BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                            Senator Kevin de León, Chair


          SB 1272 (Lieu) - Campaign Finance
          
          Amended: April 30, 2014         Policy Vote: E&CA 4-1
          Urgency: Yes                    Mandate: No
          Hearing Date: May 5, 2014       Consultant: Maureen Ortiz
          
          This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
          
          
          Bill Summary:  SB 1272 will require the Secretary of State to  
          submit an advisory question to the voters which will be placed  
          on the November 4, 2014 ballot.

          Fiscal Impact: 
          
              One time ballot printing/mailing costs of approximately  
              $275,000 - $550,000 depending on the number of pages and  
              based on an estimated cost per page of $55,000. (General)

          The actual costs could be higher or lower depending on the  
          length of the title, summary, text, LAO analysis, proponents and  
          opponents arguments, as well as the overall size of the ballot  
          pamphlet.  Larger ballots generally result in less printing and  
          mailing costs per page.  The average number of pages per measure  
          since 2008 is ten and the minimum per measure has been five  
          pages.

          Background:  Existing law authorizes each city, county, school  
          district, community college district, county board of education,  
          or special district to hold an advisory election on any date on  
          which that jurisdiction is permitted to hold a regular or  
          special election for the purpose of allowing voters within the  
          jurisdiction, or a portion thereof, to voice their opinions on  
          substantive issues, or to indicate to the local legislative body  
          approval or disapproval of the ballot proposal.

          While existing state law explicitly authorizes cities, counties,  
          school districts, community college districts, county boards of  
          education, and special districts to hold advisory elections,  
          there is no explicit authorization, nor is there a statutory  
          prohibition, for a statewide advisory election.  While statewide  
          advisory elections are uncommon, in at least two other instances  








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          in California's history, one or more statewide advisory measures  
          have appeared on the ballot.  At a statewide special election in  
          June 1933, voters rejected Propositions 9 and 10, which asked  
          the voters whether the Legislature should divert gasoline tax  
          revenues to the general fund to pay off highway bonds.  These  
          two measures were put on the ballot by the Legislature.  

          Additionally, at the November 1982 Statewide General Election,  
          voters approved Proposition 12, a measure that urged the United  
          States government to propose to the Soviet Union that both  
          countries agree to immediately halt the testing, production and  
          further deployment of all nuclear weapons, missiles and delivery  
          systems in a way that could be checked and verified by both  
          sides.  Unlike this bill, however, the advisory question decided  
          by the voters in 1982 was placed on the ballot by initiative.

          Subsequent to the voters' approval of Proposition 12 in 1982,  
          the California State Supreme Court ruled in  American Federation  
          of Labor v. Eu  (1984) 36 Cal.3d 687, that placing advisory  
          questions before the voters was not a proper use of the  
          initiative power, because "an initiative which seeks to do  
          something other than enact a statute-which seeks to render an  
          administrative decision, adjudicate a dispute, or declare by  
          resolution the views of the resolving body-is not within the  
          initiative power reserved by the people."  In that case, the  
          Court ordered an initiative measure which sought to compel the  
          Legislature to apply to Congress to hold a constitutional  
          convention to adopt a federal balanced budget amendment to be  
          removed from the ballot.  The Court's decision in  American  
          Federation of Labor  did not, however, rule on whether it was  
          permissible for the Legislature to place an advisory question  
          before the voters.

           Proposed Law:  SB 1272 requires the following advisory question  
          to be placed on the statewide ballot at a special election  
          consolidated with the statewide general election on November 4,  
          2014:

          "Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the  
          California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the  
          United States Constitution to overturn  Citizens United v.  
          Federal Election Commission  (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other  
          applicable judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or  








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          limitation of campaign contributions and spending, to ensure  
          that all citizens, regardless of wealth, may express their views  
          to one another, and to make clear that the rights protected by  
          the United States Constitution are the rights of natural persons  
          only?"

          The Secretary of State, upon certification of the election, will  
          be required to communicate to the Congress of the United States  
          the results of the advisory question posed to California voters.

          This bill contains the following legislative findings and  
          declarations:

           A. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are  
             intended to protect the rights of individual human beings.

           B. Corporations are not mentioned in the United States  
             Constitution and the people have never granted constitutional  
             rights to corporations, nor have we decreed that corporations  
             have authority that exceeds the authority of "We the People."

           C. In  Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson   
             (1938) 303 U.S. 77, United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo  
             Black stated in his dissent, "I do not believe the word  
             'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations."

           D. In  Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce  (1990) 494 U.S.  
             652, the United States Supreme Court recognized the threat to  
             a republican form of government posed by "the corrosive and  
             distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are  
             accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have  
             little or no correlation to the public's support for the  
             corporation's political ideas."

           E. In  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission  (2010) 558  
             U.S. 310, the United States Supreme Court struck down limits  
             on electioneering communications that were upheld in  
              McConnell v. Federal Election Commission  (2003) 540 U.S. 93  
             and  Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce  .  This decision  
             presents a serious threat to self-government by rolling back  
             previous bans on corporate spending in the electoral process  
             and allows unlimited corporate spending to influence  
             elections, candidate selection, policy decisions, and public  








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             debate.

           F. In  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission  , Justices  
             John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and  
             Sonia Sotomayor noted in their dissent that corporations have  
             special advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as  
             limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of  
             the accumulation and distribution of assets, that allow them  
             to spend huge sums on campaign messages that have little or  
             no correlation with the beliefs held by natural persons.

           G. Corporations have used the artificial rights bestowed upon  
             them by the courts to overturn democratically enacted laws  
             that municipal, state, and federal governments passed to curb  
             corporate abuses, thereby impairing local governments'  
             ability to protect their citizens against corporate harms to  
             the environment, consumers, workers, independent businesses,  
             and local and regional economies.

           H. In  Buckley v. Valeo  (1976) 424 U.S. 1, the United States  
             Supreme Court held that the appearance of corruption  
             justified some contribution limitations, but it wrongly  
             rejected other fundamental interests that the citizens of  
             California find compelling, such as creating a level playing  
             field and ensuring that all citizens, regardless of wealth,  
             have an opportunity to have their political views heard.

           I. In  First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti  (1978) 435 U.S.  
             765 and Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair  
             Housing v. Berkeley (1981) 454 U.S. 290, the United States  
             Supreme Court rejected limits on contributions to ballot  
             measure campaigns because it concluded that these  
             contributions posed no threat of candidate corruption.

           J. In  Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC  (2000) 528 U.S.  
             377, United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens  
             observed in his concurrence that "money is property; it is  
             not speech."

           AA.         A February 2010 Washington Post-ABC News poll found  
             that 80 percent of Americans oppose the ruling in Citizens  
             United.









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           BB.         Article V of the United States Constitution  
             empowers and obligates the people of the United States of  
             America to use the constitutional amendment process to  
             correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United  
             States Supreme Court that go to the heart of our democracy  
             and the republican form of self-government.

           CC.         The people of California and of the United States  
             have previously used ballot measures as a way of instructing  
             their elected representatives about the express actions they  
             want to see them take on their behalf, including provisions  
             to amend the United States Constitution.

          Staff Comments:  In the case of  Citizens United v. FEC (2010)  
          558 U. S. 310  , corporations were granted the same rights as  
          individuals as far as donating to political campaigns. In its  
          decision, the Supreme Court struck down a 63 year old law that  
          prohibited corporations and unions from using their general  
          treasury funds to make independent expenditures in federal  
          elections, finding that the law unconstitutionally abridged the  
          freedom of speech.  In  McCutcheon v. FEC  , the Supreme Court  
          ruled on April 2, 2014 that it is permissible for individuals to  
          make limitless contributions to federal campaign and federal  
          candidate committee.  

          If approved by the voters on November 4, 2014, Congress would be  
          asked to amend the United States Constitution to overturn  
           Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)  , and other  
          applicable judicial precedents such as  McCutcheon v. Federal  
          Election Commission  . 

          It should be noted that the Legislature approved AJR 22  
          (Wieckowski & Allen), Resolution Chapter 69, Statutes of 2012,  
          which called upon the United States Congress to propose and send  
          to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment that  
          would overturn  Citizens United v. FEC (2010)  .