SB1357 revises California's recall 'notice of intention' requirements. It prescribes the content the notice must include (officer ID and a reasons statement), detailed identification for each proponent (printed name, signature, and full residence address), and a mandatory declaration above the signature block explaining that the document is not the petition, is public record, and that signers cannot withdraw their information.
The bill also sets minimum numbers of proponents that must be listed before a notice is valid, using a three-tier structure tied to the size of the electoral jurisdiction and linking the top tiers to the number of nomination-paper signatures that the targeted officer had to file. The changes raise transparency and verification standards but will also alter operational workloads and privacy exposures for organizers, signers, and local election offices.
At a Glance
What It Does
SB1357 prescribes precise contents for a recall notice: officer identification, a short reasons statement, and per-proponent identity and address information; it requires a specific declaration above the signatures and establishes tiered minimum counts of proponents based on jurisdiction size and the nomination-paper signature requirement for the targeted office.
Who It Affects
Recall proponents and volunteer circulators must collect more complete contact information; county registrars and election administrators must process and publish additional personal data; targeted officials and the public will see more transparent origin information for recall attempts.
Why It Matters
By standardizing what a notice must contain and by raising minimum proponent counts (in some cases linked to prior nomination thresholds), the bill raises the bar for launching recall efforts, increases administrative verification duties, and creates new privacy trade-offs because full residence addresses become part of the public record.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill sets a clear checklist for what must appear on a notice of intention to recall. Every notice must name the officer and include a reasons statement that cannot exceed a fixed length.
For each person listed as a proponent the notice must show a printed name and a handwritten signature, plus a street-level residence address (street number and name, city, and ZIP). If a proponent cannot receive mail at that residence, they may give an alternative mailing address.
Directly above the block of proponents, the bill requires a declaration the signers must see and sign under: it must state that they understand they are initiating the recall petition process, that the notice itself is not a petition, that information in the notice is a public record and will be published, that certain information will be provided to anyone who asks, and that signers cannot withdraw their information once submitted. The text thus turns the notice into a public, nonwithdrawable record of who started the recall.SB1357 also imposes minimum numbers of proponents that must be included with the notice before local officials treat it as valid.
The minimums are tiered by the number of registered voters in the electoral jurisdiction: the top tier applies to statewide offices and to local jurisdictions with 100,000 or more registered voters; a middle tier covers jurisdictions with 1,000 up to 100,000 registered voters; and a bottom tier applies to very small jurisdictions. For the top two tiers the bill ties the minimum to a multiplier of the number of signatures that were required to be filed on the targeted officer's nomination paper, using different multipliers for each tier; the statute requires the notice to meet whichever is higher: the flat minimum or the multiplier result.Practically, the law standardizes what county election officials will receive and must make available, and it changes what organizers must collect before a recall attempt can be acknowledged.
It does not in this text specify penalties or verification procedures beyond the content and minimum-count requirements, and it cross-references an existing Section 11023 for related provisions.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The reasons statement on the notice cannot exceed 200 words.
Each proponent must provide a printed name, a signature, and a residence address that includes street number and name, city, and ZIP Code; an alternative mailing address is allowed if the proponent cannot receive mail at the residence.
Immediately above the proponent block the notice must include a declaration that signers understand they are initiating a recall petition process, that the notice is not the petition, that the information is public record and will be published, and that signers cannot withdraw their information.
For state offices and local jurisdictions with at least 100,000 registered voters the notice must list a minimum of 50 proponents or a number equal to five times the signatures the targeted officer had to file on their nomination paper, whichever is higher.
For local jurisdictions with 1,000 to fewer than 100,000 registered voters the notice must list a minimum of 30 proponents or a number equal to three times the targeted officer's nomination-paper signature requirement, whichever is higher; jurisdictions under 1,000 registered voters have a flat minimum of 30 proponents.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Core notice content: officer identity and reasons statement
This subsection requires the notice to identify the officer sought to be recalled and to include a concise statement (200-word cap) listing the reasons. That cap forces organizers to prioritize the factual basis for the recall and creates a uniform upper bound on narrative length that counties will have to enforce when reviewing notices.
Per-proponent identification and address requirements
These provisions spell out the proponent-level data: printed name, signature, and a full residence address including street number and name, city, and ZIP Code. If a proponent cannot receive mail at the residence, an alternative mailing address may be provided. Requiring street-level addresses (not merely city or county) raises the information quality for verification but also produces granular personal data that will become public.
Mandatory signer declaration explaining status and public nature of the notice
The bill mandates a declaration immediately above the signature area confirming that signers know the notice is the start of the recall process, not the petition, that the notice is a public record subject to publication and public request, and that signers cannot withdraw their information. This is an explicit informed-consent mechanism embedded in the notice itself and will be the standard language counties must present and publish.
Tiered minimum proponent counts tied to jurisdiction size and nomination-paper signatures
Subdivision (b) establishes three tiers of minimum proponent counts. The top tier (state offices and local jurisdictions with 100,000+ registered voters) requires at least 50 proponents or five times the number of signatures required on the targeted officer's nomination paper, whichever is higher. The middle tier (1,000–99,999 registered voters) requires at least 30 proponents or three times the nomination-paper signature count, whichever is higher. Jurisdictions under 1,000 registered voters face a flat minimum of 30 proponents. The use of 'whichever is higher' means the multiplier can substantially raise the minimum in cases where nomination-paper requirements are large.
Operational requirement and reference to related provisions
Subdivision (c) reiterates that the notice must include at least the number of proponents specified in subdivision (b). The section also references Section 11023 for related provisions; because SB1357 does not reproduce Section 11023, counties will need to read the two provisions together to understand any complementary rules (for example, filing procedures or verification steps) that affect how notices are processed.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Elections across all five countries.
Explore Elections in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Targeted officers and incumbents — higher visibility of who is initiating recalls and higher procedural thresholds can deter some low-effort or opportunistic recall attempts.
- County election officials and registrars — more standardized notice content reduces variance in submissions and can make initial completeness checks more straightforward.
- General public and media — clearer attribution of who started a recall and an explicit statement that the notice is public record improves transparency about the origin of recall efforts.
- Consultants and legal advisers who support recall campaigns — the new, prescriptive requirements create demand for professional assistance to ensure compliance before filing.
Who Bears the Cost
- Recall proponents and volunteer circulators — collecting full street addresses, signatures, and meeting higher minimum-proponent counts increases the logistical and time costs of launching a recall.
- Small and rural county election offices — handling and publishing more personal data and verifying larger proponent lists will increase administrative workload without any funding mechanism in the text.
- Individual proponents — having full residence addresses become public and nonwithdrawable raises privacy and safety risks, particularly for those in vulnerable positions.
- Grassroots campaigns and under-resourced organizers — the higher thresholds and identification requirements will disproportionately burden smaller, volunteer-driven efforts compared with professionally run campaigns.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is transparency and quality control versus access and privacy: the bill strengthens public accountability by forcing originators of recalls to be identifiable and to meet higher initial thresholds, but those same measures can chill grassroots political expression and expose ordinary citizens' residence information without a safety-valve for legitimate privacy or security concerns.
The bill trades lower barriers to start a recall for stronger transparency and greater initial friction. Requiring street-level residence addresses and making them public and nonwithdrawable raises clear privacy and security concerns — especially in cases where signers are private citizens who did not expect their home addresses to be published as part of a political filing.
The text does permit an alternative mailing address when a proponent cannot receive mail at their residence, but it does not limit public disclosure of the residence field or provide any redaction mechanism for safety reasons.
Operationally, the statute shifts verification and publication duties onto county officials without specifying how verification should be done or who bears the cost of additional administrative work. The formula that ties minimum proponent counts to the number of signatures required on the targeted officer's nomination paper is precise in arithmetic but ambiguous in practice: the bill does not say where or how election officials must obtain or calculate the nomination-paper signature requirement, nor does it address year-to-year or office-type differences in those counts.
Finally, the cross-reference to Section 11023 implies complementary procedural rules exist elsewhere, but because SB1357 does not amend or restate those procedures, local administrators will need to reconcile the sections to implement the regime consistently.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.