BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1063| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: SB 1063 Author: Block (D) Amended: 5/12/14 Vote: 21 SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMEND. COMM .: 4-1, 4/22/14 AYES: Torres, Hancock, Jackson, Padilla NOES: Anderson SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-2, 5/23/14 AYES: De León, Hill, Lara, Padilla, Steinberg NOES: Walters, Gaines SUBJECT : Voter registration: juvenile detention facilities SOURCE : Author DIGEST : This bill requires state and local detention facilities to assist any person who is of age to register to vote with the completion of the affidavit of registration, and to transmit those cards to the county elections official. ANALYSIS : Existing law: 1.Specifies that in order to be eligible to vote, an individual must be a United States citizen, a resident of California, not in prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony, not deemed mentally incompetent, and at least 18 years of age at CONTINUED SB 1063 Page 2 the time of the next election. 2.Requires the election board of each county, in order to promote and encourage voter registration, to establish a sufficient number of registration places throughout the county, and outside the county courthouse, for the convenience of person desiring to register to vote. 3.Requires the Secretary of State (SOS) to adopt regulations requiring each county to design and implement programs to identify qualified individuals who are not registered voters and to register those individuals to vote. 4.Requires the county elections official to cancel the voter registration of a person upon proof that the person is presently imprisoned or on parole for conviction of a felony. 5.Requires the clerk of the superior court of each county to notify the county elections official twice a year of those persons that have been convicted of a felony since the clerk's last report. 6.Requires the facility administrator of a local detention facility to develop written policies and procedures whereby the county registrar of voters allows qualified voters to vote in local, state, and federal elections. This bill requires a state or local juvenile detention facility, including but not limited to, a juvenile hall, juvenile ranch, juvenile camp, or a facility of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), Division of Juvenile Justice to do all of the following: 1.Identify each individual housed in the facility who is of age to register to vote. 2.Assist each of those individuals with the completion of the affidavit of registration, unless the individual declines assistance. 3.Provide an affidavit of registration to each individual housed in the facility who is of age to register to vote by either providing the individual with a paper affidavit of registration, or directing the individual to an affidavit of CONTINUED SB 1063 Page 3 registration provided on the Internet Web site of the SOS. 4.Accept any completed paper affidavits and transmit them to the county elections official within 10 days or within five days if the card was received within five days before the last day for registration to vote in an election. As an alternate, the facility may assist the individual who completed the voter registration card in returning the completed card to the county elections official. Background The National Voters Registration Act's (NVRA) primary objectives are: To establish procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for federal office; To protect the integrity of the electoral process by ensuring that accurate and current voter registration rolls are maintained; and To enhance the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office. According to statistics from the SOS' Internet Web site, currently there are over 6.3 million eligible voters in the state that remain unregistered to vote. Consequently, efforts to encourage and improve voter registration have been a focus of varying legislative proposals over past legislative sessions. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes According to the Senate Appropriations Committee: Unknown, potentially significant reimbursable mandate costs to local detention facilities (General Fund). Minor costs to CDCR (General Fund). SUPPORT : (Verified 5/23/14) CONTINUED SB 1063 Page 4 A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing) American Civil Liberties Union of California Legal Services for Prisoners with Children National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area OPPOSITION : (Verified 5/23/14) Chief Probation Officers of California Department of Finance ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author: This bill will direct juvenile detention centers to identify incarcerated youth who are of age to register to vote, provide them with voter registration information, assist with the completion of registration cards, and accept completed voter registration cards. Juvenile detention and correction facilities in California housed 11,532 individuals under the age of 21 in 2010. The United States locks up more juveniles than any other industrialized country and California ranks among the top twelve states for rates of juvenile incarceration. Additionally, California has a voter turn-out problem that ranks it 48th among the states in voting participation. Currently, nearly one quarter of California's eligible voters are not registered. The use of governmental agencies to register citizens to vote is not unprecedented. Section 7 of the NVRA requires public assistance agencies, particularly those that serve low-income or disabled populations, to provide voter registration materials. NVRA voter registration agencies include county welfare department offices, which accept applications and administer benefits for CalFresh, CalWorks, Medi-Cal, and other state programs. Yet, none of these programs or agencies has the ability to target voter registration to youth specifically. ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The Chief Probation Officers of California express "great concerns regarding the additional CONTINUED SB 1063 Page 5 responsibilities this [bill] imposes on probation departments and the potential implementation issues this measure creates. "While we always endeavor to assist our youth with services needed to be productive citizens, we must also be mindful of the myriad of critical responsibilities we have for the youth in our care. Mandating additional duties, such as those set forth in this measure, must be considered against the backdrop of our existing statutory duties that ensure the safety, health, and well-being of the youth in our care, maximize their successful reintegration to society, and lead to positive public safety outcomes. "Further mandating probation to assume responsibility for voting activities exposes departments to a new and unclear set of implementation issues. It is unclear how probation would be impacted should an individual be mis-identified, a completed registration card gets lost in transit, or an identified individual received a card but fails to vote." RM:e 5/23/14 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END **** CONTINUED