BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 857
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 857 (Fong)
As Amended May 24, 2013
Majority vote
ELECTIONS 5-2 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Fong, Bocanegra, Bonta, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bocanegra, |
| |Hall, Perea | |Bradford, |
| | | |Ian Calderon, Campos, |
| | | |Eggman, Gomez, Hall, |
| | | |Ammiano, Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Weber |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Donnelly, Logue |Nays:|Harkey, Bigelow, |
| | | |Donnelly, Linder, Wagner |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Makes numerous significant changes to provisions of
state law governing initiatives and referenda. Specifically,
this bill :
1)Requires at least 20% of the signatures collected to qualify a
state initiative for the ballot to be collected by individuals
who did not receive money or valuable consideration
exclusively or primarily for the purpose of soliciting
signatures of electors on the petition, as specified ("20%
requirement").
a) Provides that signatures qualify toward the 20%
requirement if they are collected by an employee or member
of a non-profit organization (except a political party), as
specified, who receives money or valuable consideration
from the organization and as part of that employment or
membership solicits signatures, as specified.
b) Provides that signatures solicited through direct mail
do not count towards the 20% requirement unless i) every
person who organizes, pays, or arranges for the direct
mail, is eligible to solicit signatures that qualify toward
meeting the 20% requirement, or ii) an organization that
has a primary purpose other than soliciting signatures on
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initiative petitions is soliciting signatures from its
members through direct mail.
2)Requires a petition section that qualifies toward the 20%
requirement to be printed on white paper. Requires a petition
section that does not qualify toward the 20% requirement to be
printed on yellow paper and to include the following:
a) The following notice printed in 18-point boldface type:
"NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC: THIS PETITION IS BEING CIRCULATED BY A
PERSON PAID TO OBTAIN YOUR SIGNATURE. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED
TO READ THE CONTENTS OF THIS PETITION BEFORE SIGNING."
b) A disclosure statement, in 14-point boldface type,
updated within 14 days when the relevant information
changes, that includes the following language:
"The political committee paying for this petition to be
circulated is (insert full name of committee).
"The following donors have contributed $50,000 or more to the
(insert full name of committee) within six months of the
printing of this petition: (insert name of each of the top
three donors who have contributed $50,000 or more and, if
an individual, his or her occupation and the identity of
his or her employer)."
3)Requires a person who solicits signatures that qualify toward
the 20% requirement to sign an affidavit declaring that to the
best of his or her knowledge, the signatures on the sections
that he or she circulated should count towards the
requirement. Requires, if the person is not a state resident,
that he or she sign a statement consenting to the jurisdiction
of the state and service of process for the purposes of an
investigation or prosecution.
4)Makes corresponding changes to the process for elections
officials to verify signatures submitted on a state initiative
petition.
5)Defines a professional petition firm (PPF) as an entity that
is created and maintained for an exclusive or primary purpose
of paying individuals to circulate state initiative and
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referendum petitions. Requires a PPF to register annually
with, and pay a registration fee to, the Secretary of State
(SOS). Requires the SOS to use fee revenue to maintain a
directory of PPFs on its Internet Web site, and to defray
costs associated with the registering PPFs.
6)Requires a PPF to provide training to each paid circulator
that it employs, including a review of applicable laws, and
requires the PPF to submit its training materials to the SOS.
Requires a PPF to obtain a statement, signed under penalty of
perjury, from each paid circulator that it employs that
includes all of the following:
a) The person's name, residential address, signature,
photograph, and a list of the petitions for which the
person will solicit signatures;
b) If the person has been convicted of a criminal offense
involving fraud, forgery, identification theft, or a
violation of the Elections Code, information relating to
the circumstances of the conviction, as required by the
SOS;
c) A statement that the person has read and understands the
applicable laws pertaining to the soliciting of signatures
for an initiative or referendum measure, and proof that the
person has completed the required training; and,
d) If the person is not a California resident, a statement
that he or she consents to the state's jurisdiction and
service of process for the purposes of an investigation or
prosecution.
7)Requires a PPF to assign a unique seven-digit identification
number to each circulator, as specified, and to provide the
name and identification number of each circulator to the SOS
within 14 days of the date that the circulator executed the
statement described above. Requires a PPF to retain copies of
each circulator's statement for not less than two years after
the petition is filed or two years after the deadline for
submission of the petition to the elections official,
whichever is later. Permits the SOS to inspect these records.
8)Requires each circulator hired by a PPF to wear a badge
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provided by the PPF in a conspicuous place while soliciting
signatures on petitions. Requires the badge to contain the
person's photograph and identification number.
9)Requires the SOS to revoke the registration of a PPF that, in
the course of circulating or hiring individuals to circulate
an initiative or referendum petition, engages in fraud,
misrepresentation, or other specified conduct prohibited by
the Elections Code.
10)Provides that if a person who was required to be trained and
certified pursuant to this bill was not trained and certified
at the time he or she solicited signatures on a petition, the
signatures presented on the sections of a petition circulated
by that person shall not count toward qualifying that measure
for the ballot.
11)Requires a PPF who pays a circulator for the specific purpose
of soliciting signatures of electors on a petition to keep
detailed accounts, as specified, including contracts, training
materials, and payroll records. Permits the SOS to review the
accounts of PPFs, as specified.
12)Provides that if a PPF does not produce accounts upon demand
of the SOS, there is a rebuttable presumption that the
signatures were gathered in violation of the law and cannot be
used to qualify the measure. Prohibits the PPF from
soliciting additional signatures on the petition until the PPF
makes the accounts available to the SOS for inspection.
13)Provides that a state initiative or referendum petition
section is invalid if the signatures are solicited and
submitted by a person who engages in fraud, misrepresentation,
or other illegal conduct concerning the circulation of the
petition, as specified. Provides that the SOS or any elector
may enforce this provision by a civil action in which the
plaintiff has the burden of showing a violation by clear and
convincing evidence. Prohibits a petition section from being
invalidated after the SOS has certified that the measure has
qualified for the ballot.
14)Provides that the provisions of this bill shall take effect
on January 1, 2014, and shall apply to any initiative or
referendum petition for which the Attorney General issued a
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circulating title and summary on or after October 1, 2013.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)The SOS will incur ongoing costs of around $150,000 to
promulgate regulations and to establish and operate the
registration program for petition circulating firms. These
costs will be at least partially offset by annual registration
fees.
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 : According to the author, "AB 857 preserves the
original intent of the initiative process by ensuring that
initiative measures have broad-based community support in order
to qualify to appear on the ballot. To achieve that goal, AB
857 requires at least 20 percent of the signatures gathered to
qualify a state initiative for the ballot to be collected by
grassroots signature gatherers. Additionally, AB 857 helps
ensure that measures do not qualify for the ballot due to
fraudulent activity by prohibiting fraudulently collected
signatures from being used to qualify a measure for the ballot.
Finally, AB 857 protects the integrity of the initiative process
by requiring paid signature gatherers to undergo training to
become familiar with California laws governing the circulation
of petitions."
Under the provisions of this bill, in order for a state
initiative measure to qualify for the ballot, at least 20% of
the signatures gathered on the petition for that measure would
have to be collected on petition sections that were circulated
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by a person who does not receive money or other valuable
consideration exclusively or primarily for the purpose of
soliciting signatures of electors on the petition, as specified.
This "20 percent requirement" does not apply to state
referendum or recall petitions, nor does it apply to local
initiatives, referenda, or recalls.
In 1988, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Colorado
prohibition against the use of paid circulators for initiative
petitions violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free
speech. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Stevens noted
that "[t]he State's interest in protecting the integrity of the
initiative process does not justify the prohibition because the
State has failed to demonstrate that it is necessary to burden
appellees' ability to communicate their message in order to meet
its concerns." Meyer v. Grant (1988), 486 U.S. 414. It could
be argued that the 20% requirement imposed by this bill could be
susceptible to a court challenge in light of the United States
Supreme Court's ruling in Meyer. However, the 20% requirement
in this bill is distinguishable from the law struck down in
Meyer in a number of different ways, and thus may be more likely
to withstand constitutional scrutiny.
Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion
of this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
FN: 0000823