BILL ANALYSIS
SB 34
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
SB 34 (Corbett) - As Amended: April 14, 2009
Policy Committee: ElectionsVote:4-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill:
1)Makes it unlawful for anyone to pay, or be paid, based on the
number of signatures obtained for a state or local initiative,
referendum, or recall petition.
2)Makes a violation of the above a misdemeanor, subject to the
following penalties:
a) For a person or organization that pays someone based on
the number of signatures collected, a fine of up to $25,000
and/or imprisonment in county jail for up to one year.
b) For a person paid based on the number of signatures
collected, a fine of up to $1,000 and/or imprisonment in
county jail for up to six months.
FISCAL EFFECT
Unknown non-reimbursable costs to cities and counties for
prosecution and incarceration, offset to some extent by fine
revenues.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author's office, in California and
throughout the country there are increasing reports of ballot
initiative fraud in the signature gathering process. Critics
argue that paying signature gatherers on a per-signature basis
encourages fraud, i.e. since a circulator who collects more
signatures will earn more, they are more likely to forge
SB 34
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signatures or to misrepresent the content of the petition in
order to encourage people to sign. (According to the National
Conference of State Legislatures, payments typically range
from $1 to $3 per signature, and occasionally are as high as
$10 per signature.)
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. This bill is intended to
address this issue by banning the possibility of paying per
signature.
2)Prior Legislation . AB 2946 (Leno) of 2006, which included
provisions establishing penalties for paying or receiving
payment on a per-signature basis, was vetoed due to concerns
that the bill would inhibit the initiative process.
3)Opposition . A coalition of associations representing business
interests, including the California Chamber of Commerce, the
California Apartment Association, and the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America, argues that the bill
will limit the public's role in the initiative process and
"would make it prohibitively expensive to do an initiative or
a recall and next to impossible to do a referendum."
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081