SACRAMENTO – This week the governor signed Senate Bill 1389 by Sen. Megan Dahle, R-Bieber, which caps some fines and provides the Fair Political Practices Commission more flexibility to waive penalties for inadvertent paperwork errors.
Every candidate for public office and elected official must file regular statements disclosing their assets and sources of income, and the process can be more complex than many expect – especially for volunteers who serve their community on local school boards or fire districts. These disclosures are important to reveal and deter conflicts of interest, but at the same time honest mistakes can draw expensive mandatory fines that build by the day.
Capping fines and giving the FPPC authority to be flexible with trivial paperwork errors will ease one of the potential burdens of local service – and it will free up resources at the agency to focus on serious acts of wrongdoing and corruption.
“This doesn’t give anyone a free pass to ignore their disclosures,” said Sen. Dahle. “It allows the commission reasonable discretion to work with filers whose offense is simply late paperwork.”
Specifically, SB 1389 caps the penalty that can be levied on a late filer at $100, gives the FPPC authority to waive daily fines, removes the penalty for filing a copy of an original statement late.
“SB 1389 will allow the FPPC to focus its resources on prosecuting the most serious violations of California’s campaign finance and ethics laws—including conflicts of interest and campaign money laundering—while making public service more accessible by ensuring that good-faith administrative errors are not treated the same as willful noncompliance,” said Adam Silver, chairman of the FPPC. “I thank Governor Newsom for signing this commonsense reform and Senator Dahle for her leadership and partnership in advancing this FPPC-sponsored measure.”