BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Lou Correa, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2452 HEARING DATE: 6/19/12
AUTHOR: AMMIANO ANALYSIS BY: D. CHESIN
AMENDED: 5/8/12
FISCAL: NO
SUBJECT
Political Reform Act of 1974: online disclosure
DESCRIPTION
Existing law requires the Secretary of State (SOS), in
consultation with the Fair Political Practices Commission
(FPPC), to develop online and electronic filing processes
for use by persons and entities that are required to file
campaign disclosure reports and lobbying disclosure reports
with the SOS's office.
Existing law required the SOS, not later than July 1, 1999,
to develop a nonproprietary standardized record format or
formats for the transmission of data required to be filed
online or electronically with the SOS under the Political
Reform Act (PRA).
Existing law required the SOS, not later than December 31,
2002, to develop at least one means or method whereby
filers subject to the online or electronic disclosure
requirements of the PRA are able to submit required filings
free of charge.
Existing law requires certain elected officials,
candidates, committees, slate mailer organizations,
lobbyists, lobbying firms, lobbyist employers, and other
persons required to file periodic lobbying disclosure
reports, to file campaign and lobbying disclosure reports
online or electronically with the SOS.
Existing law requires all candidates and committees who are
required to file campaign reports in connection with a
state elective office or state ballot measure to file those
reports online or electronically with the SOS if the
cumulative amount of contributions received, expenditures
made, loans made, or loans received is $25,000 or more.
Existing law requires all candidates, elected officers, and
their controlled committees, with certain exceptions, to
file one copy of all campaign statements with the elections
official of the county in which the candidate or elected
official is domiciled.
This bill 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 PRA, to file them
online or electronically.
This bill provides that a local government agency requiring
online or electronic filing must comply with all of the
following conditions:
a. The legislative body for the agency must 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. 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.
c. 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 SOS.
d. The online or electronic filing system may only accept
a filing in the standardized record format that is
compatible with the SOS's system for online or
electronic filing.
e. The online or electronic filing system must ensure the
integrity of the data and to include safeguards against
efforts to tamper with, manipulate, alter, or subvert
the data.
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f. The system must 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. A
copy of the confirmation retained by the filer creates a
rebuttable presumption that the filer timely filed the
report.
g. The local filing officer must make all the data filed
available on the Internet, but the data made available
on the Internet may 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. The filing officer must make
an unredacted version of the campaign reports available
upon request.
h. The online or electronic filing system must include a
procedure for filers to comply with the requirements
that they sign statements and reports under penalty of
perjury and requires the agency to enable filers to
complete and submit filings free of charge.
i. Requires the local filing officer to maintain a
secured, official version of each statement, report, or
other document 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.
j. This bill would also provide 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.
BACKGROUND
Existing Online and Electronic Disclosure . SB 49
(Karnette), Chapter 866, Statutes of 1997, the Online
Disclosure Act, required the SOS to develop a process
whereby reports and statements required to be filed with
the SOS under the PRA could be filed online and viewed by
the public. SB 49 also required certain candidates,
committees, slate mailer organizations, lobbyists, lobbyist
employers, and lobbying firms to file campaign reports
online. Since that time, subsequent legislation has
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gradually expanded the circumstances under which campaign
and lobbying reports are required to be filed online or
electronically. Most recently, the Legislature approved
and Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 1181 (Huber), Chapter
18, Statutes of 2010, which lowered the monetary thresholds
that trigger mandatory online or electronic filing of
reports required to be filed with the SOS under the PRA.
While the Online Disclosure Act and subsequent amendments
have made information about certain candidates and
committees widely available on the Internet, the
information that is available through the SOS's website
generally does not include information about local
candidates or about committees that make contributions and
expenditures exclusively or primarily in local campaigns.
That's because the requirements of the Online Disclosure
Act generally were limited to candidates, committees, and
other entities that were required to file disclosure
reports with the SOS. Campaign disclosure reports filed in
connection with local candidates or ballot measures
generally must be filed with local clerks or elections
officials.
Many local clerks and elections officials have implemented
their own online or electronic disclosure systems. In some
cases, the local jurisdictions require certain candidates
and committees to file disclosure reports online or
electronically pursuant to a local campaign ordinance.
Even in circumstances where local candidates and committees
are required to file reports online or electronically,
however, the PRA still generally requires paper copies of
those reports to be filed with the local clerk or elections
official. As a result, even in circumstances where local
jurisdictions have taken steps to make campaign disclosure
reports more broadly available by moving to an electronic
reporting system, the local jurisdictions still must
maintain paper versions of those reports.
Statements of Economic Interests Electronic Filing Pilot
Project . As part of the PRA's comprehensive scheme to
prevent conflicts of interest by state and local public
officials, certain public officials are required to file
statements of economic interests (SEIs). AB 2607 (Davis),
Chapter 498, Statutes of 2008, and subsequent legislation
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established a pilot project which permitted certain
jurisdictions to permit the electronic filing of an SEI in
accordance with regulations adopted by the FPPC. That
pilot project began in 2009 and is scheduled to end in
December, 2012. Participants in the pilot project were
required to submit a report to the FPPC in 2011, and in
turn the FPPC was required to forward the reports to the
Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) along with comments that
the FPPC had on those reports or the pilot project. Based
on that information, the LAO submitted a report to the
Legislature evaluating the pilot project in January of this
year. According to the LAO report, the participating
government entities indicated that the paper-based filing
process was time-consuming and required significant amounts
of staff time to review the SEIs, work with the filers to
correct errors and maintain the paper file systems.
However, after implementing the electronic filing system,
participating entities found that electronic filing
resulted in operational efficiencies through reduced
personnel due to the significant reduction in the number of
errors in the filers' SEIs and other operational costs.
Additionally, it was reported to the LAO that none of these
government entities reported any security issues with the
electronic filing systems and found that most of the public
officials and employees who filed using the electronic
filing system considered it to be a useful and an easy
process.
Although the process for filing campaign reports is not
identical to the process for filing SEIs, the author and
the sponsor of this bill nonetheless argue that the pilot
project demonstrates that moving from a paper-based filing
process for campaign reports to an electronic-based process
can significantly reduce costs to local governments.
COMMENTS
1.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
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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. Rather than spending the
bulk of their time assisting filers, clerks and local
ethics officers are kept occupied by processing paper
forms. These cumbersome archives are also much more
difficult to navigate than those stored in an electronic
database, making filing errors more likely while
decreasing the accessibility of campaign finance
information to the public.
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. Local
ethics agencies also could devote less time and fewer
resources to meticulously filing and providing public
access to paper statements since they could be easily
accessed online.
This bill acts on recommendations put forth by the 2010
Fair Political Practices Commission's Task Force on the
Political Reform Act, which found that electronic filing
already occurs in 21 local jurisdictions and is more
desirable than the current system because it would
increase transparency, simplify compliance for filers,
and allow local officers to spend more time assisting
filers with disclosure requirements. Pilot programs
requiring only electronic filing have been implemented in
the counties of Los Angeles, Stanislaus, Orange, Long
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Beach, Merced, Santa Clara, and Ventura and all programs
demonstrated positive outcomes in terms of cost-savings,
improved efficiency, and greater transparency.
2.Conflicting Legislation . SB 1553 (Lowenthal) would
create a pilot program for the 2013 through 2014
reporting periods that authorizes the City of Long Beach
to permit any person who files a campaign statement with
the city clerk to file online or electronically,
consistent with specified requirements.
SB 1553 passed this committee 5-0, the Senate floor 37-0
and is now pending in the Assembly.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 7-0
Assembly Floor: 77-0
POSITIONS
Sponsor: City and County of San Francisco
Support: American Federation of State, County, and
Municipal Employees Fair Political Practices
Commission
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Sierra Club California
Urban Counties Caucus
Oppose: None received
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