Political Reform Act of 1974: Secretary of State: online filing and disclosure system.

The Political Reform Act of 1974 generally requires elected officials, candidates for elective office, and committees formed primarily to support or oppose a candidate for public office or a ballot measure, along with other entities, to file periodic campaign statements. The act requires that these campaign statements contain prescribed information related to campaign contributions and expenditures of the filing entities. Existing law, the Online Disclosure Act, requires the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Fair Political Practices Commission, to develop online and electronic filing processes for use by these persons and entities. That act also requires the Secretary of State to make prescribed information from those filings available on the Internet in a user-friendly, easily understandable format that provides the greatest public access, as specified. This bill would require a candidate for elective state office to include and conspicuously display on the homepage of his or her campaign Internet Web site a hyperlink to the Secretary of State's Internet Web site page that displays the candidate's campaign finance information. This requirement would not apply to social media. A willful violation of the Political Reform Act's provisions is punishable as a misdemeanor. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would 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.