Mike Fong

The Political Reform Act of 1974 provides for the comprehensive regulation of campaign financing, including imposing reporting requirements on elected officials and campaign committees. The act defines a behested payment as a payment that is made at the behest of a committee, an elected officer, a member of the Public Utilities Commission, or an agent thereof, under specified circumstances, including a payment that is made principally for personal, charitable, legislative, or governmental purposes. Under the act, elected officials and members of the Public Utilities Commission are required to report behested payments within 30 days of the payment or payments exceeding $5,000 in the aggregate from the same source in the same calendar year in which they are made. All subsequent behested payments for the calendar year made by that source must be disclosed within 30 days after the date the threshold was reached or the payment was made, whichever occurs later.

This bill would instead require elected officials and members of the Public Utilities Commission to report behested payments within 30 days of the end of the calendar quarter, if the payment or payments exceed $5,000 in the aggregate from the same source in the same calendar year in which they are made. After the initial behested payment report has been filed, the bill would require that subsequent behested payments for the calendar year made by that source be reported within 30 days after the end of the calendar quarter each time those payments equal or exceed an one thousand dollars ($1,000) in the aggregate.

This bill would additionally require the behested payment report to include (1) if the payee is a nonprofit organization, a brief description of any relationship, as specified, of the nonprofit organization to the behesting officer, or a member of their immediate family, or member of their campaign or officeholder staff and (2) a brief description of any proceeding before the behesting officer at the time of a reported payment or within the 12 months before the reported payment in which the payer is the named party or subject of the decision, as specified.

This bill would authorize a behesting officer to satisfy these reporting obligations by providing a good faith estimate of a behested payment amount, payment date, or both, if certain conditions are met, including that the elected officer or Public Utilities Commission member practiced reasonable efforts to obtain the required information and is unable to ascertain the exact amount or date of the behested payment from the payee before the reporting deadline.

Existing law requires these behested payment reports to be filed by the behesting officer or member of the Public Utilities Commission with the officer's or member's agency.

This bill would require these reports to be filed using the commission's electronic filing system for behested payment reports, and would require the filing system to issue an electronic confirmation to the filer immediately upon receipt of the report. The bill would permit an elected officer of a local government to file directly with their local filing officer if all behested payment reports filed by elected officers are posted publicly on the internet website of the local government within 10 days of receipt, as specified.

Existing law makes a knowing or willful violation of the Political Reform Act of 1974 a misdemeanor and subjects offenders to criminal penalties. By expanding the information required in a behested payment report, the bill would expand the scope of an existing crime and impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

The Political Reform Act of 1974, an initiative measure, provides that the Legislature may amend the act to further the act's purposes upon a 23 vote of each house of the Legislature and compliance with specified procedural requirements.

This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the act.