Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed a bill into law that requires candidates for president and governor to turn over their income tax returns for the five most recent taxable years — legislation that critics had decried as targeting President Donald Trump, who has refused to make his income tax records public.
The state Senate passed SB 27, or the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act, in mid-July, a few days after the Assembly approved it.
"These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence. The disclosure required by this bill will shed light on conflicts of interest, self-dealing, or influence from domestic and foreign business interest," Newsom said in a statement.
Newsom added that the U.S. Constitution gives states the "authority to determine how their electors are chosen, and California is well within its constitutional right to include this requirement."
This law should be a national standard," said Newsom, who shared six years of income tax returns when he ran for governor in 2018.
The legislation requires candidates to submit their returns at least 98 days before the presidential primary election to the Secretary of State, who then has five days to make redacted versions of the records available to the public.
Lawmakers have proposed similar bills in 17 other states in the 2019 statehouse legislative session. At least six of those bills have failed and others are still being considered, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Critics have previously said the legislation was a waste of time.
"There's nothing in the federal regulations that say you must turn over your financial records to the government, to the IRS for review. What is being done here today is pre-empted by federal law," said State Sen. Jeff Stone, a Republican from Temecula.
"This is going to be nothing but a waste of taxpayer money. The president's name will be on the ballot."
But proponents, including the bill's co-author, State Sen. Scott Wiener, have said the bill wasn't about Donald Trump.
"Everyone assumed for decades that it was mandatory that you disclose your tax returns because every presidential candidate did it," the San Francisco Democrat said before the Senate vote. "This is the least that we can do to know who it is we're voting for."
Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed similar legislation in 2017.
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