AB 2219: Attorney General: schedule of donors: confidentiality.
- Session Year: 2015-2016
- House: Assembly
The California Public Records Act, except as specified, requires every state or local agency, upon request, to make records available to any person upon payment of fees to cover costs. The act exempts specific types of listed records from disclosure, including, among other things, records that are exempt or prohibited from disclosure pursuant to federal or state law, as specified.
This bill would specify that those records include a schedule of donors that is exempt from public disclosure under federal law and is provided to the Attorney General as a condition of registration or maintenance of tax exempt status by an organization that is registered as a tax exempt entity under federal law.
Existing law, the Uniform Supervision of Trustees and Fundraisers for Charitable Purposes Act, requires a commercial fundraiser for charitable purposes and a fundraising counsel for charitable purposes to register with and to file specified reports items with the Attorney Generals Registry of Charitable Trusts, Trusts and provides that these documents the register, copies of instruments, and the reports filed with the Attorney General are subject to public inspection, as specified. Existing law requires the Attorney General to withhold any instrument so filed whose content is not exclusively for charitable purposes from public inspection, as specified.
This bill would prohibit the disclosure of a schedule of donors, as defined, by any employee, agent, or official employed by the Attorney General, or any employee, agent, or official of any other agency that has received a schedule of donors from the Attorney General for governmental purposes. The bill would subject an unlawful disclosure to a civil penalty of $10,000, and an additional civil penalty of $25,000 if that disclosure was willful, intentional, or reckless, as specified. additionally include any instrument filed with the Attorney General for these purposes among those documents to be open to public inspection. The bill would, however, require the Attorney General to withhold from public inspection any report filed with any governmental entity, as specified, that is required by law to be kept confidential, specified portions of documents that do not relate to charitable purposes or charitable assets and that are not otherwise records, public and donor information that is exempt from public inspection under a certain federal law, except as specified.
Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.
This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
