Senate Standing Committee on Elections and Constitutional Amendments

Two measures on our agenda today. Before we hear presentations on the bill, well, we will start as a subcommittee given that we do not have quorum at the moment, so our first item up is AB 596 by Assembly Member Ortega. Please begin when you are ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to present AB 596 today. AB 596 will allow voters to make more informed decisions and understand which entities have paid to put a proposition on the ballot. This bill is a narrowly tailored and carefully crafted version of AB 1188.

I worked extensively with clean money and leadership of both Houses to draft good policy that we could all agree on. Originally designed to empower citizens against powerful interests, the initiative and referendum process has been co-opted by corporations that spent hundreds of millions to manipulate voters and obscure their true agendas.

During the 2024 election, interest groups spent nearly $400 million on ten statewide propositions. That number will only continue to grow in the future elections. I've heard concerns that this bill will politicize the ballot. However, the ballot process is already heavily politicized. Special interests tailor every word of a proposition to meet their needs.

This bill simply lets voters know which groups have funded a proposition. We've also heard some questions about ballot length and cost. The bill allows the Secretary of State to abbreviate words and to reduce the font size to save paper and reduce cost.

The bill requires that the top funders be disclosed, not the committees so as to prevent any organization from manipulating voters with false names. California expects their ballot to provide the basic information they need to make decisions. For decades, we have known that--we have known who is funding a campaign is important information for voters to have.

That's why the state has required that all campaigns list their top funders prominently on every piece of paid mail. This bill simply puts that information on the ballot too. With me testifying in support today are Trent Lynch, the president of executive director of the California Clean Money Campaign; also with me is Ivan Fernandez with the California Federation of Labor Unions.

Thank you. Your two lead witnesses can begin.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Ivan Fernandez, California Federation of Labor Unions, sponsor of AB 596, a bill to increase voter awareness and election transparency.

As stated by the Assembly Member, corporate interests have recently used the initiative and referendum process as their method of bypassing the legislature to fund signature gathering and media campaigns via an endless source of corporate dollars.

The initiative and referendum process was established all the way back in the 1900s as a check on powerful corporate interests, specifically the railroad companies. Today, however--and unfortunately, we've come full circle as billionaires and multibillion corporations funnel money to block, rewrite, and undermine the laws that this democratically elected legislature has passed.

In tandem with massive media campaigns ranging from social media videos to TV ads to mailers, true grassroots organizing is hampered. These initiatives pose an existential threat to workers' rights but also in the ability for the state and local governments to increase revenues to address the state's most pressing issues.

As we face this threat, transparency is our best tool to educate voters. Grassroots movements cannot--simply cannot outspend the flood of corporate money used to back education and media campaigns. So, AB 596 is very simple. It adds that critical information of who is in fact bankrolling the qualification of these initiatives and referendums on the ballot itself.

As everyday working Californians are blitzed by a flurry of paid ads, AB 596 cuts through the mirage of corporate-backed campaigns, and for these reasons, I urge your aye vote at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Trent Lange, president of the California Clean Money Campaign, speaking in strong support of AB 596. We'd like to thank the author and the sponsors for working very closely with us on the language of the bill and really appreciate their leadership.

We sponsored the California DISCLOSE Act bills to require clear disclosure of the top funders of ballot measure ads and initiative petitions, proudly working with authors on this committee, but voters still want and need to know who spends the millions of dollars to qualify ballot measures, yet most don't have the time to hunt that information down online when they vote.

AB 596 solves that problem by adding top funders, a petition to qualify the ballot measure to the ballot label so every voter sees who paid to put the measure there. The analysis does raise important questions about practicality. I'm happy to report they were able to significantly address them in the bill.

First, AB 596 directs the Secretary of State to shorten contributor names and specified names, abbreviating and removing unnecessary words, for example. For example, PG&E Corporation and Affiliated Entities becomes just PG&E. California Labor Federation AFL-CIO becomes just CA Labor Fed. All should be perfectly clear to voters, but much, much shorter.

Our analysis of recent initiative contributors shows these rules shorten long names by over half, so AB 596 will typically add about 125 characters on average, which is comparable to the existing 125 characters shown on the ballot labels individually for supporters and opponents.

Second, AB 596 significantly reduces the games that top contributors can pay to avoid disclosure by directing the Secretary of State to use the DISCLOSE Act rules for calculating them.

Most importantly, the DISCLOSE Act requires that when contributors donate to a specifically identified ballot measure that those contributions are considered to be earmarked and must be shown no matter how many layers of front groups they go through.

With these protections, AB 596 will show every voter this crucial information they need to make, better decisions while using as little additional space as possible, so we respectfully request your aye vote.

Do we have any other support witnesses that would like to approach?

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Mitch Steiger with CFT, A Union of Educators and Classified Professionals, also in support.

Seeing no additional individuals wishing to speak in support, do we have any opposition lead witnesses? Please approach. Please begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Good morning, Senators. Alexis Rodriguez with the California Chamber of Commerce, here testifying in respectful opposition to AB 596. This bill would require the top three contributors of more than--thank you--of more than $100,000 to campaign committees seeking to qualify for an initiative or referendum on the ballot to be listed on the ballot.

Cal Chamber reads AB 596 is too similar to AB 1188: Ortega, which was held on the Assembly suspense file earlier this year for significant costs to the state. AB 1188 was estimated to increase millions of dollars per election, and those would be increased for larger counties.

While we support a transparent electoral process, we believe that AB 596 negatively will impact the integrity and efficiency of that process. While intended to promote transparency, the provisions in AB 596 may mislead voters rather than inform them. Because ballots are printed well in advance of the election, this information presented would be outdated or could potentially be outdated.

Voters may see an incomplete or potential inaccurate snapshot of who is truly supporting these measures. By including detailed contributor information, AB 596 would significantly lengthen the ballot by directing attention away from the policy of the measure.

Research from the Center of the Civic Design shows that voters confronted with long and confusing ballots were more likely to skip these questions entirely, and this undermines voter participation and understanding, directly counteracting the bill's intended goals. In recent years, there have been significant reform as it relates to signature gathering.

AB 596 would result in a fundamental change of the ballot process, and from our perspective, this type of reform should not be rushed. For these reasons, we respectfully urge a no vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the committee room wishing to state their opposition? Seeing none, I will bring it back to committee members. Oh, one moment. If we could have the Secretary of State Office approach, please?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are not in opposition. Tim Cromartie, on behalf of Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber. We do, however, have concerns about this measure. The broad objectives appear to be very good ones because it will clearly advance transparency and help educate voters.

However, we were just alerted of the amendments to this bill at 9:00 last night. We have not had sufficient time to begin to analyze it and we know that we will have costs associated with it. We want to highlight that as well as just note the fact that we learned about this from the Republican Caucus. Thank you.

Seeing no others wishing to come forward, I will just take a moment to thank the sponsors of the bill today and the author for really finding common ground. I know there was a lot of things that had to get worked out, and finding an agreement, right, was important to increase transparency to voters.

With that, I do support the measure, and we will have to wait for additional committee members to arrive, but thank you so much for presenting. And madam, author, Assembly Member Ortega, would you like to offer a closing?

I respectfully ask an aye vote at the appropriate time.

This committee stands in recess.

Before we begin with our last item on file, we will establish a quorum. Secretary, please call the roll.

[roll call].

We have a quorum. I will pass it on to our Vice Chair of the committee while I step down and present this Committee Bill.

So that'll be second one? Yes. Now file number two. SB 852 will be presented by Chair Cervantes. When you're ready, you can go ahead.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, I am here to present SB 852, which is our Committee Bill that makes non controversial but important changes to state law. Among the bill's changes is a prohibition on accepting a campaign contribution in a legislative district office or in a local local government office.

The bill's other provisions are more technical in nature and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Any witnesses or anyone. Okay. You can come over. Any- Anyone would like to in the public make a support statement? Any opposition witnesses? Any opposition person or organization to oppose this? Okay. If not, then I'll bring back to members any opinions, questions?

Thank you.

Okay. Your bill has been moved. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Will you please call the roll.

Motion is that the Assembly amendments be concurrent. [roll call].

Yeah. 30 on call. Do you want to say that into the mic now? We'll put- I'll put in no on call. Okay. Chair, you can take over now.

Thank you, Dr. Choi. We'll go ahead and open the roll on the first item AB 596 and allow members to add on. I'll move item one.

Motion is do passed to the Committee on Appropriations. [roll call].

When the bill is on call, let us open the roll on SB 852.

Lifting call on file item 2 SB 852. [roll call].

That bill's on call. Lift the call on item one, AB 596.

Using call and file item 596. Motion is do passed to the Committee on Appropriations. Chair voted aye. Vice Chair voted no. [roll call].

Four, one, that bill is out, we can lift the call on item two.

SB 852 motion is that the Assembly amendments be concurdant. Chair and Vice Chair voted aye.

5, 0 that bill is out. That concludes- That concludes the Senate Elections Committee hearing. Thank you.