BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 869| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: AB 869 Author: Cooper (D) Amended: 6/18/15 in Senate Vote: 21 SENATE TRANS. & HOUSING COMMITTEE: 11-0, 6/16/15 AYES: Beall, Cannella, Allen, Bates, Gaines, Galgiani, Leyva, McGuire, Mendoza, Roth, Wieckowski SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8 ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 77-0, 5/7/15 (Consent) - See last page for vote SUBJECT: Public transportation agencies: fare evasion and prohibited conduct SOURCE: Author DIGEST: This bill authorizes a transit district to pursue criminal penalties if a person fails to pay the administrative penalty or successfully complete a civil administrative process for minor transit-related offenses. ANALYSIS: Existing law: 1)Makes it a criminal infraction for a person to engage in any AB 869 Page 2 of the following activities in a public transit vehicle or facility: a) Fare evasion. b) Misuse of a transfer, pass, ticket, or token with the intent to evade the payment of a fare. c) Disturbing another person by loud or unreasonable noise. d) Smoking, eating, or drinking where those activities are prohibited by the transit provider. e) Expectorating. f) Willfully disturbing others by engaging in boisterous or unruly behavior. g) Carrying an explosive or acid, flammable liquid, or toxic or hazardous material. h) Urinating or defecating except in a lavatory. i) Willfully blocking the free movement of another person unless permitted by First Amendment rights. j) Skateboarding, roller skating, bicycle riding, rollerblading, or operating a motorized scooter, except as necessary for utilization of the transit facility by a bicyclist. aa) Unauthorized use of a discount ticket or failure to present acceptable proof of eligibility to use a discount AB 869 Page 3 ticket. bb) Selling goods or services if those activities are prohibited by the transit provider. cc) Willfully tampering with, removing, displacing, injuring, or destroying part of a transit vehicle or facility. 1)Authorizes transit agencies to adopt civil adjudication procedures and impose and enforce administrative penalties for any of the above-listed offenses that are committed by adults. 2)Allows transit agencies to set their own administrative penalty amounts, but prohibits the amounts from exceeding the maximum statutory criminal penalties for the same offenses. 3)Prohibits a person who receives a notice of fare evasion or passenger conduct violation from a transit agency from also being cited for a criminal infraction for the same offense. This bill specifies that: 1)A person cannot be charged with a criminal violation as long as he or she either pays the administrative penalty on time or otherwise successfully completes the civil administrative process. 2)A transit agency may charge a person with a criminal violation if the person does not pay the administrative penalty on time or otherwise successfully complete the civil administrative process. 3)If a transit agency chooses to charge a person with a criminal penalty, then the agency must dismiss the civil charge and personally serve the person with the new notice of criminal violation. AB 869 Page 4 4)A transit agency must include a printed statement with the served notice of administrative violation that the violator may be charged with a criminal violation if he or she fails to pay the fine when due or successfully complete the civil administrative process. Comments 1)Purpose. According to the author, existing law creates a difficult choice for transit agencies in how they choose to enforce fare evasion and other passenger misconduct. Agencies can either issue criminal citations with costly fines that discourage payment, or they can issue administrative citations with no enforcement recourse if not paid. For example, according to the author, the Sacramento Regional Transit District (RT) issues criminal citations for fare evasion and other prohibited conduct; the current base fine for such a violation is $20, but the addition of court fees and assessments brings the total to $151. An increasing number of these citations result in dispositions in which individuals either (1) fail to appear, or (2) are unable to pay the fine. Existing law provides an alternative approach to RT through the authority to enact an administrative process to handle fare evasion and other prohibited conduct cases. RT has not utilized this remedy for enforcing fare evasions, however, due to the lack of any compliance mechanism for those cited that fail to appear or pay the fine. This bill addresses this challenge by allowing transit agencies to first issue an administrative citation for fare evasion or passenger misconduct and then switch to a misdemeanor citation if the alleged violator fails to pay the fine or fails to complete the administrative process. 2)Chaptering amendments. This bill has chaptering conflicts with two other bills, SB 140 (Leno) and SB 413 (Wieckowski). Should these bills continue to move through the Legislature, the author will need to resolve these conflicts at some point. FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.:YesLocal: Yes AB 869 Page 5 SUPPORT: (Verified7/1/15) Amalgamated Transit Union Sacramento Regional Transit District OPPOSITION: (Verified7/1/15) None received ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 77-0, 5/7/15 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins NO VOTE RECORDED: Campos, Roger Hernández, Steinorth Prepared by:Eric Thronson / T. & H. / (916) 651-4121 7/1/15 16:37:25 **** END ****