When COVID-19 hit California in March, Fred Kimball was circulating a petition to qualify Initiative 1887 for the November 2020 election. In a panic, he purchased 300,000 pens that were individually wrapped in plastic so that his circulators could safely approach 623,212 voters about signing the petition without fear of being exposed to the coronavirus.
“We ended up finishing up the signatures just before we really needed the pens but I have them for the next initiative,” said Kimball, who owns Kimball Petition Management in Thousand Oaks.
Initiative Statute 1887, if voted in, will authorize the regulation of kidney dialysis by the state and require clinics to have a medical director who is a licensed physician.
“We got lucky because we started early in January and had good circulation,” Kimball told the Southern California Record. “We got it done.”
Had they not accomplished the 623,212 signatures before Gov. Newsom shut down the economy, Kimball said he would have asked for an extension to meet the state deadline. Political petitioning was not designated an essential business during the pandemic shut down and, as a result, in-person signature-gathering stopped altogether.
“There was this wild belief out there that the state would grant us an extension because of the circumstances,” said Kimball. “You spend millions of dollars trying to qualify something and then a pandemic happens. We just had a feeling that maybe an extension would be a possibility.”
Although Kimball didn’t require an extension for Initiative Statute 1887, the petition circulator for an initiative statute reducing plastic waste filed a writ of mandamus to Superior Court in Sacramento and was granted an extension until September 28, by Judge James P. Arguelles for a future election.
“Large public venues remain closed, and many voters whom Petitioners' circulators attempt to engage elsewhere refuse to interact,” wrote Judge Arguelles in the order. “In addition, because several county elections offices have been closed to the public, Petitioners have been unable to inspect many of the voter files typically used to ensure a favorable validity rate for signatures gathered. Also, far fewer persons are willing to act as circulators.”
Another initiative that qualified to appear on the ballot in November 2020 will limit businesses from using sensitive personal information, such as precise geolocation, race, ethnicity, religion, genetic data, union membership, private communications and certain sexual orientation, health, and biometric information.
Initiative statute 1887, also known as the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), amends consumer privacy laws, which the Civil Justice Association of California (CJAC) says threatens California businesses with excessive litigation, more compliance burdens and lawsuit exposure.
The CPRA, if passed by voters in November, will replace the existing California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), according to Kyla Christoffersen Powell, president and CEO of CJAC.
“Rulemaking for CCPA has yet to be finalized and voters will already face an update to the law without having any time to see its full effects,” Powell told the Southern California Record. “Worse still, while problems with CCPA can be addressed by the legislature, initiative statutes such as CPRA can only be amended by initiative if the revision conflicts with or doesn’t 'further' the statute.”
The CPRA is expected to lock into statute a vague and broad private right of action which gives private attorneys the ability to shakedown businesses with lawsuits alleging violations of a law where clear standards are missing, according to Powell
“Especially during these unprecedented times, CPRA will only further hamper the ability of businesses to recover from the economic downturn,” Powell said.