California Common Cause is working every day to build a better, stronger, more inclusive democracy in California, at the state and local levels. We believe in tackling the challenges facing our democracy from every angle. That means we work on voting rights and protecting access to the ballot, of course, but we also work on redistricting reform and fighting back gerrymandering, campaign finance reform and limiting the influence of big money in our politics, media policy reform and uplifting local journalism that holds power accountable, and a variety of other topics. Our success in the California State Legislature in 2024 tells the story of our multifaceted efforts to build a California democracy that finally represents everyone. 

AI, Disinformation, and Our Democracy

California Common Cause launched the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED) in November 2023 to help California lead the fight for solutions to the threats that disinformation, AI, deepfakes, and other emerging technologies pose to our democracy and our elections. 

The United States is now in its first-ever AI election, in which AI deepfakes poison our political discourse and voters may not know what images, audio, or video they can trust. Powerful, easy-to-access new tools are available to candidates, conspiracy theorists, foreign states, and online trolls who want to deceive voters and undermine trust in our elections. Perhaps you saw Elon Musk’s tweet, sharing a deepfake video of Kamala Harris. A hyper-realistic but fake version of the VP degrades herself and calls herself a “deep state puppet.” Sadly, it was viewed more than 150 million times in a single week. Perhaps you heard about the fake Joe Biden robocall, in which New Hampshire Democrats got a phone call with a hyper-realistic but fake recording of the President telling them NOT to vote in the Granite State primary election.

Now imagine the deepfake you see is of your county elections official “caught on tape” confirming Big Lie conspiracies about the 2024 election being stolen. Or imagine a fake robocall of Governor Newsom that goes out to millions of Californians on the eve of Election Day telling them that their voting location has changed. AI disinformation isn’t just a danger to candidates; it’s a danger to the integrity of our elections and democracy. 

The public is hungry for solutions. In November 2023 polling from Berkeley IGS, 84% of California voters said they are concerned about digital threats to elections and 73% said they believe state government has a “responsibility” to take action. That support runs across voters of all races, ages, genders, regions, and political parties.

In its first year, CITED has cemented itself as Sacramento’s go-to source of independent, unbiased policy expertise where technology issues impact democracy and voters. In addition to consulting with leading state lawmakers and regulators, and in the face of congressional inaction, CITED advanced its own legislative agenda. We are proud to see these bills pass the State Legislature after eight months of hard work:

• AB 2839, from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin. Keeps misleading deepfakes out of campaign ads and election communications close to Election Day, protecting candidates and elections officials, while respecting the First Amendment. This law would have addressed Elon Musk’s deepfake video of Vice President Kamala Harris, viewed 150 million times in one week.
• AB 2655, from Assemblymember Marc Berman. Combats online disinformation in our elections by requiring social media platforms to label generative AI deepfakes that can deceive voters as digital/fake content, and by prohibiting the posting of the most pernicious of them close to Election Day. 

We are thrilled with our success in CITED’s first year. We got two major bills across the finish line in the Legislature. We were consulted by legislative leadership in both houses and by key committees in closed-door briefings. We negotiated big changes to first-in-the-nation bills with the largest social media platforms and tech companies in the world. We held a series of community forums that spread the word about AI disinformation and digital threats to our democracy with key community leaders around the state. And we have more to come in 2025. 

You can learn more about CITED and its interdisciplinary, nonpartisan, pro-innovation approach at CITED.tech.

Conflict of Interest Protections in Local Government

In 2022, California Common Cause was the primary supporter of SB 1439 (Glazer), a law that prohibits local elected officials from taking campaign contributions over $250 from special interest entities, like developers and contractors, who have business in front of those officials. SB 1439 had zero no votes in the legislature and was signed by the Governor. In 2023, all the business and industry groups in Sacramento sued to stop the law and promptly lost in court.

In 2024, Sacramento special interests — ranging from the bigger business groups to the biggest labor groups — returned with two pieces of legislation, SB 1243 and AB 2911, to roll SB 1439 back. AB 2911 would have repealed the entire law and SB 1243 would have substantially watered it down.

After months of incredibly hard work from California Common Cause and California Clean Money Campaign, we are proud to share that AB 2911 was defeated and SB 1243 was amended to account for California Common Cause’s concerns. At the final stage of the Legislature, and after long negotiations with the author’s office, we removed our opposition to SB 1243. Working on these bills has sapped an astronomical amount of our capacity in 2024, and kept us from dedicating time to other priorities. But it has also shown that special interests and politicians can’t mess with California Common Cause’s wins without facing months of tenacious opposition. It has also shown that California Common Cause can prevail in David vs. Goliath situations because of the strength of our reputation and our policy work.

Language Access in California Elections

To build the nation’s first truly inclusive, multiracial democracy, California must build the nation’s first multilingual democracy. Our state is incredibly diverse, with more households in California speaking languages other than English than in any other state. Approximately 2.94 million of our neighbors and friends are eligible voters and identify as limited-English proficient. But many of them, including speakers of Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, and Armenian, remain left out and underserved.

A California Common Cause-sponsored bill for 2023 and 2024, AB 884 extends language and translation services in the voting process to previously excluded language communities and makes California (which has fallen behind other states on this topic) the undisputed nationwide leader on ensuring access to the ballot for immigrant communities. The bill passed the Legislature this week and now moves the Governor.

Recall Reform

In 2021, an extremist political minority was able to force Californians into a gubernatorial recall that turned into a months-long partisan circus. The attempted recall wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a special election, even though the Governor had to run for reelection one year later anyway. The recall sucked up all the political oxygen at the expense of actual solutions and made California a laughingstock nationally. Worst of all, because California’s rules for recall elections make little sense, the door was open to a minority of voters imposing their choice for Governor on the rest of us at a very low-turnout special election. And at the end of it all, voters rejected this stunt by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, changing nothing.

SCA 1, which passed the State Legislature this year, puts a constitutional amendment for voters to consider on the 2026 ballot. That ballot measure, if passed, would get rid of the second ballot question during a recall, which picks the Governor’s replacement. In the event of a successful recall the Lieutenant Governor would fill the job, which is already the case if the Governor quits, travels, or is incapacitated. Californians would then vote for the new Governor at the next general election, ensuring higher turnout and majority support for whoever is selected.

This approach keeps the recall for when we really need it but, because it ensures a duly elected constitutional officer takes office in the event of a successful recall instead of the pet candidate of the opposition, it should end politicized recalls that turn into circuses and delegitimize our state’s democracy.

California Common Cause is proud of the work our team led in the California State Legislature in 2024. We do that work with a unique perspective — strictly nonpartisan, high integrity, and relentlessly holding power to account. But we can’t do any of it without the support of California Common Cause members and the partner organizations who stand by our side, fighting the good fight for democracy. We are excited to return to the Legislature with an even bigger legislative package in 2025!