BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1272| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: SB 1272 Author: Lieu (D), et al. Amended: 5/27/14 Vote: 21 SENATE ELECTIONS & CONSTITUTIONAL 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 : Campaign finance: advisory election SOURCE : Money Out, Voters In DIGEST : This bill requires the Secretary of State (SOS) to submit an advisory question to the voters which will be placed on the November 4, 2014 ballot. ANALYSIS : 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. CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 2 This bill: 1.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 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?" 2.Requires the SOS, upon certification of the election, to communicate to the Congress of the United States the results of the advisory question posed to California voters. 3.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 CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 3 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 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 on 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. CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 4 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. 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. Background Past Advisory Elections . 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 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 CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 5 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. Comments According to the author, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly intend to protect the rights of individual human beings as indicated by the phrase "We the people" in the preamble to the Constitution. But in the case of Citizens United v. FEC (2010), corporations have been granted the same rights as people and free speech is now being equated with money, especially as it pertains to political and campaign donations. And, in February 2010, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 80% of Americans oppose the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling. The most recent Supreme Court ruling is McCutcheon v. FEC which was handed down April 2, 2014, and decided that it is permissible for individuals to make limitless contributions to federal campaign and federal candidate committees. CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 6 However, it is important to note that corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, nor have The People ever granted Constitutional rights to corporations and money does not equal speech as stated by United States Supreme Court Justice Stevens in the case Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) that "money is property, it is not speech." Given that 80% of Americans oppose the Citizens United Ruling and are likely to be equally opposed to the McCutcheon ruling, this bill advances the efforts to reverse the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission and other applicable judicial precedents, including McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, 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. SUPPORT : (Verified 5/23/14) Money Out, Voters In (source) American Sustainable Business Council Beach Cities Democratic Club California Clean Money Campaign California Public Interest Research Group California School Employees Association Common Cause Democracy for America Free Speech for People LAX Area Democratic Club Miracle Mile Democratic Club Rebuild the Dream CONTINUED SB 1272 Page 7 The Sierra County Central Committee West LA Democratic Club OPPOSITION : (Verified 5/23/14) Department of Finance ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The California Clean Money Campaign agrees with the bill's findings and supports the bill's call for the Legislature to place the Overturn Citizens United Act on the statewide ballot. "This will give all Californians the opportunity to directly respond to these disastrous rulings and advise Congress to propose, and then the California Legislature to pass, an amendment to overturn Citizens United and other applicable judicial precedents and to allow the full regulation or limitation of campaign contributions and spending." ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The Department of Finance opposed this bill because it results in additional costs to the state inconsistent with the current budget. RM:MW:nl 5/27/14 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END **** CONTINUED