BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Lou Correa, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2191 HEARING DATE: 7/03/12
AUTHOR: NORBY ANALYSIS BY: DARREN
CHESIN
AMENDED: 6/25/12
FISCAL: NO
SUBJECT
Political Reform Act: county central committees
DESCRIPTION
Existing law , pursuant to the Political Reform Act (PRA)
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 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.
Existing law 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:
Receives contributions totaling $1,000 or more in a
calendar year;
Makes independent expenditures totaling $1,000 or more
in a calendar year; or,
Makes contributions totaling $10,000 or more in a
calendar year to or at the behest of candidates or
committees.
Existing law requires the Legislature to provide for
partisan elections for party central committees, among
other offices.
Existing law requires elected officers, candidates for
elective office, and committees to file periodic campaign
disclosure reports.
Existing law permits local government agencies to adopt
ordinances that affect campaign contributions and
expenditures, and other prohibitions on campaigns, subject
to certain limitations.
This bill provides that candidates for political party
county central committees who receive contributions and
make expenditures of less than $1,000 in a calendar year
are not required to file campaign disclosure reports.
Specifically, this bill:
Provides that an elected member of, or a candidate for
election to, a county central committee of a qualified
political party who receives contributions of less than
$1,000 and who makes expenditures of less than $1,000 in
a calendar year is not required to file any campaign
statements required by the PRA.
Prohibits a local government agency from imposing any
filing requirements on such central committee members
and candidates.
Prohibits a local government agency 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 a
committee primarily formed to support or oppose a person
seeking election to a county central committee of a
qualified political party.
BACKGROUND
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.
The fact that central committees are not public offices,
and do not exercise the sovereign power of the government,
raises the question of whether there is a reason to require
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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.
Central Committee Campaign Fundraising . 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, may be
required to file certain campaign disclosure documents.
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. 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 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.
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COMMENTS
1. According to the author , as written, the 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.
2. Previous and Related 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.
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 currently pending in the Assembly Committee on
Elections & Redistricting.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 7-0
Assembly Floor: 71-2
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POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author
Support: California Association of Clerks and Election
Officials (CACEO)
Duf Sundheim, former Chairman, California
Republican Party Michael J. Schroeder, former
Chairman, California Republican Party Robert W.
Naylor, former Chairman, California Republican
Party
Oppose: None received
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