Panel advances bill to charge campaign committees $150 fee, fund ethics office IT upgrade

House Bill 653 advanced out of the Elections and Campaign Finance Subcommittee on Feb. 25 after sponsor Representative Hicks told members the measure would formalize long-standing procedures, expand enforcement tools and generate revenue to modernize the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance’s technology platform.

The bill requires every political campaign committee registered with the registry of election finance to pay a $150 annual registration fee, clarifies that the individual and aggregate contribution limits do not apply to political campaign committees controlled by a political party or a party caucus, and directs $250,000 from the lobbyist professional privilege tax toward upgrading the bureau’s information technology systems, Representative Hicks said.

The measure also would broaden the bureau’s investigatory options, allowing staff to investigate sworn complaints internally or set show-cause hearings without immediately referring all such matters to the attorney general’s office, Hicks said. That change is intended to shorten the time required to resolve complaints, bureau staff said during the hearing.

“This money currently goes to the general fund and the current technology platform is over 15 years old so it is very, very well needed,” Bill Young, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, told the subcommittee. Young said the bureau has roughly $2 million in reserve toward a new system, but estimates the total overhaul at about $3 million, plus annual maintenance of roughly $500,000 to $800,000. He said the bill would allocate $250,000 from the lobbyist professional privilege tax as a near‑earmark to begin the upgrade.

Young also addressed reporting of small (unitemized) contributions. He said an existing statute limits unitemized reporting in a period to $2,000 and that the bureau recommends campaigns itemize contributions to avoid triggering an automatic audit. “If those $2,000 in contributions you itemize constitute 30 or more of your total contributions, you get an automatic audit,” Young said, adding the bureau has limited audit capacity.

Representative Powell questioned whether the bill changes existing disclosure thresholds; Young said it does not. He told the subcommittee the fee was proposed after prior attempts to impose registration fees were limited by exemptions or court rulings; the bill would apply the $150 fee to all registered political campaign committees, with no exceptions, he said.

Young told the committee the bill’s fiscal estimates assume about 700 political campaign committees and that the registration fees would generate roughly $105,000 in subsequent years in addition to the redirected lobbyist funds. The subcommittee recorded a 7-0 vote in favor of moving HB 653 to the State and Local full committee.

Votes at the hearing: The subcommittee recorded seven votes in favor, none opposed. The bill now moves to the full committee for further consideration.