BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, REAPPORTIONMENT AND
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1181 HEARING DATE:
7/7/09
AUTHOR: HUBER ANALYSIS BY:
Darren Chesin
AMENDED: 6/30/09
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Statements and reports: online filing
DESCRIPTION
Existing law requires all candidates and committees who are
required to file campaign reports in connection with a
state elective office or state measure to file those
reports online or electronically if the cumulative amount
of contributions received, expenditures made, loans made,
or loans received is $50,000 or more.
Existing law requires general purpose committees, including
political party committees and small contributor committees
that cumulatively receive contributions or make
expenditures of $50,000 or more to support or oppose
candidates for any elective state office or state measures,
to file campaign reports online or electronically.
Existing law requires slate mailer organizations to file
campaign reports online or electronically if the cumulative
reportable payments received or made for the purposes of
producing slate mailers is $50,000 or more.
Existing law requires lobbyists, lobbying firms, lobbyist
employers, and other persons required to file periodic
lobbying disclosure reports to file such reports online or
electronically if the total amount of any category of
reportable payments, expenses, contributions, gifts, or
other items is $5,000 or more in a calendar quarter.
Existing law permits any committee or other person who is
required to file a campaign report or lobbying disclosure
report to file that report online or electronically, even
if he or she is not required to do so.
Existing law provides that once a person or entity files a
campaign report or lobbying disclosure report online or
electronically, that person or entity shall file all
subsequent reports online or electronically.
This bill lowers the monetary thresholds which trigger
mandatory electronic reporting of campaign contributions
and expenditures by candidates, officeholders, committees,
major donors, and slate mailer organizations.
Specifically, this bill:
A.Lowers, from $50,000 to $25,000, the cumulative amount of
contributions received, expenditures made, or loans made
or received by a candidate or committee in connection
with a state elective office or a state measure before
that candidate or committee is required to file those
reports online or electronically.
B.Lowers, from $50,000 to $25,000, the cumulative amount of
contributions received or expenditures made by a general
purpose committee to support or oppose candidates for any
elective state office or state measures, before that
committee is required to file those reports online or
electronically.
C.Lowers, from $50,000 to $25,000, the cumulative amount of
reportable payments received or made for the purposes of
producing slate mailers by a slate mailer organization
before that slate mailer organization is required to file
campaign reports online or electronically.
D.Lowers, from $5,000 in a calendar quarter to $2,500 in a
calendar quarter, the amount of reportable payments,
expenses, contributions, gifts, or other items that must
be made by a lobbyist, lobbying firm, or lobbyist
employer before that lobbyist, firm, or employer is
required to file periodic lobbying disclosure reports
online or electronically.
E.Eliminates the requirement that statewide candidates,
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committees formed to support or oppose statewide
measures, and state general purpose committees file a
paper copy of all campaign reports with Los Angeles and
San Francisco Counties. Eliminates the requirement that
members of the Legislature and Board of Equalization,
court of appeal justices, superior court judges, and
candidates for those offices file a paper copy of
campaign reports with the elections official in the
county with the largest number of registered voters in
the district.
F.Requires candidates for the Board of Administration of
the Public Employees Retirement System to file campaign
reports online or electronically with the Secretary of
State (SOS).
G.Eliminates the requirement that a paper copy of a late
contribution report or a late independent expenditure
report be filed if such report is submitted by online or
electronic transmission to the SOS.
H.Requires lobbyist registration statements and amendments
to those statements to be filed both by online or
electronic means and in a paper format.
BACKGROUND
Online Disclosure and Free Electronic Filing . SB 49
(Karnette), Chapter 866, Statutes of 1997, the Online
Disclosure Act of 1997, required the SOS to develop a
process whereby reports and statements required under the
Political Reform Act (PRA) could be filed online and viewed
by the public. SB 49 also required certain candidates,
committees, slate mailer organizations, lobbyists, lobbyist
employers, and lobbying firms to file campaign reports
online.
AB 696 (Longville), Chapter 917, Statutes of 2001, required
the SOS to provide a means or method whereby individuals
subject to mandatory electronic or online filing may submit
required filings free of charge. AB 696 additionally
contained a $600,000 appropriation to the SOS to cover the
costs of developing a system for free electronic filing.
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AB 696 required the free filing option to be developed by
December 31, 2002; however, the SOS did not report
completing that free filing option until February 1, 2007.
COMMENTS
1.According to the author , AB 1181 will provide greater
transparency in government by lowering the threshold for
the exemption some state candidates, committees, slate
mailing organizations and lobbying entities have from the
law requiring documents filed with the Secretary of State
to be filed electronically.
Existing law requires state candidates, committees and
slate mailer organizations to file campaign statements
and reports online if the cumulative amount of reportable
contributions, expenditures and loans made or received is
$50,000 or more. Similarly, state lobbying entities are
only required to file reports online if the total amount
of any category of reportable payments, expenses,
contributions, gifts or other items is $5,000 or more in
a calendar quarter.
While the exemption may have been logical when the online
filing statutes were created in 1997, the availability of
free electronic filing software makes this exemption no
longer necessary for state lobbying entity documents and
the vast majority of state campaign documents.
AB 1181 lowers the under $50,000 and under $5,000
exemptions to $25,000 and $2,500 for all state lobbying
entity documents and most state campaign documents,
requiring these documents to be filed online. Two
campaign documents that cannot currently be filed online
- Candidate Forms 501 (Candidate Intention Statement) and
470 (Officeholder and Candidate Campaign Statement -
Short Form and Supplement) - would be exempted from this
requirement. This proposal will improve transparency by
making it easier for the public to track how money is
raised and spent.
2.Reports Required of Electronic Filers . One of the
collateral consequences of the enactment of this bill is
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that candidates and campaigns that are not presently
subject to the online or electronic filing requirement
may be forced to file new campaign reports that they are
not presently required to file.
Under existing law, any candidate or committee that is
required to file campaign reports online or
electronically is required to file a report online or
electronically within 10 business days each time it makes
contributions or independent expenditures totaling $5,000
or more to support or oppose the qualification or passage
of a single state ballot measure. Candidates and
primarily formed ballot measure committees that are
subject to the online or electronic filing requirement
must also file a report within 24 hours of receiving a
contribution of $1,000 or more during the last 90 days
before an election, and must file a report within 10
business days of receiving a contribution of $5,000 or
more at any time other than the last 90 days before an
election.
Finally, all committees that are required to file campaign
reports online or electronically must file a report
within 24 hours of making an independent expenditure of
$1,000 or more during the last 90 days before the
election in connection with a candidate for elective
state office or a state ballot measure. These reports
are not required of candidates or committees that are not
required to file reports online or electronically.
3.Is the Online Disclosure System Operating Effectively ?
Under existing law, the SOS is required to determine and
publicly disclose when the online and electronic campaign
disclosure systems are operating effectively. Despite
the fact that legislation requiring the development of an
online campaign disclosure system was enacted in 1997,
the SOS has never made a public determination that the
online campaign disclosure system is operating
effectively. The SOS held a joint public hearing with
the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to
determine whether the online disclosure system was
operating effectively in September, 2007, but that
hearing was not followed by any public determination on
the system's effectiveness by the SOS.
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Given that it has been 12 years since the Legislature
required the creation of an online campaign disclosure
system, and given the fact that the SOS still has not
determined that the system is operating effectively, it
is unclear whether it is timely and appropriate to expand
the situations under which reports are required to be
filed using that system.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee:6-1
Assembly Appropriations Committee: 14-2
Assembly Floor: 76-1
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Secretary of State
Support: League of Women Voters of California
Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)
CALPIRG
California Common Cause
Oppose: None received
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