Grading State Disclosure 2004 Logo Graphic

C a l i f o r n i a

Grade
Rank
B+
2

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Subcategories
Grade
Rank
Campaign Disclosure Law
A
1
Electronic Filing Program
A-
22
Disclosure Content Accessibility
A
4
Online Contextual & Technical Usability
C
19

Grading Process green cube Subcategory Weighting green cube Methodology green cube Glossary

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The State of Disclosure in California

California's very strong disclosure program earned a B+ again in 2007 and achieved the second highest overall ranking with gains made in the Online Contextual and Technical Usability category.

California’s disclosure law ranks first overall, with strengths such as the timely reporting of last-minute contributions and independent expenditures, and comprehensive auditing provisions contributing to the state’s A grade. Candidates are required to provide detailed information on donors who give $100 or more, including occupation and employer data. While campaigns must report expenditures made by subvendors, a weakness of the law found in this assessment is that campaigns are not required to report the date a payment is made to a vendor. Electronic filing is mandatory for all state-level candidates who reach a $50,000 threshold. While a new, free, web-based filing system was introduced in 2005, funding issues accounted for a slight drop in the state’s 2007 Electronic Filing grade.

California again earned an A and a top-five ranking in the Disclosure Content Accessibility category in 2007. All electronically-filed reports are available on the state’s “Cal-Access” web site going back to 2000, with new reports becoming available online immediately upon filing. Along with browsable PDF versions of disclosure reports, the site also features searchable databases of contributions and expenditures. A weakness found on the Cal-Access site is that the amended disclosure reports replace the original reports in a candidate’s filing history.

California’s grade for Online Contextual and Technical Usability improved from a D+ to a C as usability testers found the site more understandable and were able to more confidently find and extract campaign finance data than in 2005. California also strengthened the contextual information online by posting campaign contribution limits on the Cal-Access site that had previously been found only on the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission site. Even with these improvements, the usability of California’s disclosure site still ranks only as average in this assessment. The Secretary of State’s office is planning to overhaul the disclosure site and could make additional improvements by publishing an online user’s guide.

Quick Fix: Provide better visual clues for accessing and searching the online databases by changing the label from “Advanced Search” to “Search Contributions and Expenditures”. This impressive feature on the site could be easily missed by site visitors due to the inconspicuous placement of the link on the main page, and a label that might be intimidating to novice users.

Editor’s Pick:Candidates & Elected Officials” page provides options for accessing browsable lists of candidates, incumbents and links to electronic filers’ reports for all elections held since 2000. View image

 

Disclosure Agency: Secretary of State
Disclosure Web Site:
http://www.sos.ca.gov

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First published October 16, 2007
| Last updated October 17, 2007
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Campaign Disclosure Project. All rights reserved.