BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 21
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 21
(Hill) - As Introduced August 17, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
No
SUMMARY:
This bill amends the Political Reform Act (PRA) to require
disclosure of certain donations made to pay for travel and
related expenses of elected officials. Specifically, this bill:
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1)Requires a tax exempt 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) nonprofit
organization-for which at least one-third of its total
expenses in the prior twelve months involved payments,
advances, or reimbursements exceeding $10,000 in total or
$5,000 for a single person for hosting travel for elected
officials with respect to the costs for those officials'
travel, study tours, or conferences, conventions, or
meetings-to disclose to the Fair Political Practices
Commission (FPPC) the names of those donors who did both of
the following in the preceding calendar year:
a) Donated at least $1,000 to the nonprofit organization,
and
b) Accompanied the elected official, either personally or
through a representative of the donor, for any portion of
the subject travel.
2)Provides that if the nonprofit is acting as an intermediary or
agent, all of the following apply:
a) The donor to the nonprofit organization is the source of
the gift;
b) The donor shall be identified as a financial interest,
as specified;
c) The gift is required to be reported, as specified; and,
d) The gift is subject to the limitation on gifts, as
specified.
3)Requires a public official who receives a gift that is a
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travel payment, advance, or reimbursement, and who is required
to report that gift on his or her Statement of Economic
Interests (SEI), to disclose the travel destination on the SEI
in addition to the value of the payment, advance, or
reimbursement.
FISCAL EFFECT:
The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) will incur
one-time General Fund costs of $90,000 for one-half position to
develop the forms and procedures for implementing the new
reporting requirements. Ongoing General Fund costs would be
around $170,000 for regulations, responding to advice requests,
monitoring filings, and enforcement.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, "SB 21 increases
transparency within the [PRA] by requiring non-profits that
pay for elected official travel to disclose to the FPPC the
names of the donors responsible for funding the travel.
Currently non-profits do not have to disclose the source of
travel funding preventing the public from knowing who was
behind the gift to the elected official. The bill would also
require elected officials to disclose to the FPPC the
destination of the travel."
While nonprofit organizations must submit some financial
information to the United States Internal Revenue Service and
make it publicly available, they are not generally required to
publicly disclose the identity of their donors. As a result,
nonprofit organizations that provide payments for foreign and
domestic travel for California public officials are not
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required to publicly disclose this information, even when
donations are solicited for those purposes, as long as the
payments are not solicited for a specific recipient of the
travel payment.
2)Prior Legislation. This bill is a more narrow version of SB
831 (Hill) of 2014, which also proposed new restrictions on
the use of campaign funds and would have prohibited an elected
official from requesting that behested payments be made to
specified nonprofit organizations that are owned or controlled
by that official or by family members of the official. SB 831
was vetoed, with the Governor stating, "The activities that
are addressed by this bill are already subject to extensive
regulation, including robust disclosure requirements. The
additional restrictions proposed by this bill would add more
complexity to the regulations governing elected officials,
without reducing undue influence."
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081