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Retirement Initiative Enters Circulation

Requires Minimum Investment by Public Pension or Retirement
Systems in California Businesses. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

REQUIRES MINIMUM INVESTMENT BY PUBLIC PENSION OR RETIREMENT SYSTEMS IN CALIFORNIA BUSINESSES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.Requires all State and local public pension or retirement systems to invest and maintain at least 85 percent of their assets in California businesses in which at least 70 percent of the employees are employed within California by January 1, 2016. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Potential increase in state and local pension contribution costs of billions of dollars per year (as measured in today’s dollars), depending on how this measure is implemented. Unknown, but likely not significant, net long-term change in state economic activity and related state and local revenues. (11-0018)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1498 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 11-0018.

The proponent for this measure, Michael Lee Madsen, Sr., must collect signatures of 807,615 registered voters – the number equal to eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by January 12, 2012.

The initiative proponent can be reached at foramericanow@aol.com or cre8jobs4usplus1@aol.com. No phone number was provided.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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