Political Reform Act of 1974: committee termination.

The Political Reform Act of 1974 provides for the comprehensive regulation of campaign financing, including requiring the filing of reports of contributions and expenditures. The act requires committees and candidates to terminate their filing obligation, as provided by the Fair Political Practices Commission by regulation, ensuring that the committee or candidate will have no activity that must be disclosed subsequent to the termination. This bill would provide that if either of 2 conditions is present, the Secretary of State must provide notice to committees that receive contributions totaling $2,000 or more per year that the committee will be automatically terminated 180 days after the notice is sent. Those conditions are: 1) The committee failed to submit a campaign report for at least the preceding 12 months and either had an ending cash balance of $3,000 or less on its last campaign statement or had an ending cash balance of $5,000 or less on its last campaign statement and owes $2,000 or more to the controlling candidate; 2) The committee filed a statement of organization in error. The bill would specify that if an objection to the termination notice is not filed by the committee or the commission with the Secretary of State within 180 days after the notice is sent, the Secretary of State must terminate the committee. 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.