BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 857
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Date of Hearing: May 8, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 857 (Fong) - As Amended: April 16, 2013
Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:5-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill establishes additional requirements for initiative
petitions and for persons paid to solicit signatures for such
petitions. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires an initiative petition circulated by a paid person to
be printed on yellow paper and to include all of the
following:
a) A specified printed warning that the circulator is being
paid and an advisement to read the contents before signing.
b) The identity of the political committee paying the
circulator and a list of top three donors who have
contributed more than $50,000 within the last six months.
If this information changes, it is to be updated within 14
days.
2)Requires a petition circulated by an unpaid person to be
printed on white paper, and requires that person to sign an
affidavit from the Secretary of State (SOS) containing
specified information, including a declaration that they are
not paid for soliciting signatures.
3)Requires that at least 20% of the total signatures submitted
to qualify an initiative be from petitions circulated by
unpaid persons.
4)Stipulates that an employee or member of a nonprofit
organization who is paid as part of that employment or
membership is not considered a paid signature gatherer for
purposes of (3).
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5)Stipulates that signatures obtained by a member of a political
party who receive money from that party for soliciting those
signatures does not count toward meeting the requirement in
(3).
6)Stipulates that signatures gathered via direct mail do not
count toward meeting the requirement in (3) if the person
soliciting the signatures is paid primarily for that purpose,
unless the person belongs to a nonprofit organization per (4).
7)Requires a person who pays to have signatures solicited and a
person who is paid for this work to register with the SOS and
complete a training program pursuant to regulations adopted by
the SOS.
8)Requires a person required to register per (7) to file an
application, as specified, with the SOS, and requires the SOS,
within five business days of receiving a completed application
to assign the person a registration number, which shall be
effective for two years.
9)Stipulates that signatures submitted by a paid circulator who
is not registered with the SOS do not count toward qualifying
the initiative.
10)Requires paid signature gatherers to wear a badge, as
prescribed in regulation by the SOS, containing their
photograph and registration number.
11)Requires the SOS to revoke the registration of person
engaging in fraudulent conduct with respect to signature
gathering and stipulates that the signatures gathered by this
person are invalid.
12)Requires persons paying to have initiative petitions
circulated to maintain specified records, and requires the SOS
to review these records on a regular schedule.
13)Makes all of the above applicable to initiatives for which
Attorney General has issued a circulating title and summary on
or after October 1, 2013.
FISCAL EFFECT
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1)The SOS will incur GF significant costs to establish a
registration and training program for paid petition
circulators and to regularly review accounts of paid signature
gathering entities. The number of registrants is unknown, but
assuming 75,000 statewide, annual costs are estimated at
around $1.6 million (somewhat higher in the first year) for 22
staff to process applications, respond to inquiries,
investigate complaints and conduct enforcement. (The SOS's
current registration program for notaries operates with a
staff of 44 for 161,000 registrants.) There will also be
one-time information technology costs exceeding $1
million-requiring a feasibility study report and state control
agency approval-plus ongoing general administrative costs
(business services and human resources) of around $250,000.
2)County elections officials indicate that an initiative will
have separate volunteer and paid circulator-gathered
petitions, and thus will be treated as two separate petitions
for their signature-checking systems in order to meet the
minimum threshold requirement of volunteer-gathered
signatures. For a voter who signs both the volunteer's
petition and the paid circulator's petition, their systems
cannot cross-reference the two different petitions for
duplicates. Therefore, the state-reimbursable cost for all 58
counties to conduct this cross-referencing could exceed
$150,000 per initiative measure. Depending on the number of
initiatives submitted for qualification, the total costs could
easily exceed $1 million annually.
COMMENTS
Purpose . According to the author, over the last 30 years,
the initiative has become one of the favorite tools of
well-financed special interest groups, contrary to the
original intent of the initiative process. Voters recognize
that the ability of an initiative's proponents to gather
the necessary signatures to qualify a measure for the
ballot depends on the amount of money that a proponent is
willing to spend, rather than whether there is broad-based
community support for a proposed measure.
Since the 1990s, most initiative measures have relied
primarily on paid signature gatherers to qualify for the
ballot, and no state initiative measure has qualified for
the ballot using only volunteer signature gatherers since
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1990. In the past 20 years, there have been dozens of
convictions for fraudulent signature gathering, and most
(if not all) of those convictions have been of paid
signature gatherers.
At the same time, proposed initiative measures with true
grassroots support have continued to have success in collecting
large numbers of signatures using volunteer signature gatherers.
In 2008, proponents of Proposition 2 gathered half a million
signatures using volunteer signature gatherers.
According to the author, to ensure that proposed initiatives
have broad-based community support, AB 857 requires at least 20%
of initiative petition signatures to be collected by grassroots
signature gatherers. Additionally, AB 857 seeks to ensure that
measures do not qualify for the ballot due to fraudulent
activity by signature gatherers by prohibiting fraudulently
collected signatures from being used to qualify a measure for
the ballot. Finally, AB 857 helps protect the integrity of the
initiative process by requiring paid signature gatherers to
undergo training and to register with the SOS.
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081