At its May 15 meeting, the California Fair Political Practices Commission received a legislative update from senior commission counsel Lindsay Nacano on more than a dozen active bills that would affect the agency and its work.

Nacano highlighted SB 644 (author: Sen. Blake Spear), which would, beginning January 1, 2027, extend the Political Reform Act’s contribution limits to candidates for judicial office and candidates for school district and community college district offices. The bill would permit a city or county to impose different limits and would permit the Judicial Council, school districts and community college districts to impose more restrictive limits.

The author had requested the commission’s support. Nacano told the commission that implementation costs to the FPPC would be significant: staff estimated six new positions and approximately $1,000,000 in the first year, with just under $1,000,000 ongoing annually (positions in enforcement, legal and audit were referenced). Executive Director Galena West said that securing state funding for those positions would be difficult in the current budget environment and that the agency would likely need to request funding year after year if the bill passed without appropriation.

Chair Silver said he supported the policy goal of uniform contribution limits to protect public trust in elections, but he emphasized two competing priorities: policy importance and the agency’s ability to enforce the law with available resources. “I personally, would not move to support this bill right now, in its current form” because of budget and staffing concerns, he said.

Commissioners asked questions about the scope of the bill and the FPPC’s existing contracting authority. Counsel and staff reviewed the status of other commission-sponsored bills: AB 359 (authority to contract with local agencies) and AB 775 (electronic filing of payment reports) are on the appropriations suspense file; AB 808, AB 1029 and AB 1286 have passed the Assembly; several other bills were noted as active or on the floor.

No commission motion to support SB 644 was taken at the meeting. Commissioners expressed interest in pursuing funding if they decide to support the policy in the future, and staff said they would continue to monitor the bill and provide fiscal detail to the commission as the legislative process proceeds.

The legislative report also included updates on other bills affecting the commission’s operations, such as AB 359 and AB 775 (potential IT and staffing costs) and AB 952, SB 280 and SB 852 (other procedural and technical changes). Counsel noted that certain bills had been amended recently to address stakeholder concerns and that several commission-sponsored bills had received unanimous committee support.