BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: Ab 2097
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: Miller
VERSION: 5/28/10
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: June 29, 2010
SUBJECT:
Confidential home addresses
DESCRIPTION:
This bill establishes a process whereby a person who has
requested that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) hold his
or her home address confidential shall provide to DMV the
address of his or her employment address for the purpose of
processing the service and collection of traffic, parking, and
toll road violations.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law lists persons who may request that the home address
appearing in a DMV record be held confidential. Some of these
persons include:
The Attorney General
The State Public Defender
A member of the Legislature
A judge or court commissioner
A district attorney
A public defender
An attorney employed by the Department of Justice or the
Office of the State Public Defender
A city attorney or an attorney that represents a city in
matters that place the attorney in personal contact with
persons under investigation for, charged with, or convicted of
committing criminal acts
A non-sworn police dispatcher
A child abuse investigator or social worker working in child
protective services
An active or retired peace officer
AB 2097 (MILLER) Page 2
The spouse or child of any of these persons
The confidential home address of these persons may not be
disclosed except to any of the following:
A court
A law enforcement agency
The State Board of Equalization
An attorney in a civil or criminal action that demonstrates to
a court the need for the home address
A governmental agency to which, under law, information is
required to be furnished from DMV records
Following termination of office or employment, a confidential
home address shall remain confidential for three years, unless
the termination is the result of conviction of a criminal
offense. The home address of a retired peace officer shall
remain confidential permanently upon request at the time the
information would otherwise be opened.
Existing law also establishes time periods by which an agency
must issue a notice of violation to an alleged violator and by
which the alleged violator must either pay the fine or contest
the citation. For example, for parking violations, an agency
must issue a notice of violation within 15 calendar days of the
violation occurring and a person has 21 days to pay or contest.
For toll evasion violations, a toll agency has 21 days to issue
a notice of toll evasion violation, but an additional 45 if the
agency is unable to obtain the address of an alleged violator.
This bill :
Requires a person who requests confidentiality of his or her
home address to provide DMV with a current employment address
for purposes of processing the service and collection of
traffic, parking, and toll violations.
Waives the statutory time periods for processing the service
and collection of traffic, parking, or toll road violations
until DMV provides the law enforcement agency, governmental
agency, or issuing agency with the person's current employment
address.
Provides that the use of a person's business address satisfies
the requirement that a notice to appear or a notice of
violation be served to a person's home address.
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Requires a person whose home address is confidential to notify
DMV of any change in his or her employment address within 10
days of the change.
Requires DMV to refuse to renew the registration of a vehicle
if the owner whose home address is confidential has been
served notice to his or her employment address has been mailed
a notice of delinquent parking violation or a failure to pay a
traffic citation.
Requires DMV to update the form persons may use to request
confidentiality to include the requirement that the person
provide a current employment address.
Requires DMV to distribute copies of the updated form to the
human resources offices of each agency that employs any of the
persons eligible to request confidentiality.
Requires the human resources office of an applicant or
existing enrollee to make the form available to all new
applicants and all existing enrollees, to require these
persons to provide their employment address, and to forward
the forms to the Confidential Records Unit at DMV. The forms
for existing enrollees must be received by DMV by April 1,
2012.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . According to the author, the purpose of this bill is
to provide a means for traffic fine collectors to collect
unpaid tolls and penalties for traffic, toll, and parking
violations without compromising existing confidential records.
The author also strives to create transparency in government
by allowing for the collection of fees and penalties that
would otherwise remain un-collectable from those with
confidential DMV records. Finally, the author also asserts
that the bill will provide a new source of revenue for badly
needed transportation projects throughout the state.
2.The problem . The exact nature of the problem this bill seeks
to address is unclear. DMV does have a process whereby a
government agency, law enforcement agency, or court can
request a masked home address, though the time it can
sometimes take DMV to unmask a record and provide the address
to a requester may be longer than the notice requirements
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provided under current law. Additionally, some of the
entities seeking the information use private vendors under
contract with the agency that are not authorized to request
home addresses. In these situations, the entity must make
requests for home addresses through a court or a law
enforcement agency, an additional layer of bureaucracy that
some agencies resist. If the principal issue is that the time
required to obtain a confidential home address may exceed the
time allowed by the notice requirements, the author or
committee may wish to consider an amendment that would extend
the notice periods when an agency is not able to obtain the
home address readily, as is the case under current law for
toll evasion violations.
3.Previous legislation . In 2007, Assembly Member Spitzer
authored legislation to allow that confidential home addresses
be disclosed to government agencies for the purpose of service
and collection of traffic, parking, and toll violations. That
bill was vetoed by the Governor. His veto message read, in
part:
This bill allows collectors of traffic and parking fines to
have access to the confidential home address information at
the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). There are existing
mechanisms in place to allow a traffic enforcement agency
to pursue collections from law enforcement officers and
others who have a restricted confidential home address.
The agencies are authorized to obtain an individual's
employment information from the DMV and send billing
notification to the individual's place of employment.
Additionally, unpaid fines can be reported to DMV and
included in the registration renewal notice.
DMV estimates significant costs to implement the bill,
depending of the volume of requests for restricted
confidential address records. DMV maintains over 1.5
million records that fall under the Confidential Records
program. These records cannot be accessed electronically,
and therefore, additional staff time would be required to
manually process requests for these records. I am also
concerned that this access puts the home addresses of law
enforcement officers at risk of disclosure.
4.Current enrollees . The process of developing a new form,
providing it to all employers, requiring employers to solicit
an employment address from all current enrollees, and then
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requiring current enrollees to provide an employment address
is cumbersome. The process also raises questions about the
consequences if DMV does not, for whatever reason, receive an
employment address from a current enrollee. If DMV does not
receive an employment address from an individual whose address
is already confidential, will DMV no longer treat that address
as confidential? What if the person has already retired or
change jobs? Given the logistical problems of requiring
current enrollees to provide an employment address, the author
or committee may wish to consider an amendment to make the
bill prospective such that the requirement to provide an
employment address would apply only to persons who newly
request that their addresses be held confidential.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 76-0
Appr: 17-0
Trans: 13-0
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 23, 2010)
SUPPORT: California State Sheriffs' Association
Orange County Toll Authority
South Bay Expressway
OPPOSED: None received.