BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2843
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
2843 (Chau)
As Amended August 18, 2016
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |79-0 |(May 5, 2016) |SENATE: |38-0 |(August 22, |
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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.
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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.
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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
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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