Twenty years ago, when The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service reported that a local congressman was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the home he sold was worth, much of the initial story was based on public records.
Journalists relied on an address that then-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham disclosed as an elected official to show that a defense contractor had vastly overpaid for the congressman’s former home.
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The Union-Tribune and its affiliated news service revealed irregularities with the sale — and the buyer’s record of winning federal contracts with Cunningham’s help.
Within months, the longtime representative pleaded guilty to public corruption charges and went to prison. The Union-Tribune would later win a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting.
Now, under a bill authored by Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, D-San Diego, journalists would no longer be granted access to the home addresses, phone numbers or email addresses of local, state or federal elected officials — or even candidates seeking those offices.
The legislation, known as Assembly Bill 1392, is uneventfully making its way through the statehouse.
It was approved by the state Assembly 67-0 earlier this year, and it passed Senate judiciary and elections committees last month, both on unanimous votes.
The bill is now scheduled to be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday.
Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, shown here signing the oath of office, says the bill aims to protect elected officials from political violence. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool)
Sharp-Collins said the legislation is needed to protect public officials from potential violence, citing the attack in June against two prominent Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses that left two people dead and two others injured.
But open-government advocates worry that shielding the home address of elected officials and candidates from reporters will promote public corruption like those practices that sent Cunningham to federal prison for eight years.
The Sharp-Collins 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, a California nonprofit that promotes transparency in government.
“This is extraordinary secrecy that no other Californian enjoys,” she wrote in a letter last month to Sharp-Collins and the Senate judiciary chair. “This bill, if enacted, would reduce checks on politicians and have a number of unintended consequences that hurt trust in government and elections.”
Under current state law, a registered voter’s home address is generally confidential unless requested for “election, scholarly, journalistic or political purposes.”
Requesters must provide their name, address, phone number and driver’s license or other identification number, plus a statement of how they intend to use the information, and must swear under penalty of perjury that their submission is accurate.
AB 1392 would get rid of this exception for elected officials and candidates at the federal, state and local level.
Sharp-Collins told The San Diego Union-Tribune that the unanimous support the bill has received underscores her colleagues’ concern that current protections aren’t sufficient.
“Public service should not come with threats, violence and potential harm to the elected official or their family,” she wrote in a Senate Judiciary Committee analysis.
The judiciary committee analysis says the legislation was sponsored by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the former San Diego lawmaker. Weber’s office did not respond to requests for comment on criticism of the bill but described it as “both timely and necessary” in the judiciary committee analysis.
On June 14, a gunman dressed as a police officer shot and killed Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman — the recent former state House speaker — and her husband, and shot and injured Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his spouse.
The shootings stunned elected officials across the state and nation. Police found writings from the suspect that listed dozens of other public officials — believed to be potential targets — before he was caught.
Leah Palmer visits a makeshift memorial for Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark at the state Capitol, Sunday, June 15, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The worries of elected leaders like Weber and Sharp-Collins were documented in a study published last year by the University of San Diego. That report found 83% of public officials surveyed said threats and harassment were a major problem.
Two-thirds of respondents said they had personally been targeted while serving in public office, and 31% of women reported that they had faced intimidation tactics at least once every week.
“We see majorities of almost all demographic and partisanship groups agree that the frequency of threats and violence is on the rise,” the university’s Violence, Inequality and Power Lab researchers wrote.
In December 2023, then-San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas cited security concerns as her reason for leaving office just weeks after winning a second four-year term.
And last year, the county sought and obtained a restraining order against a former employee who repeatedly threatened officials and former co-workers during the public comment portions of board meetings.
Even so, open-government advocates say withholding the home addresses of officials and candidates is too extreme. They suggest limits on the details allowed for public release or targeting data brokers who sell confidential information online.
“The rise of political violence is tragic and AB 1392 wrongly assumes the public records are responsible for bad actors targeting elected officials,” Brittney Barsotti, general counsel for the California News Publishers Association, wrote in a letter to lawmakers. The Union-Tribune is a member of the organization.
“While concerns over safety are entirely valid in this political climate, the true threat is data brokers collecting and selling information, like residential addresses,” she added.
In her letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barsotti cited reports that the Minnesota shooting suspect relied on 11 separate websites to obtain information about the home addresses for his victims.
“The public and press should be able to at a minimum obtain what city the candidate or official states they reside in to ensure the candidate actually resides in the area they are seeking to represent,” Barsotti wrote before urging a no vote on the bill.
Sharp-Collins said she is also working with Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-San Ramon, on AB 302, which would allow state and local elected officials to request, via the California Privacy Protection Agency, that data brokers delete their personal information. That bill awaits a vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
She is also talking to the California News Publishers Association about potential amendments to AB 1392 to address their concerns.
“I don’t have anything finalized yet, but 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,” Sharp-Collins said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider AB 1392 at a 10 a.m. hearing Monday, Aug. 18.