Committee advances SB 2156 to set hard reporting dates, delay new system until Jan. 1, 2026

The Government and Veterans Affairs Committee advanced Senate Bill 2156 as amended on a 12-0-2 roll call after debating reporting deadlines, public disclosure and how filings for calendar year 2025 will be handled before a planned software change.

Representative Steiner, the bill sponsor, told the committee the amendment (version 11) inserts “hard dates” for reporting periods and establishes an effective date timed to the Secretary of State’s new software. “If you go to the last page on page 29, what you'll see is, Section 8 and Section 9. That is the rules going forward,” Steiner said.

The bill revises campaign finance reporting language to replace looser date descriptions with fixed reporting windows, which the sponsor and Legislative Council said should help candidates and the public understand filing deadlines. Representative Steiner said filings covering activity through the end of 2025 will follow existing law and the new law will take effect Jan. 1, 2026, when the Secretary of State’s software is expected to be in place.

Legislative Counsel Dustin Richards told the committee the statute is not explicit about whether some of the information required to be filed must be made publicly available. “Whether or not the Secretary of State makes that public, I'm not entirely sure because the law is silent as to that,” Richards said. Committee members suggested the issue could be taken up in conference committee.

Lawmakers and staff discussed several specific changes in the amendment: insertion of hard reporting-date windows (for example, a first-quarter period described on the draft as Jan. 1–April 30), an option discussed informally as a “checkbook option” for certain political committees (explicitly not for candidates or candidate committees), and retention of existing reporting treatment for candidate committees while applying additional reporting requirements to other political committees and statewide parties that are not otherwise required to file under candidate-committee provisions.

Representative Karls asked whether the bill still required reporting of beginning and ending balances without public disclosure; committee discussion clarified the amendment removes the nondisclosure for legislative candidates and leaves current law in place for the other committees that already disclose balances. Representative Rohrer pressed staff about whether the effective date language appears more than once in the bill; staff said the effective date is placed on page 29 of the current amendment and that they would recheck other sections line by line.

Before final action, the committee unwound an earlier amendment procedure by approving motions to reconsider the committee’s prior recommendations so the new amendment could be considered cleanly. The panel then adopted the amendment package (committee description: "amended 27 times" in the record) and Representative Wolf moved a due-pass recommendation as amended; the motion was seconded and passed on a roll call that recorded 12 yes, 0 no and 2 not voting.

Dustin Richards and Representative Steiner emphasized the changeover is intended to facilitate the Secretary of State’s implementation of the new filing software and to make filing deadlines clearer for filers and the public. Richards noted some implementation details — including whether certain filed items will be made public — remain tied to choices by the Secretary of State and the vendor.

The committee chair thanked Representative Steiner for the work on the bill and closed the meeting; the bill will proceed to further consideration in the full House and, ultimately, conference committee work with the Senate.