A San Diego lawmaker’s bill aims to prevent political violence. It will hurt accountability, transparency advocates warn. – San Diego Union-Tribune

California AB-1392 to Shield Politicians' Addresses From Public in Response to Shooting

A California bill aimed at protecting elected officials from political violence is advancing through the legislature despite warnings from transparency advocates that it could undermine accountability and investigative journalism while failing to address the real sources of threat.

Bottom line: AB 1392 would eliminate journalists' access to politicians' home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses from voter registration records, potentially hindering oversight of government corruption while commercial data brokers continue selling the same information to anyone willing to pay.

The Bill and Its Progress

Assembly Bill 1392, authored by Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, D-San Diego, passed the state Assembly 67-0 earlier this year and cleared Senate judiciary and elections committees last month on unanimous votes. The bill is scheduled for consideration by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday.

Under current state law, voter registration addresses are generally confidential unless requested for "election, scholarly, journalistic or political purposes." AB 1392 would eliminate this exception for elected officials and candidates at all levels of government. The legislation was sponsored by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who described it as "both timely and necessary."

Catalyst: Minnesota Shootings Expose Data Broker Threat

The bill's urgency stems from a June 14, 2025 attack in Minnesota. Vance Luther Boelter, disguised as a law enforcement officer, shot and killed Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark at their Brooklyn Park home, and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette at their Champlin home.

Boelter was captured after a two-day manhunt and federally charged with murder, stalking, and firearms offenses. Investigators discovered a hit list in his car with nearly 70 names, including abortion providers, pro-abortion rights advocates and lawmakers across multiple states.

Crucially, Boelter obtained his victims' addresses from commercial "people search" websites - not voter registration records. The suspect relied on 11 separate commercial websites to obtain home addresses, proving that AB 1392 wouldn't have prevented the very incident that inspired it.

A National Crisis of Political Violence

The Minnesota attack highlighted a broader epidemic. Congressional threats increased 88% between 2018 and 2021, from 5,206 to 9,625. A 2023 study found 89% of state legislators had been threatened, harassed or insulted over three years.

University of San Diego research found 83% of public officials surveyed said threats and harassment were a major problem. In their study of San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties, two-thirds of officeholders reported being threatened, with women experiencing disproportionate targeting - 31% of women faced weekly intimidation compared to 8% of men.

The impacts are severe: 43% of surveyed officials considered leaving their posts, and 6% admitted changing their votes due to fear. San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas cited security concerns when leaving office in December 2023, just weeks after winning re-election.

The Fatal Flaw: Blocking Legitimate Oversight While Enabling Bad Actors

AB 1392's fundamental problem becomes clear when examining how personal information actually reaches those who would harm public officials. The bill would block law-abiding journalists and citizens from voter registration data while doing nothing to stop malicious actors from obtaining far more detailed information through commercial data brokers.

The $200 Billion Shadow Industry

Data brokers represent a largely unregulated industry comprising up to 4,000 companies worldwide that collect and sell detailed personal information. Major players include Experian, Equifax, Acxiom, and Oracle, alongside hundreds of lesser-known firms operating in the shadows.

These companies compile "thousands of attributes each for billions of people," creating profiles that include addresses, phone numbers, financial information, health data, political affiliations, shopping habits, and personal inferences. Unlike voter registration requests requiring identification and sworn statements, data brokers sell to virtually anyone willing to pay - often for pennies per person.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned that "countries of concern, like China and Russia, can purchase detailed personal information about military service members, veterans, government employees, and other Americans for pennies per person. This enables the creation of detailed dossiers for potential espionage, surveillance, or blackmail operations."

Creating Perverse Incentives

AB 1392 would create a troubling two-tiered system where legitimate oversight is blocked while commercial exploitation continues unabated. Investigative journalists would lose basic residency verification tools, while anyone seeking to harm politicians could purchase far more detailed information online.

As cybersecurity expert Arjun Bhatnagar noted, "something as simple as a phone number can be used by data brokers and bad actors to uncover highly sensitive information, including a Social Security number, address, email, and even family details."

What Journalism Access Actually Protects

The stakes for maintaining journalist access extend far beyond abstract press freedom principles - they protect the basic integrity of democratic representation.

Verifying Residency Requirements

One immediate concern is AB 1392's impact on verifying whether officials actually live in the districts they represent. This oversight proved crucial in 2021 when Alex Campbell, mayor pro tem of Crescent City, California, was convicted of election fraud for lying about his residency.

Campbell submitted candidacy papers claiming he lived within city limits while actually residing outside the city's boundaries. He pleaded guilty to false declaration of candidacy and was sentenced to two years probation, jail time, and fines. Such "convenience address" scandals occur repeatedly nationwide, and would become nearly impossible to detect without journalist access to voter registration data.

Exposing Corruption Networks

The historical precedent is stark. Twenty years ago, San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service reporters used publicly available address information to expose then-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's corrupt relationship with defense contractors.

Journalists relied on an address Cunningham disclosed to show that defense contractor Mitchell Wade had vastly overpaid for the congressman's Del Mar home - $1.675 million for a property Wade later sold at a $700,000 loss. This real estate transaction unlocked a massive bribery scheme where Cunningham accepted more than $2.4 million in bribes for steering defense contracts. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, and the reporting team won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize.

Without access to such basic information, this corruption might never have been exposed.

Legislative Response to Data Brokers

Recognizing the data broker threat, Sharp-Collins is simultaneously working on AB 302 with Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. This companion bill would allow elected officials to request that data brokers delete their personal information through the California Privacy Protection Agency, with deletion required within five days beginning August 1, 2026.

After criticism from press freedom advocates, the bill was amended to focus on data brokers rather than potentially exposing newsrooms to frivolous lawsuits. However, experts question whether this approach will be effective given the vast scope of the data broker industry and the ease with which information can be re-obtained from multiple sources.

Opposition Arguments

Transparency advocates strongly oppose AB 1392. "This bill offers blanket secrecy to all politicians, as defined, without any showing of specific risk," said Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director at the First Amendment Coalition. "This is extraordinary secrecy that no other Californian enjoys."

"The rise of political violence is tragic and AB 1392 wrongly assumes the public records are responsible for bad actors targeting elected officials," wrote Brittney Barsotti, general counsel for the California News Publishers Association. "While concerns over safety are entirely valid in this political climate, the true threat is data brokers collecting and selling information, like residential addresses."

Critics argue the bill's broad approach is misguided given the rigorous current process requiring requesters to provide identification, explain their purpose, and swear under penalty of perjury. "It seems highly unlikely at best that reporters or others able to take advantage of that carve out under those strict conditions are going to commit crimes with that information," said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition.

The Path Forward

Sharp-Collins acknowledged the concerns, saying she's discussing potential amendments with the California News Publishers Association. "I understand the importance of journalists having access and want to find the proper way to balance that with the safety concerns of candidates, elected officials and their families," she said.

As California lawmakers prepare for Monday's crucial committee vote, the debate reflects a fundamental question: Should the response to political violence restrict the accountability tools that help maintain democratic integrity, while leaving the actual sources of threat largely untouched?

The bill's supporters point to genuine safety concerns in an era of escalating political violence. Its critics argue that blocking oversight of all politicians - regardless of specific threats - could enable the very corruption and fraud that undermines public trust in democracy, while doing little to address the real problem of commercial data trafficking.

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Sources

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19. A San Diego lawmaker’s bill aims to prevent political violence. It will hurt accountability, transparency advocates warn. – San Diego Union-Tribune