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AP19:081
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 23, 2019
CONTACT:
SOS Press Office
(916) 653-6575
Proposed Initiative Enters Circulation
Replaces State Senate and Assembly With Single-House Legislature; Increases Number of Legislators. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
SACRAMENTO, CA - Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced that the proponent of a new initiative was cleared to begin collecting petition signatures today.
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:
REPLACES STATE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY WITH SINGLE-HOUSE LEGISLATURE; INCREASES NUMBER OF LEGISLATORS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Replaces current State Senate and Assembly of 40 Senators and 80 Assemblymembers with a nonpartisan single-house legislature starting in 2022, initially consisting of 250 legislators. Starting in 2024, the single-house legislature would have one legislator for every 80,000 to 100,000 persons in California. The number of legislators would be updated every ten years to reflect population changes as reported by the national Census. Legislators in the single-house legislature would serve four-year terms, and could serve for no more than twelve years. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: One-time costs of hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the State Capitol in Sacramento, with ongoing increased building maintenance costs of a few million dollars annually. Increased state costs of millions of dollars per year to oversee elections. Increased county costs of up to the low tens of millions of dollars annually to administer elections. Increased state costs of millions of dollars for the Citizen Redistricting Commission each decade. (19-0012.)
The Secretary of State’s tracking number for this measure is 1874 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 19-0012.
The proponent of the measure, Sharon Durst, must collect signatures of 997,139 registered voters (eight percent of the total votes cast for Governor in the November 2018 general election) in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 180 days to circulate petitions for the measure, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials no later than April 20, 2020. The proponent can be reached P.O. Box 569, Somerset, CA 95684.
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