BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2191
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Date of Hearing: April 17, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
Paul Fong, Chair
AB 2191 (Norby) - As Introduced: February 23, 2012
SUBJECT : Political Reform Act of 1974: economic interest
disclosure.
SUMMARY : Excludes candidates for political party central
committees from the requirements to file campaign disclosure
reports. Specifically, this bill :
1)Excludes membership on a county central committee of a
political party from the definition of an "elective office" in
the Political Reform Act (PRA).
2)Provides that an entity primarily formed to support or oppose
a person seeking election to a county central committee of a
political party is not considered a "committee" for the
purposes of the PRA.
3)Prohibits a local government agency from imposing any filing
requirements on elected members of, or candidates for election
to, a county central committee of a political party or on
entities primarily formed to support or oppose a person
seeking election to a county central committee of a political
party.
4)Prohibits a local jurisdiction from imposing contribution
limitations or prohibitions on elected members of, or
candidates for election to, a county central committee of a
political party, or on an entity primarily formed to support
or oppose a person seeking election to a county central
committee of a qualified political party.
5)Requires the Secretary of State to submit the provisions of
this bill to the voters at the next statewide election
occurring at least 131 days after the adoption of this bill.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Defines "elective office," for the purposes of the PRA, as any
state, regional, county, municipal, district, or judicial
office that is filled at an election, and provides that the
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term "elective office" includes membership on a county central
committee of a qualified political party and membership
through election on the Board of Administration of the Public
Employees' Retirement System or the Teachers' Retirement
Board.
2)Defines the term "committee" for the purposes of the PRA as
any person or combination of persons who directly or
indirectly does any of the following:
a) Receives contributions totaling $1,000 or more in a
calendar year;
b) Makes independent expenditures totaling $1,000 or more
in a calendar year; or,
c) Makes contributions totaling $10,000 or more in a
calendar year to or at the behest of candidates or
committees.
3)Requires the Legislature to provide for partisan elections for
party central committees, among other offices.
4)Requires elected officers, candidates for elective office, and
committees to file periodic campaign disclosure reports.
5)Permits local government agencies to adopt ordinances that
affect campaign contributions and expenditures, subject to
certain limitations. Permits local jurisdictions to adopt
contribution limitations and other prohibitions on campaigns,
subject to certain limitations.
6)Provides that any amendment to the PRA that does not further
the purposes of the PRA may become effective only when
approved by voters.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. Although this bill is keyed
non-fiscal by the Legislative Counsel, this Committee has been
instructed by the Assembly Rules Committee to re-refer it to the
Assembly Appropriations Committee upon approval by this
Committee, due to the costs associated with submitting a measure
to the voters.
COMMENTS :
AB 2191
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1)Purpose of the Bill : According to the author:
As written, the Political Reform Act (PRA) places a
costly and time consuming burden on thousands of
political party volunteers in California. The PRA
defined any person who appears on the ballot as
someone running for "elective office." The intent of
this action was to capture all governmental elected
officials, and it succeeded. This action also lumped
in thousands of political party volunteers into new
expensive and cumbersome reporting requirements.
Political volunteers serve no governmental function.
They do not handle any public money, they don't vote
on policy or budget issues, and they conduct no public
business.
Additionally, earlier this year AB 1200 (Ma) was
signed by the Governor and this bill also moved away
from treating central committee members as elected
officials. AB 1200 no longer requires a public
officer to administer their oath. In fact, political
volunteers are no longer entitled to a governmental
"certificate of election."
AB 2191 would revise the Political Reform Act
definition of "elective office" to include membership
on a county central committee of a qualified party.
2)Membership on a Central Committee is Not a Public Office :
Although elections for county central committee for political
parties are publicly conducted elections, state courts have
held that the elective offices of political parties are not
public offices, because those offices do not involve the
exercise of the sovereign functions of government. (See Moore
v. Panish (1982), 32 Cal.3d 535, 545, Azevedo v. Jordan
(1965), 237 Cal.App.2d 521, 528, and Stout v. Democratic
County Central Committee (1952), 40 Cal.2d 91, 94.) Instead,
county central committees of political parties generally are
charged with conducting those parties' political campaigns
under the general direction of the state central committee
(See Elections Code Sections 7240, 7440, 7690, and 7880).
The fact that central committees are not public offices, and do
not exercise the sovereign power of the government, raises the
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question of whether there is a reason to require such
candidates to file campaign disclosure reports. Generally,
the campaign disclosure requirements of the PRA are designed
to ensure that public officials perform their official duties
in an impartial manner and to protect against disproportionate
influence over governmental decisions by large contributors to
election campaigns. Because central committee members do not
make governmental decisions, however, these purposes do not
appear to be served by requiring candidates for central
committee to comply with the campaign disclosure provisions of
the PRA.
3)But Central Committee Elections are Constitutionally
Guaranteed : On the other hand, while membership on a county
central committee is not a public office that exercises the
sovereign power of the government, political party central
committees are bodies that are recognized in the state
constitution, and the constitution explicitly requires that
the Legislature provide for partisan elections for those
offices. Proposition 14, which was approved by the voters on
the June 2010 statewide primary election ballot, is best known
as the measure that implemented a top two primary election
system in California for most elective state and federal
offices. However, in addition to establishing the top two
primary system, Proposition 14 also amended Article II,
Section 5 of the California Constitution to provide that
"�t]he Legislature shall provide for partisan elections for .
. . party central committees."
Even though central committees do not exercise governmental
powers, the fact that these offices are constitutionally
recognized and the fact that the Constitution guarantees
publicly conducted elections for these offices seems to weaken
the argument that candidates for such offices shouldn't be
subject to the same requirements as all other candidates who
appear on the ballot in California at a publicly-conducted
election.
4)Central Committee Campaigns and Possible Amendment : Although,
there are hundreds of candidates for county central committees
statewide in each even-numbered year, it is relatively rare
for candidates for county central committees to raise and
spend more than a nominal amount of money for their campaigns.
Even candidates who do not raise or spend large amounts of
money on their campaigns, however, are required to file
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certain campaign disclosure documents. Specifically, all
candidates for elective office in California must file a Form
501-a statement of intention to be a candidate-before raising
or spending any money in connection with the election (the
only exception is that a candidate may use personal funds to
pay a filing fee or for the costs of a candidate statement
prior to filing a Form 501). Candidates who raise or spend
less than $1,000 in a calendar year must also file a "short
form" campaign statement once a year, while candidates who
raise or spent $1,000 or more in a calendar year have more
extensive reporting requirements. Because of the number of
candidates statewide for county central committee, these
requirements can result in hundreds of pages of campaign
disclosure reports being filed in each election year that
disclose little or no campaign activity.
In at least a few situations, however, candidates for central
committees have raised and spent significant amounts of money.
For instance, at the June 2010 primary election, at least six
candidates for central committee in San Francisco made
expenditures of over $30,000, while several other candidates
made expenditures of over $10,000. In many cases, candidates
who raised and spent significant amounts of money on their
campaigns for central committee also ran for other elective
offices in San Francisco within a year of the campaign for
central committee. This may suggest that, in some cases,
candidates for central committee in San Francisco are using
their campaigns to help raise their profiles for subsequent
campaigns for public office. If that is the case, there may
be a strong rationale for requiring candidates for central
committee to comply with the disclosure requirements in the
PRA, since people may be making contributions to candidates
for central committee with the intention of helping those
candidates get elected to public office at a subsequent
election.
In light of the foregoing, if the intent of this bill is to
minimize the burden imposed on typical central committee
candidates who raise and spend very little money in connection
with their elections, and to minimize the burden on county
clerks who must process disclosure reports that are filed by
these candidates, there may be a way to significantly reduce
those burdens while ensuring that candidates for central
committee who raise and spend large amounts of money are still
required to file campaign disclosure reports under the PRA.
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Specifically, the committee may wish to consider amending this
bill to provide that candidates for central committee that
raise or spend less than $1,000 in a calendar year are not
subject to the reporting requirements of the PRA, while still
requiring candidates who raise or spend more than $1,000 to
comply with the PRA's disclosure requirements.
5)Previous Legislation : Among other provisions, AB 1200 (Ma),
Chapter 8, Statutes of 2012, eliminated the requirement for
elections officials to issue a certificate of election to each
elected member of a political party's county central
committee, and authorized central committee officials to
administer the oath of office to central committee members. A
primary purpose of these changes was to reduce the workload
for county elections officials to conduct central committee
elections, and part of the justification for these changes was
that central committees are not public offices.
6)Related Legislation : SB 1272 (Kehoe) provides for central
committee elections to be conducted every four years, at the
presidential primary election, instead of every two years, at
the statewide direct primary election, and specifies that a
county central committee may select its members at any time by
holding a caucus or convention, or by using any other method
of selection approved by the committee. SB 1272 is pending in
the Senate Committee on Elections & Constitutional Amendments.
7)Political Reform Act of 1974 : California voters passed an
initiative, Proposition 9, in 1974 that created the Fair
Political Practices Commission and codified significant
restrictions and prohibitions on candidates, officeholders,
and lobbyists. That initiative is commonly known as the PRA.
Amendments to the PRA by the Legislature must further the
purposes of the proposition and require a two-thirds vote of
each house of the Legislature, or the Legislature may propose
amendments to the proposition that do not further the purposes
of the act by a majority vote, but such amendments must be
approved by the voters to take effect.
Membership on a county central committee has been considered an
elective office under the PRA since the Proposition 9 was
adopted in 1974. As a result, a strong argument could be made
that amending the PRA to exclude membership on a county
central committee from the definition of elective office does
not further the original purposes of the PRA. As noted above,
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to the extent that this bill does not further the purposes of
the PRA, the Legislature has no authority to enact its
policies without submitting it to the voters. In light of
that fact, this bill provides for its provisions to be
submitted to the voters at the next statewide election
occurring at least 131 days after the approval of this bill.
However, to the extent that this bill is amended as suggested in
comment #4 of this analysis, a stronger case can be made that
the bill furthers the purposes of the PRA, since the bill
would significantly reduce burdensome reporting requirements
that result in little or no campaign activity being reported,
while ensuring that candidates for central committee who have
significant amounts of campaign activity will continue to file
campaign disclosure reports. As a result, if this bill is
amended as suggested in comment #4, the committee may also
wish to amend it to provide that the bill will not be
submitted to the voters, but instead would be subject to a
two-thirds vote of each house of the Legislature.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Association of Clerks and Election Officials
Robert W. Naylor, former Chairman, California Republican Party
Michael Schroeder, former Chairman, California Republican Party
Duf Sundheim, former Chairman, California Republican Party
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094