Examination of petitions.

Existing law requires elections officials to preserve initiative and referendum petitions received or filed in their offices for 8 months after the certification of the results of the election for which the petition qualified, or 8 months after the final examination of the petition by the elections official if the measure is not submitted to the voters. Existing law requires the elections officials to thereafter destroy these petitions as soon as practicable unless certain conditions are satisfied. Existing law authorizes the proponents of a petition, no later than 21 days after certification of the insufficiency, to examine a petition found to be insufficient. If a proponent has commenced examination of a petition pursuant to this provision, this bill would instead require the county elections official to preserve the petition until one year from the date of the proponent's last examination. 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 California Constitution requires local agencies, for the purpose of ensuring public access to the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies, to comply with a statutory enactment that amends or enacts laws relating to public records or open meetings and contains findings demonstrating that the enactment furthers the constitutional requirements relating to this purpose. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.