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Committee holds House Bill 4 and sends RS31950 to second reading after discussion of multifactor authentication
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Summary
The committee voted to hold House Bill 4 in committee and to introduce RS31950 and send it to the second reading calendar. The RS and the bill address implementing multifactor authentication for state accounts and clarifying the Office of Information Technology Services' role for the executive branch.
Representative Bridal Raybel, for the record identifying herself as a state representative from District 34, told the House Commerce and Human Resources Committee that RS31950 is a corrective version of House Bill 4 and does not change the bill’s intent.
Bridal Raybel said House Bill 4 addresses workforce-related cybersecurity, focusing on multifactor authentication (MFA) for state accounts. “One of the easiest sort of low hanging fruit that's available to us is to implement multifactor authentication,” she told the committee, describing MFA as a secondary confirmation beyond a password that is required to access state networks and services such as email and OneDrive.
Bridal Raybel told members that about 88% of state employees had already switched to multifactor authentication and that the remaining roughly 12% had been harder to enroll. She said the legislation also clarifies the Office of Information Technology Services’ authority by limiting its direction to the executive branch and executive-branch agencies.
Representative Weber moved to hold House Bill 4 in committee; the motion passed on a voice vote with no opposed members recorded. Weber later moved to introduce RS31950 and send it to the second reading calendar; that motion also passed on a voice vote. Committee members asked procedural questions about why the RS rather than the bill was moving forward: the chair and sponsors explained that because the RS and House Bill 4 are essentially the same, moving the RS to the second reading calendar speeds the process and avoids duplicative committee steps.
Representative Fuhrman asked whether the committee needed to recommend a “do pass” or other recommendation to move an RS; the committee chair replied no. Representative McCann asked for the record why RS31950 would go to the second reading calendar without a new public hearing; the chair and the sponsor explained that a public hearing had already been held on House Bill 4 and the RS preserves the substantive language.
The committee did not vote on final enactment of the policy; it took the procedural steps of holding House Bill 4 in committee and introducing RS31950 for second reading. No fiscal figures or implementation deadlines were discussed at the meeting.
Votes at a glance: the committee approved the minutes from Jan. 15, 2025 (motion moved by a member identified on the record as the mover but not named in the transcript; outcome: approved by voice vote); it voted to hold House Bill 4 in committee (mover: Representative Weber; outcome: approved by voice vote); and it voted to introduce RS31950 and send it to the second reading calendar (mover: Representative Weber; outcome: approved by voice vote).
