Political Reform Act of 1974: disclosures.

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 campaign committees. The act requires a committee that receive contributions totaling $2,000 or more in a calendar year to file a statement of organization with the Secretary of State and, if applicable, a local filing officer. This bill would authorize a campaign committee to redact the bank account number on a copy of a statement of organization filed with a local filing officer, and it would require the Secretary of State to redact the bank account number on a statement of organization filed with the Secretary of State before making the statement available to the public in any form. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. 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.