must also make all the
data filed available on the Internet for public viewing in
an easily understood format. This online reporting and
disclosure system is commonly referred to as the Cal-Access
system.
Existing law requires all state candidates and state
political committees who are required to file campaign
reports to file those reports online or electronically if
the cumulative amount of contributions received,
expenditures made, loans made, or loans received is $25,000
or more.
Existing law requires that lobbying firms and lobbyist
employers register with the SOS, and authorizes the SOS to
charge each lobbying firm and lobbyist employer a fee of up
to $25 per year for each lobbyist required to be listed on
its registration statement. Currently, the SOS charges $25
every two years.
Existing law provides that if any person, candidate or
committee files an original statement of economic interest,
campaign statement or report after any deadline imposed by
the PRA, that filer, in addition to any other penalties or
remedies established by the PRA, is subject to a penalty of
$10 per day after the deadline until the statement or
report is filed to the officer with whom the statement or
report is required to be filed. This penalty need not be
enforced by the filing officer if on an impartial basis
he/she determines that the late filing was not willful and
that enforcement of the penalty will not further the
purposes of the PRA, except that no penalty may be waived
if certain statements or reports are not filed within
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specified time periods. The filing officer must deposit
any funds received under this section into the general fund
of the jurisdiction of which he/she is an officer.
This bill:
1. Increases the filing fee for lobbyists from the existing
fee of up to $25 per year to a fee of $50 per year.
2. Requires political committees (recipient candidate,
general purpose, ballot measure committees, etc.) that
receive contributions totaling $1,000 or more in a
calendar year to pay a similar fee of $50 per year
within 15 days of filing its statement of organization.
3. Provides that a committee which is created and pays the
initial $50 fee in the final three months of a calendar
year is not subject to the fee the following year.
4. Provides that a committee that existed prior to January
1, 2013, shall pay the $50 fee no later than February
15, 2013, but by January 15 each year thereafter.
5. Subjects a committee that fails to pay its annual
registration fee on time to a penalty equal to three
times the amount of the fee.
6. Requires the FPPC to enforce the fee provisions.
7. Creates The Political Disclosure, Accountability,
Transparency and Access Fund, specifies that the new
filing fee revenue from lobbyists and committees will be
deposited in that fund, and provides that the money will
be used for the maintenance, repair, and improvement of
the online or electronic disclosure program implemented
by the Secretary of State.
This bill requires the FPPC to adjust the filing and
registration fees on December 1 of each even-numbered year
to reflect any increase in the Consumer Price Index, and to
round each adjustment to the nearest $5.
Background
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Cal-Access Issues and Status according to the SOS . Created
in 1999, Cal-Access is a database and filing system the SOS
has used to make much of the lobbying and campaign finance
information available online at no cost to users.
Cal-Access is a suite of applications developed in 13
different programming languages which, until recently, ran
the system on a server cluster and associated components
that are more than 12 years old, using an uncommon version
of the Unix operating system. While the SOS has the
funding to maintain the existing hardware and software,
finding parts and qualified people to do the maintenance on
such outdated equipment has been increasingly difficult.
The Cal-Access system went down November 30, 2011, was
restored December 7, 2011, went down December 9, 2011, and
was restored again on December 30, 2011. The causes of the
outages were layered and complex and no quick fix was
available.
The recovery efforts pursued in December should stabilize
Cal-Access and enable it to continue running, but the
system can never be made stronger or patched with new
features. Any attempt to upgrade or modernize Cal-Access
could be as risky, time-consuming, and expensive as
developing and deploying a new system. Even the December
work to restore Internet availability of Cal-Access will
not last forever. It is highly likely that Cal-Access will
require more robust servers in the next three to four years
simply to continue providing access to the ever-growing
volume of information.
The cost of an entirely new system and the speed with which
it can be deployed will depend on many factors and
ultimately can only be borne out through the state's
information technology (IT) procurement process, which
history has shown to be lengthy and expensive. Before the
Cal-Access outage began on November 30, the SOS was looking
at existing commercial off-the-shelf products, as well as
systems used by other states to prepare a feasibility study
report (FSR) - the project blueprint that is the required
precursor for an IT project and subject to approval by
state control agencies. Any consideration of an FSR, along
with the subsequent legislative and gubernatorial review of
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any budget change proposal to conduct a procurement, would
take into account the replacement of Cal-Access in the
context of the two major IT procurements - VoteCal and
California Business Connect - that the SOS is currently
conducting.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, total
costs of approximately $80,000 (Special Fund) annually and
approximately $490,000 in new fee revenue (Special Fund).
The Secretary of State indicates the need for one
additional PY (personnel year) to administer the new
filing fee imposed on political committees at an
estimated cost of $83,138 annually (Special Fund).
Approximately $490,000 in revenue from the increased fees
on lobbyists and the new fee imposed on committees to the
Political Disclosure, Accountability, Transparency, and
Access Fund.
Unknown revenue from late filing penalties collected from
committees that do not meet the filing deadlines,
deposited into the new Special Fund.
There are approximately 7,800 recipient committees that
will be required to pay a new $50 annual fee to the
Secretary of State which will result in potential new
revenue of up to $390,000 each year. Additionally, this
bill will result in about $100,000 in revenue from higher
filing fees paid by lobbyists every two years. This bill
directs the money to the Political Disclosure,
Accountability, Transparency and Access Fund.
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/23/12)
California Common Cause (source)
California Newspaper Publishers Association
Fair Political Practices Commission
OPPOSITION : (Verified 5/23/12)
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Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office,
Cal-Access, the disclosure Web site that provides financial
information supplied by state candidates, donors, and
lobbyists, among others, has had a slew of technical issues
recently that have resulted in a lack of access to this
information by the public. This information is essential
to ensuring transparency and accountability in affairs that
directly impact the people of this state. This bill seeks
to raise additional funds to be used on the maintenance of
the Cal-Access website to ensure that this information is
continuously available as it was intended to be by raising
the fee for lobbying firms and lobbyist employers to $50
per year. This bill also requires the FPPC to adjust this
fee on December 1 of each even-numbered year to reflect any
increase in the Consumer Price Index and to round the
adjustment to the nearest $5.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers
Association states that they are "certainly aware of the
recent server problems experienced by the Secretary of
State's office. However, targeting lobbyists is a punitive
measure that will hit non-profit associations especially
hard in a difficult recession. The Secretary of State has
alternative means to fund its essential functions including
business incorporation fees and notary services. it should
also try better management. The office, like all of
government, should learn to live within its means without
banking on the prospect of higher taxes and fees."
DLW:mw 5/23/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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