BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1036|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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CONSENT
Bill No: AB 1036
Author: Quirk (D)
Amended: 4/9/15 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: 7-0, 6/9/15
AYES: Jackson, Moorlach, Anderson, Hertzberg, Leno, Monning,
Wieckowski
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/11/15 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Notaries public: acceptance of identification
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill authorizes a notary public to rely on any
inmate identification (ID) issued by a sheriff's department to
prove the identity of an individual in custody in a local
detention facility.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Authorizes the proof or acknowledgment of written instruments
before specified officers of the state, including notaries
public.
2)Provides that the acknowledgment of an instrument may not be
taken unless the officer (notary public) taking it has
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Page 2
satisfactory evidence that the person making the
acknowledgment is the individual who is described in and who
executed the instrument.
3)Provides that "satisfactory evidence" means the absence of any
information, evidence, or other circumstances that would lead
a reasonable person to believe that the person making the
acknowledgment is not the individual he or she claims to be
plus the use of any one of various specified ways of
establishing the proper identity of the person making the
acknowledgment (such as the oath or affirmation of a credible
witness or the presentation of a specified identifying
document).
4)Provides that the officer may reasonably rely on the
presentation of any one of the following, provided that the
document is current or has been issued within five years:
An ID card or driver's license issued by the California
Department of Motor Vehicles;
A passport issued by the Department of State of the
United States; or
An inmate ID card issued by the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), if the inmate is in
custody in prison.
1)Provides that the officer may reasonably rely on the
presentation of any one of the following, provided that the
document is current or has been issued within five years and
contains a photograph and description of the person named on
it, is signed by the person, and bears a serial or other
identifying number, and, in the event that the document is a
passport, has been stamped by the United States Citizenship
and Immigration Services of the Department of Homeland
Security:
A passport issued by a foreign government;
A driver's license issued by a state other than
California or by a Canadian or Mexican public agency
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authorized to issue driver's licenses;
An ID card issued by a state other than California;
An ID card issued by any branch of the Armed Forces of
the United States; or
An employee ID card issued by an agency or office of the
State of California, or by an agency or office of a city,
county, or city and county in this state.
This bill adds any form of inmate ID issued by a sheriff's
department to the list of proper IDs on which an officer may
reasonably rely, provided that the inmate seeking to establish
identity with the card is in custody in a local detention
facility.
Background
A notary public is a public officer appointed and commissioned
by the Secretary of State to serve the public in non-contentious
matters generally concerning estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney,
foreign and international business, and other written
instruments. Occasionally, an individual who is party to a more
sensitive formal agreement, such as a child custody agreement, a
confidential marriage license, or an advance healthcare
directive, must have the agreement notarized before it can enter
into force. A notary's main functions are to take
acknowledgements of various written instruments, administer
oaths and affirmations, take depositions and affidavits, certify
copies of powers of attorney under the Probate Code, demand
acceptance and payment of foreign and inland bills of exchange
or promissory notes, and to protest nonpayment and nonacceptance
of bills and notes. (Gov. Code Sec. 8205.)
A certificate of acknowledgment is the form most frequently
completed by a notary public. In the certificate of
acknowledgment, the notary public certifies: 1) that the signer
personally appeared before the notary public on the date
indicated in the county indicated; 2) the identity of the
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signer; and 3) that the signer acknowledged executing the
document.
Under current law, the identity of the signer of an
acknowledgment may be established by the notary public's
reasonable reliance on any one of a number of documents. (Civ.
Code Sec. 1185.) Certain government documents that are current
or have been issued within five years, such as a California
driver's license or ID card, or a U.S. passport, provide
sufficient proof of identity without having to meet separately
specified criteria. Other documents, including a foreign
passport, a government employee ID card, and a driver's license
issued by another state or a Canadian or Mexican public agency
authorized to issue driver's licenses, must meet certain
threshold criteria before a notary can reasonably rely on them
to establish identity. Documents within this latter category
must contain a photograph, description of the person, signature
of the person, and an identifying number, in order to constitute
a valid proof of identity for obtaining notarization of an
instrument.
Prior to 2014, incarcerated individuals faced challenges in
performing a number of tasks, including getting needed
authorizations to permit a minor child (such as a son or
daughter) to visit them while in prison, as a result of a
notary public's inability to accept a CDCR ID card as proof of
identity. As CDCR requires minor children visiting a prison
inmate to be accompanied by someone other than his/her parent or
legal guardian, in addition to the certified copy of the minor
children's birth certificate, the adult must also bring a
notarized written consent authorization form signed by the minor
children's parent or legal guardian expressly giving permission
for the minor children to visit a prisoner. Consequently, an
inmate whose child was living with a friend or relative during a
period of incarceration was prevented from seeing that child
until he or she was able to secure proper ID to present to a
notary. To address this problem, AB 625 (Quirk, Chapter 159,
Statutes of 2013) authorized the notary public to rely on
CDCR-issued ID cards to be accepted for notarizing documents
signed by state prisoners.
Inmates in local county jails also need notarial services for
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the same reasons as state prisoners. Accordingly, this bill
authorizes a notary public to rely on ID issued by a sheriff's
department for county inmates when notarizing documents signed
by local county jail inmates.
Comments
The author writes:
Identification cards (IDs) or driver licenses issued by the
Department of Motor Vehicles, passports issued by the US
Department of State[,] and inmate identification cards issued
by the [California] Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) for inmates in prison are the only forms
of documents presumptively valid as identification for use by
notaries. Notaries can accept other forms of IDs only IF the
following elements are met: the ID was issued within the last
5 years, it contains a picture and description of the person
named in it, it is signed by that person and has some
identifying number.
Because county jails fail to meet the above requirements,
inmates seeking notary services should be issued an additional
form of ID, however, none are. Access to a notary is an
inmate's legal right, and inmates often need access to
notaries for services that include establishing temporary
custody of children, power of attorney for financial and
health care matters, and giving authority to a trusted adult
to bring their children to the jail for a visit.
AB 1036 adds county jail inmate IDs to the list of valid forms
of ID accepted by notaries for notary services. As such, an
additional ID would be unnecessary and would not delay access
to service.
Prior Legislation
AB 625 (Quirk, Chapter 159, Statutes of 2013) - See Background.
AB 109 (Committee on Budget, Chapter 15, Statutes of 2011)
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enacted the Public Safety Realignment Act and, among other
things, required the transfer of large numbers of convicted
felons from the state prison and parole system to the state's 58
county jails.
AB 442 (Arambula, 2009) would have amended Civil Code Section
1185 to add a matrícula consular, issued through a consulate
office of the Mexican government, as an allowable form of ID to
prove the identity of an individual who executes a written
instrument. AB 442 was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger
because the Civil Code already provided for more secure forms of
ID than the matrícula consular - including Mexican driver's
licenses and passports - to identify Mexican nationals, and
California notaries should not be required to accept a form of
ID that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S.
Department of Justice continue to consider untrustworthy.
SB 461 (Correa, 2009) would have amended Civil Code Section 1185
to add a matrícula consular, issued through a consulate office
of the Mexican government, as an allowable form of ID to prove
the identity of an individual who executes a written instrument.
SB 461 died in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
AB 2452 (Davis, Chapter 67, Statutes of 2008) added specified
government employee ID cards as an allowable form of ID to prove
the identity of an individual who executes a written instrument
before a notary public. AB 2452 also deleted a provision
allowing a witness to an individual's ID who is personally known
to the notary to serve as evidence for an acknowledgment by a
notary public.
AB 886 (Runner, Chapter 399, Statutes of 2007) required, among
other things, notaries public to determine by satisfactory
evidence only that a person acknowledging an instrument is the
individual who is described in and who signed the instrument,
and to certify the document under penalty of perjury. AB 886
also required notaries to obtain the thumbprint of a party
signing a document where the document to be notarized is a deed,
quitclaim deed, deed of trust affecting real property, or a
power of attorney.
AB 2062 (Nakano, Chapter 539, Statutes of 2004) required a
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notary public to use a jurat (an official declaration similar to
an affidavit) form to certify the identity of persons signing
documents.
AB 1090 (Tucker, Chapter 1044, Statutes of 1993) revised, among
other things, the criteria for determining whether an individual
has presented satisfactory evidence of identity for a notary
public to take an acknowledgment of an instrument.
AB 2420 (McClintock, Chapter 307, Statutes of 1987) included
within the documents that established "satisfactory evidence"
for notarization an inmate ID card issued by the Department of
Corrections, if the inmate is in custody.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:NoLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified6/11/15)
California Association of Licensed Investigators
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
National Notary Association
Office of the District Attorney, City and County of San
Francisco
Office of the Public Defender, City and County of San Francisco
Office of the Sheriff, City and County of San Francisco
OPPOSITION: (Verified6/11/15)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/11/15
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, 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, Roger Hernández, Holden,
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Page 8
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, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting,
Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood
NO VOTE RECORDED: Atkins
Prepared by:Tara Welch / JUD. / (916) 651-4113
6/12/15 10:00:16
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