BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2843 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 2843 (Chau) As Amended August 18, 2016 Majority vote -------------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |79-0 |(May 5, 2016) |SENATE: |38-0 |(August 22, | | | | | | |2016) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- Original Committee Reference: JUD. SUMMARY: Clarifies that an existing provision of the California Public Records Act that exempts the homes addresses and home telephone numbers of certain public employees from public disclosure so that it applies to all public employees, including persons paid by the state to provide in-home support services, and extends the exemption to include the employee's personal cell phone number and personal e-mail address. Specifically, this bill: 1)Extends an existing provision of the California Public Records Act that exempts the home addresses and home telephone numbers of state employees and employees of a school district or county office of education from public disclosure so that it applies to all public employees, including persons paid by the state to provide in-home support services, and extends the exemption to include an employee's personal cellular phone numbers and personal electronic mail addresses. AB 2843 Page 2 2)Makes findings, as required by the California Constitution, that this bill's limitation on the public's right to access public records is necessary in order to protect the privacy and well-being of state and local employees by limiting access to their personal and emergency contact information. The Senate amendments: 1)Extend that disclosure exemption to all public employees, including persons paid by the state to provide in-home support services. 2)Make technical and clarifying amendments. EXISTING LAW: 1)Provides that public records are open to public inspection, unless expressly exempted by a provision of the Public Records Act or another statute. 2)Provides that the home addresses and home telephone numbers of state employees and employees of a school district or county office of education shall not be deemed to be public records and shall not be open to public inspection, unless the disclosure is made to an agent or family member of the employee; an officer or employee of another state agency, school district, or county office of education when necessary for the performance of official duties; to an employee organization, as specified; or to an agent of a health benefit plan, as specified. AB 2843 Page 3 FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs. COMMENTS: Existing law exempts from disclosure under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) the home addresses and home phone numbers of state employees and employees of a school district or county office of education, unless the disclosure is made to a family member, an employee organization or to another agency or entity for a designated administrative purpose. This non-controversial bill simply extends this exemption to include modern forms of employee contact information: personal cell phone numbers and personal e-mail addresses. Additionally, this bill extends the exemption to all employees of a public agency, including persons paid by the state to provide in-home support services, whereas existing law only applies to state employees and employees of local educational entities. California Case Law on a Public Employee's Personal Information: As noted by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in its letter supporting this bill, the California courts interpreting the CPRA - like federal courts interpreting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - have already begun to move in the direction of keeping a public employee's personal contact information confidential. For example, in Sonoma County Employee's Retirement Association v. Superior Court (2011), a newspaper requested that the county's pension system provide the paper with records showing the name of each former employee receiving a pension from the county, the former employee's age at retirement, and the amount of the pension that the former employee received. When the pension system refused the request, the newspaper successfully obtained a writ of mandate from the superior court ordering the system to turn over the information. The California Court of Appeal, however, overturned that part of the order requiring disclosure of the age at retirement, but upheld that part of the order that required the pension system to turn over the names of retirees and amounts of their pensions. In rejecting the claims of the pension system that the retirees' privacy interests outweighed any public interest in names and pension amounts of individual employees, the court stressed that "our ruling will not result in the release of home AB 2843 Page 4 addresses, telephone numbers, or e-mail addresses of retirees and beneficiaries." (Sonoma County Employee's Retirement Association v. Superior Court (2011) 198 Cal. App. 986, quote at 1006; emphasis added.) The Court's statement was only dicta, since the court was not asked to decide whether retirees' privacy interests in home addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses sufficiently outweighed the public interest in disclosure. Nonetheless, the court's statement suggests at the very least that it saw e-mail addresses as the equivalent of the home address and home phone number. In addition, it shows that the courts are willing to protect the contact information of all public employees - not just the state employees or local school employees covered by Government Code Section 5254.3 - by citing other provisions of the CPRA, including the so-called "catch-all" balancing test that allows an agency to withhold information if the public interest in non-disclosure "clearly outweighs" the public interest in disclosure. Analysis Prepared by: Thomas Clark / JUD. / (916) 319-2334 FN: 0004716