BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 1272 (Lieu) - Campaign Finance
Amended: April 30, 2014 Policy Vote: E&CA 4-1
Urgency: Yes Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 5, 2014 Consultant: Maureen Ortiz
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 1272 will require the Secretary of State to
submit an advisory question to the voters which will be placed
on the November 4, 2014 ballot.
Fiscal Impact:
One time ballot printing/mailing costs of approximately
$275,000 - $550,000 depending on the number of pages and
based on an estimated cost per page of $55,000. (General)
The actual costs could be higher or lower depending on the
length of the title, summary, text, LAO analysis, proponents and
opponents arguments, as well as the overall size of the ballot
pamphlet. Larger ballots generally result in less printing and
mailing costs per page. The average number of pages per measure
since 2008 is ten and the minimum per measure has been five
pages.
Background: Existing law authorizes each city, county, school
district, community college district, county board of education,
or special district to hold an advisory election on any date on
which that jurisdiction is permitted to hold a regular or
special election for the purpose of allowing voters within the
jurisdiction, or a portion thereof, to voice their opinions on
substantive issues, or to indicate to the local legislative body
approval or disapproval of the ballot proposal.
While existing state law explicitly authorizes cities, counties,
school districts, community college districts, county boards of
education, and special districts to hold advisory elections,
there is no explicit authorization, nor is there a statutory
prohibition, for a statewide advisory election. While statewide
advisory elections are uncommon, in at least two other instances
SB 1272 (Lieu)
Page 1
in California's history, one or more statewide advisory measures
have appeared on the ballot. At a statewide special election in
June 1933, voters rejected Propositions 9 and 10, which asked
the voters whether the Legislature should divert gasoline tax
revenues to the general fund to pay off highway bonds. These
two measures were put on the ballot by the Legislature.
Additionally, at the November 1982 Statewide General Election,
voters approved Proposition 12, a measure that urged the United
States government to propose to the Soviet Union that both
countries agree to immediately halt the testing, production and
further deployment of all nuclear weapons, missiles and delivery
systems in a way that could be checked and verified by both
sides. Unlike this bill, however, the advisory question decided
by the voters in 1982 was placed on the ballot by initiative.
Subsequent to the voters' approval of Proposition 12 in 1982,
the California State Supreme Court ruled in American Federation
of Labor v. Eu (1984) 36 Cal.3d 687, that placing advisory
questions before the voters was not a proper use of the
initiative power, because "an initiative which seeks to do
something other than enact a statute-which seeks to render an
administrative decision, adjudicate a dispute, or declare by
resolution the views of the resolving body-is not within the
initiative power reserved by the people." In that case, the
Court ordered an initiative measure which sought to compel the
Legislature to apply to Congress to hold a constitutional
convention to adopt a federal balanced budget amendment to be
removed from the ballot. The Court's decision in American
Federation of Labor did not, however, rule on whether it was
permissible for the Legislature to place an advisory question
before the voters.
Proposed Law: SB 1272 requires the following advisory question
to be placed on the statewide ballot at a special election
consolidated with the statewide general election on November 4,
2014:
"Shall the Congress of the United States propose, and the
California Legislature ratify, an amendment or amendments to the
United States Constitution to overturn Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission (2010) 558 U.S. 310, and other
applicable judicial precedents, to allow the full regulation or
SB 1272 (Lieu)
Page 2
limitation of campaign contributions and spending, to ensure
that all citizens, regardless of wealth, may express their views
to one another, and to make clear that the rights protected by
the United States Constitution are the rights of natural persons
only?"
The Secretary of State, upon certification of the election, will
be required to communicate to the Congress of the United States
the results of the advisory question posed to California voters.
This bill contains the following legislative findings and
declarations:
A. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are
intended to protect the rights of individual human beings.
B. Corporations are not mentioned in the United States
Constitution and the people have never granted constitutional
rights to corporations, nor have we decreed that corporations
have authority that exceeds the authority of "We the People."
C. In Connecticut General Life Insurance Company v. Johnson
(1938) 303 U.S. 77, United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo
Black stated in his dissent, "I do not believe the word
'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations."
D. In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) 494 U.S.
652, the United States Supreme Court recognized the threat to
a republican form of government posed by "the corrosive and
distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are
accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have
little or no correlation to the public's support for the
corporation's political ideas."
E. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) 558
U.S. 310, the United States Supreme Court struck down limits
on electioneering communications that were upheld in
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003) 540 U.S. 93
and Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce . This decision
presents a serious threat to self-government by rolling back
previous bans on corporate spending in the electoral process
and allows unlimited corporate spending to influence
elections, candidate selection, policy decisions, and public
SB 1272 (Lieu)
Page 3
debate.
F. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , Justices
John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and
Sonia Sotomayor noted in their dissent that corporations have
special advantages not enjoyed by natural persons, such as
limited liability, perpetual life, and favorable treatment of
the accumulation and distribution of assets, that allow them
to spend huge sums on campaign messages that have little or
no correlation with the beliefs held by natural persons.
G. Corporations have used the artificial rights bestowed upon
them by the courts to overturn democratically enacted laws
that municipal, state, and federal governments passed to curb
corporate abuses, thereby impairing local governments'
ability to protect their citizens against corporate harms to
the environment, consumers, workers, independent businesses,
and local and regional economies.
H. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976) 424 U.S. 1, the United States
Supreme Court held that the appearance of corruption
justified some contribution limitations, but it wrongly
rejected other fundamental interests that the citizens of
California find compelling, such as creating a level playing
field and ensuring that all citizens, regardless of wealth,
have an opportunity to have their political views heard.
I. In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) 435 U.S.
765 and Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair
Housing v. Berkeley (1981) 454 U.S. 290, the United States
Supreme Court rejected limits on contributions to ballot
measure campaigns because it concluded that these
contributions posed no threat of candidate corruption.
J. In Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) 528 U.S.
377, United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
observed in his concurrence that "money is property; it is
not speech."
AA. A February 2010 Washington Post-ABC News poll found
that 80 percent of Americans oppose the ruling in Citizens
United.
SB 1272 (Lieu)
Page 4
BB. Article V of the United States Constitution
empowers and obligates the people of the United States of
America to use the constitutional amendment process to
correct those egregiously wrong decisions of the United
States Supreme Court that go to the heart of our democracy
and the republican form of self-government.
CC. The people of California and of the United States
have previously used ballot measures as a way of instructing
their elected representatives about the express actions they
want to see them take on their behalf, including provisions
to amend the United States Constitution.
Staff Comments: In the case of Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
558 U. S. 310 , corporations were granted the same rights as
individuals as far as donating to political campaigns. In its
decision, the Supreme Court struck down a 63 year old law that
prohibited corporations and unions from using their general
treasury funds to make independent expenditures in federal
elections, finding that the law unconstitutionally abridged the
freedom of speech. In McCutcheon v. FEC , the Supreme Court
ruled on April 2, 2014 that it is permissible for individuals to
make limitless contributions to federal campaign and federal
candidate committee.
If approved by the voters on November 4, 2014, Congress would be
asked to amend the United States Constitution to overturn
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) , and other
applicable judicial precedents such as McCutcheon v. Federal
Election Commission .
It should be noted that the Legislature approved AJR 22
(Wieckowski & Allen), Resolution Chapter 69, Statutes of 2012,
which called upon the United States Congress to propose and send
to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment that
would overturn Citizens United v. FEC (2010) .