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Political Communications to Employees
September
21, 2005
Telling Employees
How State
Legislation, Regulations and
Ballot Measures Affect Them
and Your Company
Click here to download this information in a PDF format
 Informing your
employees and stockholders about the impact of proposed state
legislation, regulations and ballot measures is within your
rights as a business owner. Just remember to do it the right
way.
The dilemma: You
know that pending state legislation, a proposed regulation or a
ballot measure will have a huge impact on your business, either
directly because it affects your company/industry, or indirectly
because of its impact on the jobs climate and economy. You’d
like to let your employees know about your concerns — but can
you?
The answer is yes — IF you keep in mind and follow some “dos and
don’ts”
outlined in state law or regulations. Following is a quick
overview, including actions to avoid.
You CAN
- Communicate with your employees, stockholders and their
families about the company’s support of or opposition to state
legislation, regulations or ballot measures.
- Encourage your employees, stockholders and their families to
support or oppose state legislation, regulations or ballot
measures.
- Communicate your
political messages to your own employees (and their families)
through such means as:
< internal mail
systems (separate from payroll distribution);
< e-mail systems;
< regular mail;
< bulletin boards;
< phone bank messages; or
< employee meetings.
- Inform employees,
stockholders and their families about the effect of state
legislation, regulations and ballot measures on the company, its
employees and stockholders.
You CANNOT
- Control or direct the political activities of your employees
“through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of
employment.”
- Coerce your
employees to support or oppose a ballot measure.
- Reward or punish employees for their political activities or
beliefs (or threaten to do so).
- Put any political messages in or on employees’ payroll
envelopes. NO PAYCHECK STUFFERS.
When to Report What You Spend as Contributions or Lobbying
You NEED NOT REPORT
- What you spend for internal
communications to your employees, stockholders and their
families about your support of or opposition to state
ballot measures.
- The cost for an employee who spends less than 10 percent of
his/her paid time per month (the equivalent of one day every two
weeks) on the company’s political communications program,
including communications relating to proposed state legislation,
regulations and ballot measures.
- What you spend for communications
about proposed state legislation/
regulations, if you are not a California lobbyist employer, and
you spend less
than $5,000 in a calendar quarter to communicate with your
employees or
stockholders about your company’s support for or opposition to
state
legislation or regulation (legislative and regulatory advocacy
or “lobbying”) or
to make other lobbying expenditures. (This does not include
ballot measure
expenditures.)
You MUST REPORT
- Any communications
to external audiences about the company’s positions on state
ballot measures. These expenses must be reported as either an
“in-kind” contribution or an independent expenditure. External
audiences are those outside of employees, stockholders and their
families.
For example:
< non-stockholder retirees
< outside vendors
< customers
< passersby
Examples of
communications that speak to external audiences:
< window signs
< billboards
You MUST REPORT
- If the cumulative total of your political contributions
(monetary and nonmonetary combined) is $10,000 or more in a
calendar year.
The $10,000 threshold is the combined total of your monetary/nonmonetary
contributions to:
< state ballot
measures
< local ballot measures
< candidates
< political action committees (PACs)
< political parties
(The report is FPPC
Form 461 for “Major Donors.”)
Note: There is no
campaign contribution limit for monetary and non-monetary
contributions to ballot measure committees. The contribution is
simply subject
to reporting, as outlined above.
You MUST REPORT
- Expense of communications about proposed state
legislation/regulations.
- If you are a
“state lobbyist employer” OR
- You spend $5,000 or more in a calendar quarter to communicate
with your employees or stockholders about your company’s support
for
or opposition to state legislation or regulation (legislative
and regulatory advocacy or “lobbying”) or to make other lobbying
expenditures. (This
does not include ballot measure expenditures.)
- This covers
expenses such as:
< the costs of a mailing (for example,
printing and postage)
< a telephone bank
< the salaries of employees who spend 10 percent or more of
their
compensated time per month (that is, one full day every two
weeks) working on the lobby components of your political
communications program.
Note: Non-lobbyist
employers that spend $5,000 or more in a quarter must file a
simple Form 645 for that quarter, available from the Fair
Political Practices Commission (FPPC).
The above information was provided by the California Chamber of
Commerce.
Click here to download this information in a PDF format
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