SACRAMENTO, CA – Governor Gavin Newsom signed three bills by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) to strengthen and defend California’s democracy, building upon Assemblymember Berman’s decade of leadership increasing the accessibility, security, and transparency of California’s elections.
“While Trump continues to lie about election integrity and obsessively undermine our democracy, California is showing the nation that voters deserve accessible, secure, and transparent elections,” said Assemblymember Berman. “I thank Governor Newsom for putting California voters first. Our democracy is incredibly fragile, and we must ensure that Californians’ fundamental right to free and fair elections is protected at all costs.”
The most high-profile bill of the package, AB 1130, will increase transparency for social media content that has been paid for by a political campaign.
“As we saw in California’s gubernatorial primary, social media and the growing influencer industry have changed the way candidates communicate with voters,” said Assemblymember Berman. “Transparency is essential to our democracy and to our elections. Voters should not be misled by content that feels authentic, when in reality it is paid political messaging. AB 1130 will strengthen voter trust in our elections, and ensure California’s leading elections transparency laws keep up with the times.”
Under California law, if a political campaign pays a social media influencer to post content, the influencer must put a disclaimer stating they were paid in connection to the post. However, there is no liability, for either the influencer or the campaign, if the influencer fails to follow the law.
AB 1130 will ensure compliance by increasing liability if either the influencer or the political campaign fails to include a disclosure in connection with a paid social media post. Importantly, AB 1130 also requires campaigns to disclose if funds were used specifically for a paid social media post in their campaign expenditure filings.
Paying social media influencers to post content has become increasingly popular in political campaigns, with some campaigns paying influencers anywhere between $200 and $100,000 to post political content. Most recently, in the California Governor’s race, some candidates came under scrutiny for paying influencers to post content and those individuals failing to place a disclaimer in connection with the paid post.
“The FPPC has worked for years to address the growing use of paid influencers in political campaigns. Californians deserve to know when political content appearing in their feeds has been paid for by a campaign,” said Adam E Silver, Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. “By strengthening disclosure requirements and making influencer payments easier to identify in campaign reports, AB 1130 provides greater transparency and accountability as campaigns increasingly use new platforms and forms of communication. We thank Governor Gavin Newsom for signing this measure into law, Assemblymember Marc Berman for his leadership and partnership, and the Legislature for recognizing the importance of ensuring California’s campaign transparency laws continue to evolve alongside emerging campaign practices.”
In addition, Governor Newsom signed AB 686, extending California’s first-in-the-nation law to prohibit the distribution of materially deceptive audio or visual media (i.e., AI-generated “deepfakes”) with actual malice with the intent to injure a candidate’s reputation or to deceive a voter into voting for or against a candidate, unless the media includes a disclosure that it has been manipulated.
Berman first introduced AB 730 in 2019 to help shield voters from misinformation about candidates. The law, which was going to sunset on January 1st, 2027, will now be extended until 2031.
“Voters have a right to know when video, audio, and images that they are being shown, to try to influence their vote in an upcoming election, have been manipulated and do not represent reality,” said Assemblymember Berman. “In the context of elections, the ability to attribute speech or conduct to a candidate that is false – that never happened – makes AI-generated deepfakes a powerful and dangerous tool in the arsenal of those who want to wage misinformation campaigns to confuse voters. AB 686 will continue to deter nefarious deepfakes by holding accountable the bad actors who intentionally attempt to injure a candidate’s reputation or deceive voters into believing a candidate said or did something they never said or did.”
Governor Newsom also signed AB 2281, which instructs the Secretary of State to assess what more needs to be done to replace election cybersecurity resources previously provided by the federal government but rescinded by the Trump administration. AB 2281 expands the scope of the Office of Elections Cybersecurity, permitting it to consult with academic researchers to develop best practices for protecting against threats to election cybersecurity.
The Office of Elections Cybersecurity was created by a prior Berman bill, AB 3075, in 2018. The original legislation established the office to protect California’s election infrastructure from cyberattacks and counteract misleading information about elections.
“Strengthening our elections cybersecurity has only become more critical since I first authored legislation to create the Office of Elections Cybersecurity in 2018,” said Assemblymember Berman. “As the threats to our democracy, both foreign and domestic, become increasingly sophisticated, so too must our response. As the Trump Administration has gutted federal elections cybersecurity capabilities, it is that much more important for California to step up and expand our efforts to defend our democracy. AB 2281 will ensure that California continues to lead the nation in thwarting bad actors who want to undermine our democracy.”
Assemblymember Berman, who chaired the Assembly Elections Committee from 2017 through 2021, has had over 20 elections related bills signed into law, including:
- AB 37 (2021) to make California a permanent universal vote-by-mail state.
- AB 2218 (2018) to create the Where’s My Ballot tracking system to allow voters to track their vote-by-mail ballot through the voting process.
- AB 5 (2025) to count ballots faster and increase transparency in our vote counting process.
- AB 2815 (2022) to ensure that voting is accessible for students attending public universities by adding ballot drop boxes on campuses.
- AB 827 (2025) to provide greater opportunity for voters to cure missing or mismatching signature deficiencies and have their vote counted.
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Assemblymember Marc Berman represents the 23rd Assembly District, which includes southern San Mateo County and northern Santa Clara County in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Website of Assemblymember Marc Berman: www.assembly.ca.gov/Berman. Assemblymember Marc Berman’s official headshot is available here.
