9011.5.
(a) (1)Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition that requires voter signatures and is circulated by a paid circulator who is paid paid for by a committee formed pursuant to Section 82013 of the Government Code shall include, in 12-point type at the top of the petition, a disclosure statement that identifies the names of the persons from whom the committee received the three largest cumulative contributions of
fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) or more. Each contributor shall be identified on separate lines on the disclosure statement. include a disclosure statement that is displayed as follows:(1) The disclosure statement shall have a solid white background and shall be in a printed or drawn box with a black border and shall appear before that portion of the petition for voters’ signatures, printed names, and residence addresses. The text in the disclosure area shall be in a black Arial equivalent type with a type size of at least 10-point, with all lines centered horizontally in the disclosure area.
(2) The top of the disclosure shall include the text “Paid for by”, followed by the name of the committee. If the committee has any top contributors, it shall be followed by the text “Committee major funding from:”. The text specified in this paragraph shall be underlined.
(3) The top contributors, if any, shall each be disclosed on a separate horizontal line, in descending order, beginning with the top contributor who made the largest cumulative contributions on the first line.
(4) The following line shall include the text “Updated”, followed by the date the top contributors were calculated, followed by the
text “Latest top contributors at www.fppc.ca.gov”. The text specified in this paragraph shall be underlined.
(5) The committee, in its discretion, may include the underlined text “Endorsed by:”, followed by a list, not underlined, of up to three endorsing individuals, corporations, or non-profit organizations that have been in existence for at least six months and receive contributions from 100 or more persons.
(6) The disclosure of a top contributor pursuant to this section need not include terms such as “incorporated,” “committee,” “political action committee,” or “corporation,” or abbreviations of these terms, unless the term is part of the contributor’s name in
common usage or parlance.
(7) If this section requires the disclosure of the name of a top contributor that is a committee pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 82013 and is a sponsored committee pursuant to Section 82048.7 with a single sponsor, only the name of the single sponsoring organization shall be disclosed.
(b) The disclosure statement required by subdivision (a) shall be updated within fourteen days of any change in the identities of the top contributors, unless the change is only a change in their order. A committee that employs one or more paid circulators shall ensure that their paid circulators use petitions with the updated disclosure within 21
days.
(2)If more than three persons meet the disclosure threshold described in paragraph (1) and have made identical cumulative contributions, the
three persons making the largest cumulative
contributions shall be disclosed according to chronological sequence of receipt of the cumulative contributions.
(3)The disclosure statement required by paragraph (1) shall be updated within fourteen days of any change in the identities of three largest cumulative contributors. The updated statement shall include at the bottom of the page the following: “Current as of [Date]. For the latest contribution totals, go to
www.fppc.ca.gov/initiatives.”
(4)
(c) A committee that employs one or more paid circulators to circulate a state initiative, referendum, or recall petition shall submit the disclosure statement required by paragraph (1), subdivision (a), and any updates to that statement as required by paragraph (3), subdivision (b), to the Secretary of State, who shall post
that statement on his or her the Secretary of State’s Internet Web site.
(b)A committee that employs one or more paid circulators to circulate an initiative, referendum, or recall petition shall print on the petition, immediately following the disclosure statement required pursuant to subdivision (a), its name and shall identify itself using a name or phrase that clearly
describes the economic or other special interest of each person who contributed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) or more. If two or more of these persons have the same employer, the committee shall also include the employer’s identity in the disclosure statement.
(c)
(d) As used in this section, “cumulative contributions” means the cumulative amount of contributions received by a committee beginning 12 months prior to the date the committee made its first expenditure to qualify or support the measure. Cumulative contributions totaling more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) shall be rounded to the nearest ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
(e) (1) As used in this section, “top contributors” means the persons from whom the committee paying for the petition has received its three highest cumulative contributions of fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) or more.
(2) If there is a tie between two or more contributors for the third highest cumulative contributions, then ties between top contributors shall be decided by chronological order starting with the first contributions.
(d)
(f) This section shall not be construed to require a local elections official to verify the accuracy of the information required by subdivision (a) or (b) or to reapprove the petition upon the update required by paragraph (3) of subdivision (a). (b).
(e)
(g) Signatures collected on an initiative, referendum, or recall petition are not invalid solely because the information required by
subdivision (a) or (b) was absent or inaccurate.