Bill seeks shorter, clearer disclosures for billboard political ads; industry and reform advocates co-sponsor

AB 950, introduced by Assemblymember Salacha, would revise political-ad disclosure rules as they apply to outdoor advertising and other short-format media. Sponsors presented the bill to allow space-saving measures on billboards such as approved abbreviations for contributor names, use of committee ID numbers, and a shortened five-word independent-expenditure disclaimer placed first on the disclosure. The bill is intended to preserve top-funder disclosure while improving legibility and reducing the chance that a disclosure will crowd out the ad message.

Support came from both the California State Outdoor Advertising Association (represented by Audrey Ryticek) and the California Clean Money Campaign (Trent Lang), who said they had worked collaboratively on the measure. Ryticek told the committee that existing rules can force disclosures to occupy large portions of billboard space; Lang said the bill would make disclosures shorter and clearer and that many of the changes were already accepted in other formats like online ads and text messages.

Committee members asked whether the bill—s shortening provisions would apply to text messages and other short formats; witnesses said many of the approved abbreviations and the shortened independent-expenditure disclaimer would also help in text and television formats, noting AB 201 (2019) aimed at text-message disclosures. Senator Choi expressed support after hearing that top contributors would still be disclosed (in some formats as the top one to three contributors) and that the committee number could be used where space is limited.

The committee voted to move AB 950 out of the committee; the hearing record shows the measure advanced on a unanimous recorded vote.

Votes at a glance: Motion to pass to the Committee on Appropriations; committee tally recorded as yes 5, no 0.

Ending: The author invited coauthorship and thanked stakeholders for collaboration.