I didn't say that the government employer absolutely couldn't see the application (in fact, the rest of my post other than the snippet you took out of contex said exactly that).
There however is NOTHING INCORRECT about the part that I quoted. California law doesn't exempt the state or local employers from the law against asking about convictions. They can use the information on such from background checks in the case of positions which BY LAW require a background check, but that doesn't change the obligation to report on the application.

