Political Reform Act of 1974.

(1) Existing law, the Political Reform Act of 1974, provides for the comprehensive regulation of campaign financing, including requiring the reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures, as defined, and imposing other reporting and recordkeeping requirements on campaign committees, as defined. The Fair Political Practices Commission administers and enforces the act. A violation of the act's provisions is punishable as a misdemeanor. This bill would revise the definition of "contribution" to include certain payments made by a person to a multipurpose organization, as specified. This bill would require multipurpose organizations that meet specified criteria to comply with the registration and campaign reporting requirements of the act, as specified, including the disclosure of information relating to the organization's donors. This bill would require state ballot measure committees and state candidate committees that raise $1,000,000 or more for an election to maintain an accurate list of the committee's top 10 contributors. This bill would require a committee to provide accurate lists of these contributors to the Commission, and would require the Commission to post the top 10 contributor lists on its Internet Web site, as specified, and to post updates to those lists when prescribed events occur. The bill would require the Commission to provide copies of the top 10 contributor lists to the Secretary of State, at the Secretary of State's request, for purposes of posting those lists on the Secretary of State's Internet Web site. (2) The act requires a candidate or committee that receives contributions of $5,000 or more from any person to inform the contributor within 2 weeks that he or she may be subject to the act's reporting requirements. This bill would require that the candidate or committee inform the contributor within one week for a contribution of $10,000 or more received during the period in which late contribution reports must be filed. The bill would also require the notifications to reference the reporting requirements for multipurpose organizations. By expanding the scope of existing crimes, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (3) Existing law requires the Secretary of State to prepare a ballot pamphlet that includes specified information with respect to an election. This bill would require the Secretary of State to include in the ballot pamphlet a written explanation of the top 10 contributor lists required by the bill, including a description of the Internet Web sites where those lists would be available to the public. (4) 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. (5) 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 and compliance with specified procedural requirements. This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the act. (6) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute. The bill would delay the operative date of its provisions until July 1, 2014.