The City Council recently passed an ordinance codifying lobbyist registration fees and fee penalties.

The registration fee is $500 with a late filing fee of $10 per day for registrations and reports and a fee cap of $1,000.

The ordinance also implements a partial or complete waiver of registration fees for a local governmental lobbyist who, along with other criteria, is a salaried employee of an organization or association that is a 501(c)(3).

The ordinance also establishes a lobbyist training requirement and lobbyists must complete an online training session offered by the Public Ethics Commission with 60 days of initial registration.

Quarterly reports will now be due no later than the last day of the month following the end of each calendar quarter.

This ordinance is effective immediately.

City Council members voted unanimously to pass a policy requiring the members to post their calendar online.

The postings will list any meetings that occur with lobbyists, developers, union representatives, and residents.

This policy comes following an FBI statement concluding Anaheim City Hall appears to be heavily influenced by Disneyland resort interests and their lobbyists.

The new policy will begin January 2024.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has picked Laphonza Butler to fill Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat.

Butler is the current president of Emily’s List, a national political organization that focuses on electing Democratic women who support abortion access.

She previously served as president of a labor union and as an advisor to Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign.

Butler also has political ties to Newsom, as she was a partner in the political consulting firm now known as Bearstar Strategies that is run by the governor’s veteran strategists Ace Smith, Sean Clegg, and Juan Rodriguez.

Butler is only a short-term caretaker of the seat, with the position being voted on the 2024 ballot.

None of the three front runners were chosen for the appointment. Newsom stated he did not want to play favorites ahead of the 2024 election.

Dianne Feinstein passed away at the age of 90.

Feinstein’s death leaves a vacant U.S. Senate seat, requiring Gov. Gavin Newsome to appoint a temporary successor.

Feinstein started her public service career as president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1978. She was also appointed Mayor of San Francisco before winning a special election for her U.S. Senate seat.

During her decades-spanning career, she was a major gun-control advocate, helped create the AMBER alert network, and sponsored bills protecting millions of acres of California desert.

She declared earlier this year she would not seek reelection at the end of her term in 2024.

The San Jose City Council has approved changes to the city’s ethics rules.

Officials have lowered the city’s revolving door prohibition for former employees from two years down to one, removed fees for late lobbying disclosures, and uncapped reimbursement amounts for personal loans candidates made to their campaigns.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 678 into law on September 1.

Senate Bill 678 requires a person paid by a committee to post content online supporting or opposing a candidate or a ballot measure to include a disclaimer stating they were paid to make the post.

This bill targets “influencers” and follows California’s recent trend on curtailing social media’s influence on elections.

The bill will become effective January 1, 2024.

The San Francisco Ethics Commission has drafted regulations, overhauling the city’s gift law.

While the regulation does not change the gift limit, the regulation heavily alters what is considered not a gift, adding more exclusions, and better defining existing exclusions.

The new regulations will only become operative if they are approved by the voters on the March 5, 2024 ballot.

The Oakland Ethics Commission passed a Master Fee Schedule including a newly added annual lobbyist registration fee of $500 and a late filing fee of $10 per day for registrations and reports.

The City Council approved the inclusion of the additional fees in the annual Master Fee Schedule yearly update.

Currently, the Ethics Commission is seeking to alter the new fee structure.

The commission is seeking to waive fees for 501(c)(3) organizations with less than $750,000 in annual revenue; a reduction of fees with less than $200,000 in annual revenue; and a reduced fee for third and fourth quarter registrants.

The new proposal has been sent to the City Council for their approval.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that California’s Government Code §3205, which bars employees of local governmental entities from soliciting political contributions from coworkers but places no such restriction on state employees, is unconstitutional.

U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon held the statute’s discrimination against local employees is not justified under any arguably applicable standard.

Berzon specified that the case, Progressive Democrats for Social Justice v. Bonta, was decided on First Amendment principles, not equal protection concerns.

The Fair Political Practices Commission has passed multiple regulations clarifying Senate Bill 1439 and Political Advertising.

The regulations dealing with Senate Bill 1439 focus on who is disqualified and how an officer would know a donor has a financial interest in a proceeding before the officer.

Regulations revising political advertising add additional disclosures and adds regulations to less-used methods of communication.

A coalition of business groups have filed a lawsuit against the Fair Political Practices Commission, seeking to stop enforcement of new pay-to-play restrictions in Senate Bill 1439.

The new law removed the exception for locally elected officials and extended the restricted period from three to 12 months.

The lawsuit seeks to throw out the new law, claiming the bill is unconstitutional, both in the manner it altered the Political Reform Act and in practice.

Plaintiffs allege Senate Bill 1439 does not further the original purpose of the Political Reform Act, but directly conflicts with the original provisions regulating certain financial conflicts of interest of public officials.

Additionally, the plaintiffs claim the bill is unconstitutional on freedom of speech grounds, stating the bill significantly restricts the making and receiving of campaign contributions to local elected officials throughout the state.

No trial date has been set at this time.

The Orange County Council has voted to raise the campaign contribution limit from $2,200 to $2,500 per election cycle.

The Orange County Campaign Reform Ordinance requires the board to adjust the campaign contribution limitation in February of every odd year.

The Orange County Council adjusts the contribution limit according to changes in the Consumer Price Index and rounds to the nearest $100.

The city of Anaheim raised campaign contribution limits to $2,500 per election cycle.

Anaheim reevaluates contribution limits at the start of every odd-numbered year and alters them based on the consumer price index (CPI) of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim region.

The area’s CPI increased by 11.8% and the contribution limit was changed, rounded to the nearest $100, to reflect this change from the previous limit of $2,200.

The Los Angeles’ Ad hoc committee on governance reform has recommended the approval of an ethics commission report that would change the rules on persons and organizations lobbying the city.

The commission, whose origins revolves around a controversial leaked audio tape from two former members of the city council, have been tasked on overhauling the city’s ethics laws.

The commission recommended setting a compensation threshold of $5,000 per year that would require a person to register as a lobbyist.

The recommendation also included a requirement for lobbyists to identify their positions on matters about which they are lobbying and lowering the threshold which triggers disclosures when lobbyists distribute political fundraiser solicitations to 15 or more people, down from a threshold of 50 people.

The next step is for the City Council to vote on the commission’s recommendations at their next meeting.