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Committee introduces ethics, campaign finance and rules measures; advances travel-report bills to the floor
Summary
The committee introduced several reservation statements and sponsored bills on lobbying, campaign finance, legislative rules and denouncing political violence, and it voted to advance two paid-travel reporting bills to the House floor.
The committee introduced multiple proposed rules and bills, and it advanced two travel-report measures to the House floor with due-pass recommendations.
Brent Crane, speaking for several sponsors, introduced RS 32,634, a lobbying measure that adds restrictions related to relatives of legislators serving as lobbyists and is being circulated for at least a week of comment before a final draft. "We will get these out there, we will let them sit at least a week, let people again give feedback," Crane said. Representative Palmer moved to introduce RS 32,634; the motion carried.
Crane also introduced RS 32,636 on campaign finance. He told the committee the draft reduces the time window for certain electioneering from 60 days to 30 days, requires independent-expenditure disclosures to be posted to a website, and lowers a previous donation cap for legislators from $5,000 to $2,500 in the current draft. Representative Stephanie Mickelson moved to introduce RS 32,636; the motion carried.
Representative Jordan Redmond introduced RS 32,578, a House concurrent resolution denouncing political violence. Representative Achilles moved that the committee introduce the resolution and send it to the second-reading calendar. Representative Mickelson asked that language explicitly addressing social-media targeting of legislators be added before sending it forward; Redmond said he believes the current draft already covers speech on social media. The committee voted to introduce RS 32,578 and send it to the second-reading calendar.
Representative Jeff Ehlers presented RS 32,640, regarding House Rule 40; he said he and Representative Mickelson combined competing amendments into a fresh draft. Representative Green moved to send RS 32,640 to the second-reading calendar; the committee voted in favor.
On transparency, Representative Stephanie Mickelson presented House Bill 378, which would require legislators to report out-of-state travel by destination, date and purpose but would not require reporting of travel cost. Representative Achilles moved to send HB 378 to the House with a due-pass recommendation; the motion carried. Mickelson also presented House Bill 379 to require statewide elected officials to disclose out-of-state travel with date, purpose and the entity that paid for the travel; Representative Crane moved to send HB 379 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation; the motion carried. Representative Barbieri registered concern that HB 379 does not include agency staff or appointed directors in its scope and said she may revisit the measure on the floor.
Most introductions and calendar recommendations were procedural motions; the committee carried motions to introduce or advance the items but in most cases did not record individual roll-call tallies in the transcript.
Votes at a glance: RS 32,634 (introduce) 999Motion carried; RS 32,636 (introduce) 999Motion carried; RS 32,578 (introduce and send to second reading) 9Motion carried; RS 32,640 (introduce and send to second reading) 9Motion carried; HB 378 (send to House, due pass) 9Motion carried; HB 379 (send to House, due pass) 9Motion carried.
