FPPC Continues to Expand Political Reform Education Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Decemeber 18, 2024

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Cole Smith, FPPC

(916) 322-7761

FPPC Continues to Expand Political Reform Education Program

The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), California’s governmental ethics and campaign disclosure agency, has announced another expansion of its nationally recognized Political Reform Education Program (PREP). PREP now has a course for campaign advertisement disclosure violations. The expansion is part of a larger push by the agency to focus its enforcement resources on prosecuting the most serious violations of the state’s ethics rules, such as personal use of campaign funds, conflicts of interest, and laundering of campaign funds.

PREP allows the FPPC to quickly and efficiently resolve instances of minor ethics violations where the offending person has limited political experience, has not been fined by the FPPC, and completes a comprehensive online training course concerning the law they violated.

The FPPC launched its first PREP course, the Statement of Economic Interests (SEI) course, in June 2022. The next two courses for state and local candidates and candidate-controlled committees who engaged in minor campaign-related violations were launched in July 2024. So far, 333 people completed PREP and had their Enforcement cases closed and no mark on their record.

The FPPC is now expanding the program to candidates and candidate-controlled committees that committed minor advertisement-related violations, such as failing to include complete and correct disclosure on their mailers or social media accounts.

PREP courses use interactive technology which allows users to proceed at their own pace while benefitting from an extensive educational program.

In 2023, the FPPC received national attention and recognition when the Campaign Legal Center included PREP in its report “Top Ten Training Upgrades for Ethics Commissions.” PREP was ranked #2 in training upgrades for state ethics commissions.

The FPPC will continue to expand PREP in 2025 by offering new courses concerning other common violations of the Act.

More information about PREP is available at https://fppc.ca.gov/learn/PREP.html.

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