BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 193
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Date of Hearing: May 8, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 193 (Logue) - As Amended: April 30, 2013
Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:5-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill extends, by one day, the time allowed to submit an
argument for or against a local ballot measure if none has been
submitted to the elections official before the established
deadline. Specifically, this bill requires a city or county
elections official, if an argument in favor of or against a
measure is not submitted for inclusion in the sample ballot
materials by the deadline, to:
1)Extend the submittal deadline by one calendar day.
2)Issue a press release, as specified, including the impartial
analysis prepared by the city attorney/county counsel and a
request to submit arguments for or against the measure by the
extended one-day deadline.
FISCAL EFFECT
The cost impacts will be for (a) overtime to prepare the press
release, the impartial analysis of the measure, and to
compensate for the one-day delay in preparing the ballot and
sample ballot, and (b) republishing the changed deadlines for
rebuttals, which are required to be published under current law
in a newspaper of general circulation. In some jurisdictions,
this must be published in multiple languages. These costs are
General Fund state-reimbursable, and the statewide costs in any
year would depend on the number of instances in which the bill
applied.
According to the most recent Secretary of State report on local
elections, from 1995 through 2009, there has been an annual
average of 271 city or county ballot measures. (The average
AB 193
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fluctuates considerably between even-numbered years (about 360)
and odd-numbered years (about 160).) Assuming that for 10% of
these measures, an argument for or against a measure was not
submitted by the deadline, and assuming costs of $5,000 to
$10,000 per instance (one large county estimated $8,200 per
instance), the statewide total would be $135,000 to $270,000.
COMMENTS
Purpose . The author introduced this bill in response to the lack
of an argument for a measure on the City of Sacramento's
November 2012 ballot. The Sacramento City Council placed a
proposition on the ballot known as Measure U. Under current law,
the local elected body is allowed to designate parties to write
the support and opposition ballot statements. With Measure U,
the appointed council party submitted the supporting ballot
statement, but an opposition ballot statement was not submitted
in time by the appointed party. According to the author, "the
voters were denied a crucial opportunity to educate themselves
on both sides of a matter. This bill would revise the law in
order to give voters more of a say in their elections."
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081