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 September 2025
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CARS Scrum Team 2 – Lobbying Registration and Disclosure Filing
This month we’re spotlighting Scrum Team 2, the “Lobbying Legends,” who are developing all lobbying-related features for CARS. The team is tackling more than 700 functional requirements through daily collaborative meetings between Political Reform Division (PRD) staff and Prime Vendor technical experts.
Team 2 – PRD Member Spotlight
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Conner Van Liew, Product Owner, is a Legislative Analyst with PRD, and has worked with Secretary of State since 2018. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University, Idaho. He enjoys telling others about PRD’s important work – how we are helping ensure transparency in the political process in California. |
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Mathew Vo, Scrum Master, leads sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives while fostering collaboration, removing obstacles, and promoting agile best practices. Mathew bridges the gap between stakeholders and development teams to ensure projects are executed with efficiency, alignment, and continuous improvement. |
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Jim Mason is the Proxy Product Owner for Team 2 and leads the Prime Vendor Business Analyst team for campaign finance and lobbying. His previous work was with HP Enterprise Services, Microsoft, and IBM. He is our go-to person for live previews of CARS features and functionality. |
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Maia Kocinsky-Kirkham is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for lobbying registration and disclosure topics, and a Staff Service Analyst for PRD. She has been with the PRD lobbying unit since 2020. |
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Valerie Locke is an SME for the registration functional area. She started with PRD in April of 2024 and is a proud 5th generation civil servant in the state of California. |
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Ashley Rojas is an SME for topics related to lobbying disclosure and activity reporting. She is currently an Associate Governmental Program Analyst and started with SOS seven years ago as a Student Assistant. Ashley has a Political Science degree from UC Davis. |
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Christopher Hatridge, SME, is currently a Business System Analyst and joined SOS and PRD as a student assistant over four years ago. He has been a member of the Lobbying Unit for four years and recently took a new role in the Data Support Unit. |
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Lynda Cassady, former Division Chief at the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), now works with PRD and the Lobbying Legends, adding her expertise in lobbying laws and reporting rules. |
Lobbying Functionality in CARS
Lobbying filing entities include lobbyists, lobbying firms, and lobbyist employers/coalitions. Additionally, lobbying clients are closely related to lobbyist employers and are identified in lobbying firm registrations. These interrelated entities register in CARS using a workflow process that prompts filers to share information with related entities.
For example, a filer registering for a lobbying firm may enter a lobbyist’s registration information, which causes the system to notify the lobbyist for formal attestation. Other functionality includes processing photos and ethics certifications, amending registration information and status, processing activity reports, and referring non-filers to the FPPC.
Thank you to the Lobbying Legends for advancing the CARS Project vision. Your dedication and hard work will greatly benefit our lobbying community.
The Lobbying Legends team is working hard and accomplishing great things!
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CARS Monthly External Stakeholder Meetings – This series of meetings occurs on the second Wednesday of each month to keep stakeholders informed and answer questions about the CARS Project. The next meeting is on 9/10/2025 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. and includes a functionality preview.
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Third Party Software Vendors – Proof of concept testing with Third Party Software Vendors continues. We are working together on the design of summary and cumulative totals uploaded and the process for attestation through our Third Party Software Vendors. We conduct meetings twice monthly on the second and fourth Tuesday to share updates, foster collaboration, and strengthen our partnerships. September meeting dates are Tuesdays 9/9/2025 and 9/23/2025 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
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Program Increment (PI) 1 – User Acceptance Testing of all PI-1A features was completed on 8/29/2025, a very significant accomplishment by our team of testers. The analysis of PI-1B requirements is complete. The Project team is working with FPPC on our plans for simplified output of reporting.
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Further Progress – The Prime Vendor has submitted the Detailed System Design document and Data Model/Data Dictionary for final review and acceptance. The scrum teams have completed or made significant progress in their Joint Application Design sessions to clarify requirements, including discussions of Application Programming Interface, public portal, correspondence, online help, and other topics. PI-2A development is in progress.
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How will I provide copies of locally filed Activity Reports to PRD once CARS goes live?
You will continue to file original reports at your local filing office. Once CARS goes live, if you have a duty to file a copy of an Activity Report with PRD, there are two options. You can use the same Third Party Software Vendor you use for local filing to submit the data to the new CARS system, provided their system is compatible, or you can use the new CARS online system to enter your information directly.
This change is a part of Assembly Bill 2528 (Chapter 500, Statutes of 2022) that was signed into law on September 23, 2022, and becomes effective January 1 after the Secretary of State certifies the CARS system.
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The CARS project is focused on serving our stakeholders and the public. We succeed by focusing on their needs and building a secure, accessible, and transparent digital infrastructure aligned with the Political Reform Act.
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What would you like to see included in the next CARS Stakeholder Bulletin issue? Email PRDCARS@SOS.CA.GOV to provide your ideas and feedback.
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The CARS Project Monthly External Stakeholder Meeting Series (MS Teams), PowerPoint Presentations, Q&As, FAQs and additional project information may be found on the CARS Homepage.
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