Political Reform Act of 1974: behested payments.

The Political Reform Act of 1974 provides for the comprehensive regulation of campaign financing, including requiring the reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures and imposing other reporting and recordkeeping requirements on elected officials and campaign committees. The act defines a behested payment as a payment that is made at the behest of a committee, an elected officer, a member of the Public Utilities Commission, or an agent thereof, under specified circumstances, including a payment that is made principally for personal, legislative, or governmental purposes and that is unrelated to an officer's seeking or holding elective office. The act requires elected officials and members of the Public Utilities Commission to report to the Fair Political Practices Commission behested payments from a single source that, in the aggregate, equal or exceed $5,000 in a calendar year. The act requires that report to be made within 30 days of the date that the payments equal or exceed that amount. This bill would provide that an elected officer or member of the Public Utilities Commission is not required to report payments made in response to an invitation to an event hosted by a nonprofit organization unless the elected officer or member of the Public Utilities Commission, or an agent thereof, makes a direct written or verbal request for a payment for a legislative, governmental, or charitable purpose. The bill would specify that an elected officer or member of the Public Utilities Commission is not considered to have made a direct written request solely because the name, signature, photograph, or similar identifying information of the elected officer or member of the Public Utilities Commission is included in the invitation to the event. 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.