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Government Purchasing Initiative Enters Circulation

State and Local Government
Purchasing. Made in United States. Initiative Statute.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponents of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for their measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponents and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponents and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PURCHASING. MADE IN UNITED STATES. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Amends existing state law, previously held unconstitutional, that required state and local governments to use only products made in the United States. Eliminates exceptions for materials that are not generally produced in the United States, for medical and scientific equipment, for sewing machines, for printing presses, and for office machines and supplies. Creates new limited exceptions for some foreign materials, including where restriction prohibited by federal law, for spare parts for existing equipment, and for literature, artwork, and historical artifacts. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increased state and local government costs to purchase goods and materials, potentially in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. (11-0027)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1505 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 11-0027.

The proponents for this measure, Jim Gonzalez, Bill Zimmerman, and John Thiella, must collect signatures of 504,760 registered voters – the number equal to five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponents have 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by February 27, 2012.

The initiative proponents can be reached at (916) 449-6190.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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