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Campaign Finance Initiative Enters Circulation

Campaign Finance. Political Communications. Donor Disclosure. Initiative Statute.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced 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, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

CAMPAIGN FINANCE. POLITICAL COMMUNICATIONS. DONOR DISCLOSURE. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Requires a nonprofit organization to disclose its $1,000 donors if it spends over $50,000 in donor funds, for year, on political activities in California. Requires certain nonprofit organizations to disclose their $10,000 donors if the nonprofit spends $400,000 per legislative session or $75,000 per calendar quarter on lobbying, or on communications that identify but do not advocate for or against a candidate. Requires communications that are distributed urging recipients to contact government officials, for purpose of influencing governmental action, to identify the two largest donors of $50,000 or more funding the distribution. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: No significant fiscal effect on state or local governments (13-0054.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1642 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 13-0054.

The proponent for the measure, Lance Olson, must collect signatures of 504,760 registered voters (five 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 the measure, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials by July 10, 2014.

The proponent can be reached at (916) 442-2952.

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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