TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation
DATE: August 5, 1996 RE: Electronic Filing bill up on August 7thThe State Legislature will consider yet another electronic filing bill this Wednesday, August 7th. The bill, SB 108, is authored by Senator Quentin Kopp and co-authored by Assembly Members Bruce McPherson, Dom Cortese and Jackie Speier. The bill has multi-partisan backing: Kopp is an Independent, McPherson is a Republican, Cortese belongs to the Reform party, and Speier is a Democrat.
SB 108 originally dealt with intellectual property, but the bill was radically amended on July 3rd, after another electronic filing bill, AB 1026/McPherson, stalled in the Senate Elections Committee in the morning. SB 108 was amended in the Assembly Elections Committee, which McPherson chairs, later that afternoon, and now features many of the provisions originally contained in AB 1026. SB 108 passed out of Assembly Elections, and was sent on to Assembly Appropriations, which is where it will be heard on August 7th.
Below is a summary of the key provisions of SB 108, according to McPherson staffer David Whitlow:
SOFTWARE: SB 108 requires the Secretary of State to establish a standard filing format and certify software packages to guarantee that they follow the format. The bill also requires the Department of Information Technology to work with the Secretary of State in developing the program. The bill is silent on the issue of free software.As the Assembly Appropriations committee's calendar is quite long, it is unlikely that any long or substantive debate will take place on Wednesday. David Whitlow has informed me that the Assembly Republican Caucus has taken a "support" position on SB 108. If the bill passes out of the Assembly Appropriations committee, it will continue to the Assembly floor, and if passed there, will go back to the Senate for concurrence in amendments, then to the Governor for his signature or veto.PILOT PROGRAM: the bill would establish phased-in implementation of electronic filing requirements, beginning in 1998 with mandatory electronic filing for all statewide candidate and ballot measure campaigns raising $100,000 or more.
THRESHOLD: the bill sets a $50,000 mandatory electronic filing threshold, requiring all candidates who raise or spend a total of $50,000 or more in an election cycle to file their statements electronically. This is a slight departure from earlier legislation that based the threshold on a calendar year, but is likely to result in a larger number of electronic filers.
APPROPRIATION: SB 108 would appropriate $750,000 to the Secretary of State for implementation - an increase compared to earlier electronic filing bills that appropriated $500,000 for implementation.
I'll be sure to let you know the outcome on Wednesday....in the meantime, please feel free to visit our (still unfinished!) disclosure reform web site, located at www.calvoter.org/cvf/disclosure, which features my past notices on electronic filing and many recent news articles and editorials.
Kim Alexander, Executive Director, California Voter Foundation
cvf@netcom.com
916/325-2120
Home | Legislative Updates | Publications | News Stories | Search