BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1094
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Date of Hearing: August 3, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
SB 1094
(Hernandez) - As Amended June 15, 2016
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill establishes additional requirements for the
circulation and qualification of state initiative petitions for
which the Attorney General (AG) issues a circulating title and
summary on or after January 1, 2017. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires an initiative petition circulated by a paid person to
be printed on non-white paper and to include a notice that the
circulator is being paid and an advisement to read the
contents before signing.
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2)Requires that at least 10% of the total signatures submitted
to qualify an initiative be from petitions circulated by
unpaid persons.
3)Stipulates that an employee or member of a nonprofit
organization who is paid as part of that employment or
membership is not considered a paid signature gatherer for
purposes of (2).
4)Stipulates that signatures obtained by a member of a political
party who receive money from that party for soliciting those
signatures do not count toward meeting the 10% requirement.
5)Stipulates that signatures gathered via direct mail do not
count toward meeting the 10% requirement unless the person
belongs to a nonprofit organization per (3).
6)Requires a petition circulated by an unpaid person to be
printed on white paper, and requires the declaration on the
petition, to be signed by the signature gatherer pursuant to
current law, to also state that the person is unpaid and that
the signatures count towards the 10% requirement.
7)Specifies that if a qualified voter signs a petition for an
initiative both on the petition section that qualifies for
meeting the 10% requirement and on a petition section that
does not qualify for meeting the 10% requirement, only the
former shall count.
8)Makes corresponding changes to the process for elections
officials to verify signatures submitted on a state initiative
petition, increases the number of days that elections
officials have to count and verify signatures on state
initiative petitions, and requires the Secretary of State
(SOS) to adopt regulations consistent with these provisions,
allowing the initial regulations to be adopted as emergency
regulations.
9)Provides that the signatures on a state initiative petition
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section are invalid if solicited and submitted by a person who
engages in intentional fraud, misrepresentation, or other
illegal conduct concerning the circulation of the petition,
and provides that the SOS, the AG, any district attorney, or
any city attorney of a city of 750,000 or more population, may
enforce this provision by a civil action in which the
plaintiff has the burden of showing a violation by clear and
convincing evidence.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)County elections officials indicate that an initiative will
have separate volunteer and paid circulator-gathered
petitions, and thus will be treated as two separate petitions
for their signature-checking systems in order to meet the
minimum threshold requirement of volunteer-gathered
signatures. One county estimated this would increase its
verification costs by about 40% for each initiative. (The
county did note, however, that if the 10% volunteer-generated
petitions did not have sufficient signatures, the 90% paid
signature-gathering section would not have to be verified,
thus resulting in some cost savings.) Depending on the number
of statewide initiatives submitted for verification,
additional statewide reimbursable costs could be up to several
hundred thousand dollars per general election.
2)One-time General Fund costs of $55,000 for the SOS to adopt
regulations.
3)Due to the Constitutional issues raised by this bill (see
Comment #2), there is a strong potential that the state could
incur significant legal costs.
COMMENTS:
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1)Purpose. According to the author, "The initiative system in
California was originally intended as a means to ease the
concern about the growing influence that monied interests,
most notably the railroads, had on the legislative process?In
recent years, however, this process has become increasingly
dominated by corporations and wealthy individuals pushing
narrower agendas. For numerous measures, volunteers and/or
grassroots support are nowhere to be found? Currently,
initiatives can qualify using solely paid circulators, making
volunteers and genuine grassroots support for causes
unnecessary, thus granting wealthy individuals and
corporations unfettered access to the ballot?Although voter
registration for eligible adults has remained steady since
2000, general and primary election turnout has plummeted since
the high point in 2008. Allowing monied interests unchecked
access to the ballots often results in long and confusing
ballots, which can discourage voters and be a contributing
factor to record low turnouts?Requiring broad-based support
for ballot measures will take steps to reignite public
interest in the voting process, while drastically reducing the
number of issues a voter must be informed on."
2)Constitutional Issue. In 1988, the United States Supreme
Court ruled that a Colorado prohibition against the use
of paid circulators for initiative petitions violated the
First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. The 10%
requirement imposed by this bill could be susceptible to
a court challenge in light of the prior ruling, though
the requirement in this bill only pertains to a small
portion of the total signatures required for
qualification. Furthermore, the signatures that are
gathered to meet the 10% requirement do not necessarily
have to be collected by individuals who are unpaid if
they are gathered by members and employees of a nonprofit
organization in furtherance of that nonprofit's
objectives.
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3)Opposition. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
argues that the bill, "undermines the People's reserved
power of initiative by advantaging certain special
interests to the detriment of California voters who seek
to preserve the last best hope the state has for reform.
The association asserts that the 10 percent requirement
"represents an arbitrary threshold that will be
challenging for entities not coordinating with
non-profits to accomplish, and may well be
unconstitutional."
4)Prior Legislation. AB 857 (Fong) of 2013, which included
provisions similar to this bill, was vetoed, with the Governor
stating that "Requiring a specific threshold of signatures to
be gathered by volunteers will not stop abuses by narrow
special interests - particularly if 'volunteer' is defined
with the broad exemptions as in this bill. Efforts to make
the system fairer and more reflective of sound government
should be considered. But this measure falls short of
returning to the citizen-driven system originally envisioned
in 1911."
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081
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