California Government Code Section 84504.1

CA Govt Code § 84504.1 (2017)  

(a) An advertisement paid for by a committee, other than a political party committee or a candidate controlled committee established for an elective office of the controlling candidate, that is disseminated as a video, including advertisements on television and videos disseminated over the Internet, shall include the disclosures required by Sections 84502 and 84503 at the beginning or end of the advertisement.

(b) The disclosure required by subdivision (a) shall be written and displayed for at least five seconds of a broadcast of 30 seconds or less or for at least 10 seconds of a broadcast that lasts longer than 30 seconds.

(1) The written disclosure required by subdivision (a) shall appear on a solid black background on the entire bottom one-third of the television or video display screen, or bottom one-fourth of the screen if the committee does not have or is otherwise not required to list top contributors, and shall be in a contrasting color in Arial equivalent type, and the type size for the smallest letters in the written disclosure shall be 4 percent of the height of the television or video display screen. The top contributors, if any, shall each be disclosed on a separate horizontal line, in descending order, beginning with the top contributor who made the largest cumulative contributions on the first line. The name of each of the top contributors shall be centered horizontally. The written disclosures shall be underlined, except for the names of the top contributors, if any.

(2) If using a type size of 4 percent of the height of the television or video display screen causes the name of any of the top contributors to exceed the width of the screen or causes the disclosures to exceed one-third of the television or video display screen, the type size of the name of the top contributor shall be reduced until the top contributor’s name fits on the width of the screen or the entire disclosure fits within one-third of the television or video display screen, but in no case shall the type size be smaller than 2.5 percent of the height of the screen.

(c) An advertisement that is an independent expenditure supporting or opposing a candidate shall include the appropriate statement from Section 84506.5 in the solid black background described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) below all other text required to appear in that area in a contrasting color and in Arial equivalent type no less than 2.5 percent of the height of the television or video display screen.

(Added by Stats. 2017, Ch. 546, Sec. 13. (AB 249) Effective October 7, 2017. Operative January 1, 2018, by Stats. 2017, Ch. 546, Sec. 29.)

Last modified: October 25, 2018