BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1063|
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 1063
Author: Block (D)
Amended: 8/14/14
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
SENATE FLOOR : 21-12, 5/27/14
AYES: Beall, Block, Corbett, Correa, De León, DeSaulnier,
Evans, Hancock, Hernandez, Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leno,
Lieu, Mitchell, Monning, Padilla, Pavley, Steinberg, Wolk
NOES: Anderson, Cannella, Fuller, Gaines, Galgiani, Huff,
Knight, Morrell, Nielsen, Vidak, Walters, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Berryhill, Calderon, Liu, Roth, Torres,
Wright, Yee
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 48-28, 8/18/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Voter registration: juvenile detention facilities
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill requires state and local juvenile detention
facilities, as specified, to identify individuals housed in
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those facilities who are of age to register to vote and not in
prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony, and to
provide and assist in completing affidavits of registration and
returning the completed voter registration cards, as specified.
Assembly Amendments delete the requirement that a juvenile
detention facility must return completed voter registration
cards to election officials within five or ten days, depending
on the date of the election, and clarify facility identify
individuals housed in a facility who are not in prison or on
parole for the conviction of a felony.
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
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 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
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the county registrar of voters allows qualified voters to vote
in local, state, and federal elections.
This bill:
1.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 California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of
Juvenile Justice to do all of the following:
A. Identify each individual housed in the facility that is
of age to register to vote and not in prison or on parole
for the conviction of a felony.
B. Provide an affidavit of registration to each individual
housed in the facility who is of age to register to vote
and not in prison or on parole for the conviction of a
felony by doing either of the following:
(1) Providing the individual a paper affidavit of
registration; or
(2) Directing the individual to an affidavit of
registration provided on the Internet Web site of the
Secretary of State (SOS).
A. Assist each individual in the facility that is of age to
register to vote and not in prison or on parole for the
conviction of a felony with the completion of an affidavit
of registration, unless the individual declines assistance.
1.Requires a facility providing paper affidavits of registration
to do either of the following:
A. Assist the individual who completed the voter
registration card in returning the completed card to the
county elections official; or
B. Accept any completed voter registration card and
transmit the card to the county elections official.
Background
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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 Assembly Appropriations Committee:
Any additional costs to counties to register eligible
juveniles will be state reimbursable, but should be relatively
minor, and thus will not likely lead to any significant
mandate claim.
The number of juveniles that will be registered annually
statewide as a result of this bill will be relatively small.
According to information in the Board of State and Community
Corrections Juvenile Detention Profile Survey for calendar
year 2013, average monthly bookings into county juvenile
facilities totaled about 5,300 or almost 64,000 annually.
However, this total does not account for individuals being
booked multiple times during the year. Moreover, according to
the report, only about 14% of the juveniles in detention on a
one-day snapshot were over 18 years of age and thus eligible
to register, and any of this cohort convicted of a felony will
not be eligible to register. Finally, some eligible juveniles
will likely refuse registration.
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Negligible fiscal impact to the state.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/18/14)
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)
Department of Finance
Secretary of State
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author:
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 Secretary of State writes in
opposition:
"I am very concerned about the June 12th amendment to SB 1063
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which deleted the requirement that a juvenile detention facility
must return completed voter registration cards to election
officials within five or ten days, depending on the date of the
election. This is a major departure from state law that
requires anyone collecting completed voter registration cards to
return them to the elections official within three days. For
public agencies designated as voter registration agencies under
the National Voter Registration Act, the federal requirement is
to return the registration in five to ten days, depending on the
date of the election.
"SB 1063 would for the first time require a state agency to
distribute and collect voter registration applications without
an accompanying requirement to return them within a specific
time frame. The unfortunate result of this policy could be the
disenfranchisement of the very people the bill intends to
empower.
"The timely return of voter registration affidavits is too
important to be left to good intentions."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 48-28, 8/18/14
AYES: Alejo, Ammiano, Bloom, Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta,
Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau,
Chesbro, Cooley, Dababneh, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong,
Frazier, Garcia, Gonzalez, Gordon, Hall, Roger Hernández,
Holden, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Lowenthal, Medina, Muratsuchi,
Nazarian, Pan, Perea, John A. Pérez, V. Manuel Pérez, Quirk,
Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Weber,
Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, Atkins
NOES: Achadjian, Allen, Bigelow, Chávez, Conway, Dahle,
Donnelly, Fox, Beth Gaines, Gatto, Gorell, Gray, Grove,
Hagman, Harkey, Jones, Linder, Logue, Maienschein, Mansoor,
Melendez, Nestande, Olsen, Patterson, Salas, Wagner, Waldron,
Wilk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Gomez, Mullin, Quirk-Silva
RM:e 8/18/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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