The California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, and the California Association of County Election Officials (CACEO) have decided to ask the legislature to repeal all residency requirements for petition circulators. The proposed bill will provide that out-of-state residents must first register with the Secretary of State before working in California.
I’ve petitioned in California on multiple occasions, and I’ve never once seen a residency requirement enforced, except that it used to be enforced on local petitions in certain cities and counties, but that was thrown out in court back in 2007 and I have not seen or heard of it being enforced anywhere since then. I’ve never even heard of an out-of-state petitioner ban being enforced on state wide petitions in California.
The bill to do so was introduced on Monday, February 11th, by Senator Galgiani as SB 213.