BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 222 Hearing Date: June 9, 2015
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|Author: |Achadjian |
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|Version: |March 23, 2015 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|MK |
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Subject: Vehicle Records: Confidential Home Address
HISTORY
Source: California Association of Psychiatric Technicians
Prior Legislation:SB 767 (Lieu) (as amended in the Assembly)
failed Assembly
Transportation, 2014
AB 2687 (Bocanegra) Chapter 273, Stats. 2014
AB 1270 (Eggman) - failed Assembly
Appropriations, 2013
AB 923 (Swanson) - failed Assembly
Appropriations, 2009
AB 529 (Lowenthal) - failed Assembly
Appropriations, 2009
AB 1958 (Swanson) - failed Assembly
Appropriations, 2008
AB 1311 (Berryhill) - not heard Assembly
Transportation, 2007
AB 1706 (Strickland) - failed Assembly
Transportation, 2005
AB 2012 (Chu) - section amended out of the
bill, 2004
AB 130 (Campbell) - not heard Assembly
Transportation, 2003
AB 246 (Cox) - not heard Assembly
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Transportation, 2003
AB 1775 (Ortiz) - no vote in Senate Public
Safety, 2002
AB 84 (Hertzberg) - Ch. 809, Stats. 2001
AB 1029 (Oropeza) - Ch. 486, Stats. 2001
AB 151 (Longville) - vetoed, 2000
AB 298 (Battin) - held in Assembly
Transportation, 2000
AB 1310 (Granlund) - vetoed, 2000
AB 1358 (Shelley) - Ch. 808,
Stats. 2000
AB 1864 (Correa) - held
Assembly Appropriations, 2000
SB 171 (Knight) - vetoed,
1998
AB 1941 (Bordonaro) - Ch. 880,
Stats. 1996
AB 191(Cannella) - died in
Sen. Committee on Criminal Procedure, 1996
AB 3033 (Baca) - died in Sen.
Committee on Criminal Procedure, 1996
AB 3391 (Ducheny) - never heard,
1996
AB 688 (Frusetta) - died in
Sen. Committee on Criminal Procedure, 1996
AB 1396 (Poochigian) - died
in Sen. Committee on Criminal Procedure,
1996
AB 1931 (Conroy) - Ch. 77, Stats. 1994
AB 3454 (Speier) - Ch. 395,
Stats. 1994
AB 3161 (Frazee) - Ch. 838,
Stats. 1994
AB 1268 (Martinez) - Ch. 1268,
Stats. 1993
AB 2367 (Polanco) - Ch. 1291,
Stats. 1993
SB 274 (Committee on
Transportation) - Ch. 1292, Stats. 1993
SB 602 (1992) - Chaptered
AB 1779 (1989) - Chaptered
Support: California College and University Police Chiefs
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Opposition:None known
Assembly Floor Vote: 77 - 0
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to add specified employees of state
hospitals and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
to those who may request an additional level of confidentiality
from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Under existing law the residential addresses of certain public
employees and their families are confidential. (Vehicle Code §§
1808.4 and 1808.6 - began in 1977.)
Existing law states that all residence addresses in any record
of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) are confidential and
shall not be disclosed to any person, except a court, law
enforcement agency, or other governmental agency, or as
authorized in section 1808.22 of the Vehicle Code. (Vehicle
Code §§ 1808.21 - added in 1989.)
Existing law states that any person may seek suppression of any
DMV registration or driver's license record if he or she can
show that he or she is the subject of stalking or a threat of
death or great bodily injury. The suppression will be for a
period of one year renewable for two more one year periods.
(Vehicle Code § 1808.21(d).)
Existing law provides that the home address of specified persons
which appear in the records of DMV is confidential upon the
request of the person and that it not be disclosed except as
specified. (Vehicle Code §§ 1808.4 and 1808.6.)
Existing law provides that the willful, unauthorized disclosure
of this information as it relates to specified law enforcement
(peace officers, employees of city police departments, and
county sheriffs' offices and their families) that results in the
bodily injury to the individual or individuals whose specified
information was confidential, is a felony. (Vehicle Code §§
1808.4.)
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Existing law provides that the release of such confidential
information, for all other persons specified, is a misdemeanor
and punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and/or by up to one
year in a county jail. (Vehicle Code § 1808.45.)
This bill would add the following officers and employees with
the Department of State Hospitals and the CDCR: prelicensed
psychiatric technician; psychiatric technician; senior
psychiatric technician; nurse practitioner; health services
specialist and program director-medical, to those who can
request an additional layer of confidentiality from the DMV.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
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v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
AB 222 would add psychiatric technicians at the
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California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) and at the Department of State
Hospitals (DSH) to the list of professions eligible
for enhanced confidentiality of home address
information stored by the Department of Motor
Vehicles.
Psychiatric Technicians are the largest classification
of direct level of care providers at DHS, which
currently operates five state hospitals, and CDCR
which operates 33 prisons throughout California.
Currently, nearly every employee classification
employed by CDCR is eligible for enhanced
confidentiality at DMV with the exception of
psychiatric technicians. Furthermore, SDH treats many
of the same serious and violent offenders at its
facilities, including Sexually Violent Predators at
Coalinga State Hospital.
2. Background of DMV Confidentiality
Vehicle Code section 1808.4 was added by statute in 1977 to
provide confidentiality of home addresses to specified public
employees and their families.
In 1989, Vehicle Code section 1808.21 was added to make all
residence addresses contained within the Department of Motor
Vehicle files confidential. Vehicle Code section 1808.21(a)
states the following:
The residence address in any record of the department
is confidential and cannot
be disclosed to any person except a court, law
enforcement agency, or other governmental agency, or as
authorized in Section 1808.22 or 1808.23.
This section was further amended in 1994 to allow individuals
under specific circumstances to request that their entire
records be suppressed. Any individual who is the subject of
stalking or who is experiencing a threat of death or great
bodily injury to his or her person may request their entire
record to be suppressed under this section.
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Upon suppression of a record, each request for information about
that record has to be authorized by the subject of the record or
verified as legitimate by other investigative means by the DMV
before the information is released.
A record is suppressed for a one-year period. At the end of the
one year period, the suppression is continued for a period
determined by the department and if the person submits
verification acceptable to the department that he or she
continues to have reasonable cause to believe that he or she is
the subject of stalking or that there exists a threat of death
or great bodily injury to his or her person.
DMV has long maintained that all residence addresses are
suppressed and only persons authorized by statute can access
this information.
Under sections 1808.4 and 1808.6 the home addresses of specific
individuals are suppressed and can only be accessed through the
Confidential Records Unit of the Department of Motor Vehicles
while under section 1808.21, the residence address portion of
all individuals' records are suppressed but can be accessed by a
court, law enforcement agency, or other governmental agency or
other authorized persons.
3. The Department of Motor Vehicles
There have been a number of bills adding or attempting to add
various public employees to the enhanced confidentiality
provisions of the Vehicle Code.
According to a Senate Committee on Public Safety analysis for
June 11, 1996 of AB 1941 (Bordonaro):
According to a letter dated June 9, 1995 from the
Department of Motor Vehicles concerning related
measures initially set for hearing last year (AB 191,
AB 688,
AB 1396) on this issue, AB 1941 "is just one of four
bills slated for the Criminal Procedure Committee
hearing on June 13 which seek to include various
professions within the category of confidential records
that have historically been reserved for law
enforcement personnel. When names are added to this
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special category, they cannot be accessed except
through a telephone procedure utilized in one
particular file security area in the DMV's Sacramento
headquarters location. Currently, we estimate that
this file contains close to half a million individual
records which must be manually entered and individually
retrieved when access is authorized.
The DMV has stated that approximately 1000 requests for
confidentiality of home addresses are made each week.
The Confidential Records Unit of the DMV consists of 12
people and only two of these people review these forms
to determine whether the individuals requesting
confidentiality are in fact qualified to do so.
According to the DMV, a majority of these requests are granted
due to the fact that the DMV restricts the release of the
request forms to qualifying agencies and individuals only. The
Confidential Records Unit of the DMV updated "5900 records in
May 1995 and only 273 applications were rejected."
4. Adding Psychiatric Technicians and Other State Hospital and
CDCR Employees
This bill would add the following officers and employees with
the Department of State Hospitals and the CDCR: prelicensed
psychiatric technician; psychiatric technician; senior
psychiatric technician; nurse practitioner; health services
specialist and program director-medical to the provision that
suppresses residence information that can only then be accessed
by the Confidential Records Unit.
The sponsor notes that:
Many psych techs have been threatened and even stalked
by paroling inmates and discharged patients. In
several cases, the inmate/patients were able to obtain
the psych techs home address. This bill provides an
extra level of protection to our members from being
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stalked or harmed by paroled inmates or released
patients with a history of mental illness.
In spite of the legitimate concerns about the safety of these
state employees, since a member of the public can never access
anyone's information from DMV, is the expansion of those in the
additional suppression section, which adds to the workload of
DMV, necessary?
5. Similar Legislation
SB 372 (Galgiani) which passed this Committee on April 28, 2015
was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee. That bill
would have added code enforcement officers, parking control
officers, non-sworn investigators with the Department of
Insurance (DOI), and the spouses and children of these persons
to the list of persons who may request an additional level of
confidentiality from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The
Senate Appropriations Committee analysis notes:
To the extent up to 6,500 code enforcement officers, DOI
investigators, parking control officers, and their family
members could apply in the first year and/or annually
thereafter, accounting for changes to vehicle ownership,
the DMV would incur additional staffing costs to process
these applications as the system is administered manually,
including a significant portion requiring follow-up
inquiries. First-year costs are estimated at about $350,000
and ongoing costs of $85,000 (Motor Vehicle Account Special
Fund)
Potential reduction in state and local tolls, parking
fees, and fines to the extent that current law makes it
difficult for local parking and toll agencies to collect
tolls and fines from additional persons protected by the
enhanced confidentiality statutes.
6. San Diego Union Tribune Editorial
An editorial by Steven Greenhut in the San Diego Union Tribune
discussing this bill and SB 372(Galgiani) pointed to a history
of questions raised by the expanded confidentiality program and
whether either bill is even necessary:
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Seven years ago, a newspaper investigation found that
a little-known state program designed to protect
police and judges from the public disclosure of their
home addresses had expanded into a massive database of
1.5 million public employees and their family members,
few of whom face any on-the-job dangers to merit the
protection.
Because of this Confidential Records Program,
"Vehicles with protected license plates can run
through dozens of intersections controlled by red
light cameras and breeze along the 91 toll lanes with
impunity," according to the Orange County Register
report. They evade parking citations and even get out
of speeding tickets because police officers realize
"the drivers are 'one of their own' or related to
someone who is."
The whole purpose of the confidential database has long
been deemed irrelevant. "State law now bars the DMV
from disclosing home addresses for any of its licensees
to anyone except for those with legitimate business
reasons like financial institutions, insurance
companies and toll-road agencies," reported the
Sacramento Bee in a 2010 editorial. The newspaper
called on the state to dump this list for "privileged"
workers and their kin (Greenhut, Steven, "Growing List
Let Workers Snub Traffic Laws" San Diego Union Tribune
May 11, 2015
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/may/11/legislature-s
tate-workers-confidential-licenses/all/?print)
--END --
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