BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 400|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 400
Author: Fong (D), et al.
Amended: 8/11/14 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ELECTIONS & CONST. AMEND. COMM. : 3-1, 6/4/13
AYES: Hancock, Yee, Torres
NOES: Anderson
NO VOTE RECORDED: Padilla
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 53-24, 4/29/13 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Petitions: initiative, referendum, or recall
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill requires an initiative, referendum, or
recall petition that is circulated by a paid circulator to
include a statement identifying the five largest contributors of
$10,000 or more in support of the measure.
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/11/14 make a technical change to
avoid unintentional changes to an existing code section.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
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1.Requires political committees, as defined, to periodically
report contributions received and expenditures made to support
or oppose the qualification or passage of an initiative,
referendum, or recall measure.
2.Requires an advertisement for or against any ballot measure to
include a disclosure statement identifying any person whose
cumulative contributions are $50,000 or more, as specified.
3.Requires a committee that supports or opposes one or more
ballot measures to name itself using a name or phrase that
identifies the economic or other special interest of its major
donors of $50,000 or more; provides that if the major donors
of $50,000, or more share a common employer, the identity of
the employer must also be disclosed.
4.Requires that any state or local initiative petition contain a
statement notifying voters of their right to inquire whether
the petition is being circulated by a paid signature gatherer
or a volunteer.
This bill:
1.Requires a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall
petition that is circulated by a paid circulator, as defined,
who is paid by a committee to include, in 12-point type at the
top of the petition, a disclosure statement identifying the
names of the persons from whom the committee received the five
largest cumulative contributions of $10,000 or more, as
defined.
2.Provides that if more than five donors meet the disclosure
threshold at identical contribution levels, the five highest
donations shall be disclosed according to chronological
sequence.
3.Requires the disclosure statement to be updated within seven
days of any change in the five largest cumulative
contributors.
4.Requires a committee that employs one or more paid circulators
to circulate a state initiative, referendum, or recall
petition to submit the disclosure statement required by this
bill, and any updates, to the Secretary of State (SOS), and
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requires the SOS to post those statements on his/her Internet
Web site.
5.Requires the petition to include the name of the committee
immediately following the disclosure statement. Requires the
committee to identify itself using a name or phrase that
clearly identifies the economic or other special interest of
its major donors of $50,000 or more. Provides that if the
major donors to the committee share a common employer, the
identity of that employer shall be disclosed.
6.Provides that local elections officials shall not be required
to verify the accuracy of the disclosures required by this
bill, or to reapprove the petition when the petition is
updated to reflect a change in the five largest cumulative
contributors.
7.Provides that signatures collected on a petition shall not be
invalid solely because the information required by this bill
was absent or inaccurate.
Background
Speaker's Commission on the California Initiative Process . In
2000, then-Assembly Speaker Robert M. Hertzberg created a
Commission on the California Initiative Process (Commission).
The goal of the Commission was to examine the initiative process
and recommend changes to make the process more responsive to
voter concerns. The Commission issued its final report in
January 2002. Among the recommendations proposed by the
Commission was a requirement that all petitions to qualify a
statewide initiative for the ballot be accompanied by a written
campaign financial disclosure, which may be printed on,
attached, or bound to the petition.
Prior Legislation
SB 469 (Bowen, 2005) would have required an initiative,
referendum, or recall petition to include a statement
identifying the five largest contributors in support of the
measure, among other provisions. SB 469 was vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger.
AB 1500 (Hertzberg, 2002) would have required any person who
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circulates an initiative petition for signatures to make
available to potential signers the names of the top five
contributors to the committee and the cumulative amount
contributed by each as disclosed on the committee's most recent
campaign report, among other provisions. AB 1500 died on the
Senate Inactive File.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/11/14)
American Association of University Women
California Common Cause
California Conference Board of Amalgamated Transit Union
California Teamsters Public Affairs Council
California Voter Foundation
Communications Workers of America, District 9
Engineers and Scientists of California, IFPTE Local 20, AFL-CIO
International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators, Local 5
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
Pacific Media Workers Guild
Professional and Technical Engineers, IFPTE Local 21, AFL-CIO
United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council
UNITE-HERE, AFL-CIO
Utility Workers Union of America, Local 132, AFL-CIO
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/11/14)
Department of Finance
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : According to the author's office:
While committees supporting or opposing ballot measures are
required to file periodic campaign finance reports,
potential signers of the petitions do not have easy access
to this information when approached by a petition
circulator. Petitions contain official titles, summaries,
and (in some cases) the text of the proposed measures, but
there is no readily available information regarding the
source or sponsors of the measures at the time a voter is
asked to sign a petition. While the voter can ask the
circulator for this information, the circulator is not
required to know or disclose this information. Circulators
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often only know who is paying them and little else about
the petitions they are helping to qualify.
Surveys consistently have shown that voters want improved
public disclosure of the sources that are funding signature
gathering for proposed ballot measures. In fact, the
Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has found
greater than 70% support for increasing public disclosure
of funding sources for initiative campaigns each of the
eight times that they asked that question. In their most
recent survey in March of this year, the PPIC found that
81% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 85% of
Independents supported increased disclosure of the funding
sources for initiative campaigns.
This bill will improve transparency about the financial
backers of proposed ballot measures by requiring
initiative, referendum, and recall petitions to include a
listing of the five top donors to the committee that is
funding the petition drive.
Unfortunately, it is far too common for paid petition
circulators to mislead voters about the effects of proposed
ballot measures in order to get those voters to sign the
petitions. By requiring petitions to include information
about the largest financial donors to proposed ballot
measures, this bill will provide important clues about the
potential impacts of those measures, and will help those
voters see through misleading statements made by petition
circulators.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 53-24, 4/29/13
AYES: Alejo, Ammiano, Bloom, Blumenfield, Bocanegra, Bonilla,
Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon, Campos, Chau,
Chesbro, Cooley, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier,
Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gordon, Gray, Hall, Roger Hern�ndez,
Holden, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Lowenthal, Medina, Mitchell,
Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel P�rez,
Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting,
Torres, Weber, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, John A. P�rez
NOES: Achadjian, Allen, Bigelow, Conway, Dahle, Donnelly, Beth
Gaines, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Harkey, Jones, Linder, Logue,
Maienschein, Mansoor, Melendez, Morrell, Nestande, Olsen,
Patterson, Wagner, Waldron, Wilk
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NO VOTE RECORDED: Atkins, Ch�vez, Vacancy
RM:e 8/12/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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