Senate committee considers broad rewrite of legislators' financial disclosure form

Senator Jimmy Hickey, sponsor of Senate Bill 395, told the State Agencies & Governmental Affairs Committee that his bill would modernize the state's Statement of Financial Interest. "What I'm doing is taking off the $12.05 and if you just have income over a thousand from any source, of course, that'll stay the same," Hickey said, and added the bill would require reporting of investments or holdings held "at any time during the year."

The bill would keep the $1,000 income threshold but remove the smaller $12.50/$12,500 checkbox, expand the definition of reportable investments to list examples such as "stocks, bonds, futures, options, oil and gas interest," permit use of stock ticker symbols rather than full issuer addresses, clarify reporting of retirement-managed accounts, lower an ownership-reporting trigger from 10% to 1% for trusts or businesses, and add a new class A misdemeanor for anyone who uses SFI disclosures to commit a crime against the filer. Hickey said the changes are intended to close gaps he traces to the original initiated act adopted in 1988.

Why it matters: the SFI form is the primary statutory disclosure used…