BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  SB 202
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   August 17, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                 SB 202 (Hancock) - As Introduced:  February 8, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              ElectionsVote:5-2

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill increases the fee to submit a proposed state ballot 
          initiative to the Attorney General (AG), for preparation of the 
          circulating title and summary, from $200 to $2,000.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Minor annual General Fund revenue increase in the range of 
          $100,000, based on an average of about 65 proposed initiatives 
          submitted annually to the AG in the previous decade. The 
          increased cost to initiative proponents may reduce the number of 
          proposals submitted, which would both reduce these revenues and 
          the AG's costs associated with this workload, resulting in a net 
          General Fund savings. (In 2007-08, for example, the AG's costs 
          for this work exceeded $400,000, while filing fee revenue 
          totaled only $22,800.) 

           COMMENTS  

           1)Background and Purpose  .  Before statewide initiative petitions 
            can be circulated for signatures, initiative proponents must 
            submit the text of the measure to the AG's office and pay a 
            $200 fee.  This fee level was established in 1943 and was 
            intended to cover the AG's administrative costs to prepare the 
            initiative for circulation and to discourage frivolous 
            proposals.

            The author argues that the current fee is inadequate to cover 
            the AG's costs to prepare each title and summary, which 
            recently averaged about $5,000. (Adjusting this 68 year-old 
            fee level for inflation would yield a fee of $2,480.) 
            Increasing the fee to $2,000 will thus cover more, though not 








                                                                  SB 202
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            all, of the AG's costs. Moreover, the higher fee may help to 
            discourage the submittal of some frivolous proposals.

           2)Prior Legislation  . AB 1832 (Saldana) of 2010, which raised 
            fees incrementally over six years to $2,000, was vetoed by 
            Governor Schwarzenegger, who argued the higher fee would make 
            it more difficult for citizen groups to qualify an initiative. 
            In 2009, a similar measure 
            (AB 436, Saldana) was also vetoed.

            It should be noted that for any person or organization 
            genuinely attempting to qualify an initiative for a statewide 
            ballot, the filing fee, even at $2,000, would likely represent 
            a miniscule portion of an initiative proponent's total costs.

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081