BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2452
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2452 (Ammiano)
As Amended May 8, 2012
2/3 vote
ELECTIONS 7-0
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|Ayes:|Fong, Donnelly, Bonilla, | | |
| |Hall, Logue, Mendoza, | | |
| |Swanson | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Permits local government agencies to require elected
officials, candidates, and campaign committees to file campaign
disclosure reports online or electronically. Specifically, this
bill :
1)Permits a local government agency to require an elected
officer, candidate, committee, or other person required to file
statements, reports, or other campaign disclosure documents
required by the Political Reform Act (PRA), to file those
statements, reports, or documents online or electronically.
2)Requires a local government agency that requires online or
electronic filing pursuant to this bill to comply with all of
the following conditions:
a) Requires the legislative body for the agency to adopt an
ordinance approving the use of online or electronic filing,
and provides that the requirements may apply only to
identified types of filings or may be triggered only by
identified monetary thresholds;
b) Provides that the ordinance may not require a filer that
receives contributions or makes expenditures of less than
$1,000 in a calendar year to file reports online or
electronically. Provides that the ordinance may not require
a filer to file a copy of a report online or electronically
if the original report is filed with the Secretary of State
(SOS);
c) Requires the online or electronic filing system to accept
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a filing only in the standardized record format that is
compatible with the SOS's system for online or electronic
filing;
d) Requires the online or electronic filing system to ensure
the integrity of the data and to include safeguards against
efforts to tamper with, manipulate, alter, or subvert the
data;
e) Requires the system to issue a confirmation notifying a
filer that his or her filing was received, including the
date and time that it was received by the filing officer.
Provides that a copy of the confirmation retained by the
filer creates a rebuttable presumption that the filer timely
filed the report;
f) Requires the local filing officer to make all the data
filed available on the Internet, but provides that the data
made available on the Internet shall not contain the street
name and building number of the persons listed on the
electronically filed forms or any bank account number
required to be disclosed. Requires the filing officer to
make an unredacted version of the campaign reports available
upon request;
g) Requires the online or electronic filing system to
include a procedure for filers to comply with the
requirements that they sign statements and reports under
penalty of perjury. Requires the agency to enable filers to
complete and submit filings free of charge;
h) Requires the local filing officer to maintain a secured,
official version of each statement, report, or other
document filed pursuant to this bill online for a period of
at least 10 years, and requires the information to be
archived in a secure format after that period of time; and,
i) Provides that, notwithstanding any other provision of
law, any statement, report, or other document filed online
or electronically pursuant to this bill shall not be
required to be filed with the local filing officer in paper
format.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
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Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "Many campaign statements
required by the Political Reform Act of 1974 filed by persons and
committees at the state and local level are archived
electronically and are available to the public on the Internet.
Currently, persons and committees filing these campaign forms
electronically must still print up to two paper copies of the
forms already posted online and mail them to a local filing
officer. These officers must then process and archive copious
amounts of paper documents already available online. Not only is
this requirement redundant, but operating costs are increased
because agencies must pay permanent and seasonal staff to process
forms and maintain paper archives. In San Francisco, it has
become so unwieldy that the Ethics Commission was forced to rent
additional office space and off-site storage space to accommodate
the growing mass of paper files?.AB 2452 would authorize local
ethics agencies to require that all persons or committees filing
campaign documents or reports must do so online or
electronically. These changes would enormously reduce paper waste
and allow county clerks to focus more attention to helping filers
comply with campaign disclosure requirements instead of managing,
in many cases, both electronic and paper-based filing systems
containing the exact same data."
Many local clerks and elections officials have implemented their
own online or electronic disclosure systems. In some cases, the
local jurisdictions require candidates and committees to file
disclosure reports online or electronically pursuant to a local
campaign ordinance. Even in these circumstances, however, the
PRA still generally requires paper copies of those reports to be
filed with the local officials. As a result, even in
circumstances where local jurisdictions have taken steps to make
campaign disclosure reports broadly available by moving to an
electronic reporting system, the local jurisdictions still must
maintain paper versions of those reports.
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 that are not submitted to the
voters, such as those contained in this bill, must further the
purposes of the initiative and require a two-thirds vote of both
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houses of the Legislature.
Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion of
this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094
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