BILL ANALYSIS
SB 34
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Date of Hearing: July 7, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
SB 34 (Corbett) - As Amended: April 14, 2009
SENATE VOTE : 22-14
SUBJECT : Petitions: compensation for signatures.
SUMMARY : Makes it a misdemeanor for a person to pay or to
receive money or any other thing of value based on the number of
signatures collected on a state or local initiative, referendum,
or recall petition. Specifically, this bill :
1)Provides that a person or organization who pays a person based
on the number of signatures obtained on a state or local
initiative, referendum, or recall petition shall be punished
by a fine of an amount not to exceed $25,000, or by
imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by
both the fine and imprisonment.
2)Provides that a person who is paid based on the number of
signatures obtained on a state or local initiative,
referendum, or recall petition shall be punished by a fine of
an amount not to exceed $1,000, or by imprisonment in a county
jail not to exceed six months, or by both a fine and
imprisonment.
3)Provides that the bill does not prohibit paid signature
gatherers from collecting signatures on an hourly or daily
rate.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes a process for proposing initiative measures
submitted to voters in California and sets forth
qualifications for persons who circulate initiative petitions.
2)Provides that a person who is a voter or who is qualified to
register to vote in this state may circulate an initiative or
referendum petition anywhere within the state.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
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Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
It is important that the initiative process produces
initiatives that voters truly desire and not initiatives
that qualify because circulators gather signatures
unlawfully to inflate their compensation. According to the
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center in Washington, DC, the
number of petition fraud cases has been increasing in the
24 states that practice an initiative process. Quite
often, signature gathering firms compensate circulators
based on the number of signatures they collect. As
circulators reach the deadline to qualify initiatives, they
are more likely to gather signatures illegally by
misinforming voters and forging names.
Specific cases of fraud in Montana, Nevada, and Oklahoma
included circulators who forged signatures onto their
petitions of names they chose from a phonebook. Others have
inserted carbon paper and a second petition beneath the
original one, without the persons' knowledge, to get their
signature on another petition. Similar accusations of
corruption are also common in California. In 2006, local
election officials discovered that nearly thirty three
percent of signatures in a petition filed to call a June
election among SMUD [Sacramento Municipal Utilities
District] customers on whether the public-power should
expand into Yolo County were fraudulent.
2)The California Initiative Ballot Process and Its Cost : Every
initiative state requires proponents to gather signatures to
demonstrate the measure's support, prior to the measure being
placed on the ballot. Currently in California, proponents
must obtain approximately 433,900 valid petition signatures or
5% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election to place a
statutory change on the ballot and approximately 694,000 valid
petition signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the
ballot. Although California qualifies more initiatives for
the ballot than any other state, the state only allows 150
days (third shortest circulation period of any state) in which
to collect the necessary signatures. Given the short amount
of time to gather signatures, critics suggest that the current
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process has shifted to a system where increasingly large sums
of money are now required in order to qualify a measure for
the ballot. Such efforts now require the use of paid
signature gathers, usually employed by professional petition
firms. In a report issued by the Center for Governmental
Studies, Democracy by Initiative , "in 1990, the median cost of
initiative qualification was more than $1 million and in and
2006, the median cost tripled to nearly $3 million."
3)Regulating Petition Circulators: The initiative states have a
variety of approaches to regulating petition circulators.
Among the most common are residency and age requirements,
requiring circulators to disclose whether they are paid or
volunteer, requiring that circulators witness petition
circulators and attest to their validity, and banning the
payment of petitioners per signature. According to the
National Conference of State Legislators, "in three states
(North Dakota, Oregon and Wyoming), initiative sponsors are
banned from paying petition circulators per signature.
Instead, they may pay a flat fee or an hourly salary. These
laws have been challenged in the courts with mixed results.
North Dakota and Oregon's provisions have been upheld by the
U.S. 9th and 8th Circuit Courts, respectively. However,
similar provisions in Idaho, Maine, Mississippi and Washington
were held unconstitutional by federal district courts."
4)Previous Legislation : SB 1686 (Denham) of 2008 would have made
it a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceeding $5,000,
by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by
both the fine and imprisonment, for a person, company,
organization, company official, or other organizational
officer in charge of a person who circulates an initiative,
referendum, or recall petition to knowingly direct or permit
the person to make a false affidavit concerning the
initiative, referendum, or recall petition. SB 1686 was
vetoed by the Governor, though the Governor did not express
any policy objections to the bill. Instead the bill was one
of 136 bills that received the same veto message. That veto
message is as follows:
The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State
Budget has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to
my desk at the end of the year's legislative session.
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Given the delay, I am only signing bills that are the
highest priority for California. This bill does not
meet that standard and I cannot sign it at this time.
In 2006, the Governor vetoed AB 2946 (Leno) stating that
prohibitions on per-signature payments will make the
process more difficult and make it harder for grass-roots
organizations to get the required signatures in a timely
manner.
5)Related Legislation : AB 6 (Saldana) will require firms that
employ signature gathers to register with the Secretary of
State (SOS) and pay a registration fee to the SOS to be used
to maintain an online directory of professional firms in the
state. AB 6 was approved by this committee and by the
Assembly and is pending in the Senate Elections,
Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee.
6)Arguments in Support : According to the City of Murrieta,
"during the past election cycle, the City of Murrieta was the
focus of three initiative petitions. These petitions sought
to limit City Council compensation, limit city administration
compensation and establish term limits for city officials.
While the initiatives were originally the result of
community-based activism, they quickly descended into
campaigns that did not benefit the community." The City
"applauds the efforts to distinguish between active
participants that gather signatures in support or opposition
to an initiative and those who hire paid political operatives
that employ every tactic to get an unknowing citizen to sign a
petition.
7)Arguments in Opposition : According to the Governor's Office
of Planning and Research, "Although the intent of the bill to
increase protections against signature-gathering fraud is
laudable, this bill has not addressed the Governor's concerns
noted in his veto message of AB 2946 (Leno, 2005) in which he
stated 'the prohibitions on per-signature payments will make
it more difficult for grass-roots organizations to get the
necessary signatures in the time allotted. As I have said
before, making the process more difficult may be fine for
those opposed to the initiative process or those who profit
from it, but it is not for everyday Californians with an idea
for reform.'"
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
City of Murrieta
Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California
Secretary of State Debra Bowen
Opposition
Capitol Resource Family Impact
Governor's Office of Planning and Research
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Analysis Prepared by : Qiana Charles / E. & R. / (916)
319-2094