BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Norma J. Torres, Chair
BILL NO: AB 400 HEARING DATE: 6/4/13
AUTHOR: FONG ANALYSIS BY: Darren Chesin
AMENDED: 5/28/13
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Initiative, referendum and recall petitions: contributors
DESCRIPTION
Existing law requires political committees, as defined, to
periodically report contributions received and expenditures made
to support or oppose the qualification or passage of an
initiative, referendum, or recall measure.
Existing law requires an advertisement for or against any ballot
measure to include a disclosure statement identifying any person
whose cumulative contributions are $50,000 or more, as
specified.
Existing law requires a committee that supports or opposes one
or more ballot measures to name itself using a name or phrase
that identifies the economic or other special interest of its
major donors of $50,000 or more. Provides that if the major
donors of $50,000 or more share a common employer, the identity
of the employer must also be disclosed.
Existing law requires that any state or local initiative
petition contain a statement notifying voters of their right to
inquire whether the petition is being circulated by a paid
signature gatherer or a volunteer.
This bill requires an initiative, referendum, or recall petition
that is circulated by a paid circulator to include a statement
identifying the five largest contributors of $10,000 or more in
support of the measure. Specifically, this bill :
1.Requires a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall
petition that is circulated by a paid circulator, as defined,
who is paid by a committee to include, in 12-point type at the
top of the petition, a disclosure statement identifying the
names of the persons from whom the committee received the five
largest cumulative contributions of $10,000 or more, as
defined.
2.Provides that if more than five donors meet the disclosure
threshold at identical contribution levels, the five highest
donations shall be disclosed according to chronological
sequence.
3.Requires the disclosure statement to be updated within seven
days of any change in the five largest cumulative
contributors.
4.Requires a committee that employs one or more paid circulators
to circulate a state initiative, referendum, or recall
petition to submit the disclosure statement required by this
bill, and any updates, to the Secretary of State (SOS), and
requires the SOS to post those statements on his or her
Internet Web site.
5.Requires the petition to include the name of the committee
immediately following the disclosure statement. Requires the
committee to identify itself using a name or phrase that
clearly identifies the economic or other special interest of
its major donors of $50,000 or more. Provides that if the
major donors to the committee share a common employer, the
identity of that employer shall be disclosed.
6.Provides that local elections officials shall not be required
to verify the accuracy of the disclosures required by this
bill, or to reapprove the petition when the petition is
updated to reflect a change in the five largest cumulative
contributors.
7.Provides that signatures collected on a petition shall not be
invalid solely because the information required by this bill
was absent or inaccurate.
BACKGROUND
Existing Disclosure Requirements : As noted above, existing law
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requires campaign committees to file periodic reports disclosing
contributions received and expenditures made to support or
oppose the qualification or passage of an initiative,
referendum, or recall measure. In most cases, those campaign
disclosure reports will be available online if the measure is a
state measure. To the extent that having more information about
the financial supporters of a measure is an important
consideration for a voter when deciding whether to sign a
petition to place that measure on the ballot, the voter
typically will be able to get that information from campaign
reports.
On the other hand, existing law also recognizes an interest in
providing voters with information about the contributors to a
measure at the time voters are asked to support or oppose that
measure. Specifically, existing law requires advertisements for
or against ballot measures to include a disclosure statement
identifying the two largest donors of $50,000 or more to the
committee paying for the advertisement. Additionally, existing
law requires a committee that is supporting or opposing one or
more ballot measures to name and identify itself using a name
that identifies the economic or other special interest of its
major donors of $50,000 or more.
Speaker's Commission on the California Initiative Process : In
2000, then-Assembly Speaker Robert M. Hertzberg created a
commission on the California initiative process. The goal of
the Commission was to examine the initiative process and
recommend changes to make the process more responsive to voter
concerns. The Commission issued its final report in January
2002. Among the recommendations proposed by the Commission was
a requirement that all petitions to qualify a statewide
initiative for the ballot be accompanied by a written campaign
financial disclosure, which may be printed on, attached, or
bound to the petition.
COMMENTS
1.According to the author : While committees supporting or
opposing ballot measures are required to file periodic
campaign finance reports, potential signers of the
petitions do not have easy access to this information
when approached by a petition circulator. Petitions
contain official titles, summaries, and (in some cases)
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the text of the proposed measures, but there is no
readily available information regarding the source or
sponsors of the measures at the time a voter is asked to
sign a petition. While the voter can ask the circulator
for this information, the circulator is not required to
know or disclose this information. Circulators often
only know who is paying them and little else about the
petitions they are helping to qualify.
Surveys consistently have shown that voters want improved
public disclosure of the sources that are funding
signature gathering for proposed ballot measures. In
fact, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)
has found greater than 70 percent support for increasing
public disclosure of funding sources for initiative
campaigns each of the eight times that they asked that
question. In their most recent survey in March of this
year, the PPIC found that 81 percent of Democrats, 80
percent of Republicans, and 85 percent of Independents
supported increased disclosure of the funding sources for
initiative campaigns.
AB 400 will improve transparency about the financial
backers of proposed ballot measures by requiring
initiative, referendum, and recall petitions to include a
listing of the five top donors to the committee that is
funding the petition drive.
Unfortunately, it is far too common for paid petition
circulators to mislead voters about the effects of
proposed ballot measures in order to get those voters to
sign the petitions. By requiring petitions to include
information about the largest financial donors to
proposed ballot measures, AB 400 will provide important
clues about the potential impacts of those measures, and
will help those voters see through misleading statements
made by petition circulators.
2.Previous Legislation : SB 469 (Bowen) of 2005, would have
required an initiative, referendum, or recall petition to
include a statement identifying the five largest contributors
in support of the measure, among other provisions. SB 469 was
vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.
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AB 1500 (Hertzberg) of 2002, would have required any person who
circulates an initiative petition for signatures to make
available to potential signers the names of the top 5
contributors to the committee and the cumulative amount
contributed by each as disclosed on the committee's most
recent campaign report, among other provisions. AB 1500 died
on the Senate inactive file.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 5-2
Assembly Appropriations Committee: 12-5
Assembly Floor: 53-24
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author
Support: American Association of University Women
California Common Cause
California Conference Board of Amalgamated Transit
Union
California Teamsters Public Affairs Council
Engineers and Scientists of California, IFPTE Local 20,
AFL-CIO
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
Pacific Media Workers Guild
Professional and Technical Engineers, IFPTE Local 21,
AFL-CIO
UNITE-HERE, AFL-CIO
United Food and Commercial Workers Western States
Council
Utility Workers Union of America, Local 132, AFL-CIO
Oppose: None received
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