BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2452|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2452
Author: Ammiano (D)
Amended: 5/8/12 in Assembly
Vote: 27
SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMDMTS. COMM. : 5-0, 6/19/12
AYES: Correa, La Malfa, Gaines, Lieu, Yee
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 77-0, 5/21/12 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Political Reform Act
SOURCE : City and County of San Francisco
DIGEST : This bill permits local government agencies to
require elected officials, candidates, and campaign
committees to file campaign disclosure reports online or
electronically.
ANALYSIS : The Political Reform Act of 1974 (PRA)
requires specified candidates, committees, slate mailer
organizations, and lobbyists, lobbying firms, and lobbyist
employers to file campaign statements and reports online or
electronically with the Secretary of State, as specified.
The PRA requires certain of these entities to also file
campaign statements and reports with local filing officers,
as specified.
This bill:
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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 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;
C. Requires the online or electronic filing system to
accept 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;
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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.
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
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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 houses of the
Legislature.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/20/12)
City and County of San Francisco (source)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
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Employees
Fair Political Practices Commission
Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Sierra Club California
Urban Counties Caucus
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 77-0, 5/21/12
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall,
Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford,
Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos,
Carter, Cedillo, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Davis, Dickinson,
Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Beth
Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Gorell, Grove,
Hagman, Halderman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hill, Huber,
Hueso, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lara, Logue,
Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell,
Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan,
V. Manuel P�rez, Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Smyth,
Solorio, Swanson, Torres, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski,
Williams, Yamada, John A. P�rez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Fletcher, Roger Hern�ndez, Perea
DLW:m 6/20/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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