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Committee lays over bill to disclose out-of-district campaign contributions; technical fixes and cost questions remain
Summary
The committee laid over House File 1447 (DE1) for possible inclusion after adopting a technical amendment and debating disclosure and IT costs to require candidates to report small-dollar out-of-district contributions; the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board warned implementation may require system changes and a fiscal note.
The House Election Finance and Government Operations Committee laid over House File 14 47, with the DE1 amendment, for possible inclusion after debate about disclosure thresholds, technical drafting and potential costs to update campaign finance reporting systems.
Chair Quam described the bill as an effort to increase transparency about contributions originating outside a candidate’s legislative district or the state. Representative Lee and others offered amendments and asked whether the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (CFPB) — represented by Jeff Sigurdsson — had the technical capacity and staff to implement the proposed reporting changes.
Jeff Sigurdsson, speaking for the CFPB, said the feasibility depends on the legislature’s expectation. He explained there are two implementation approaches: 1) require the treasurer or filer to indicate whether a contributor is in-district or not (a small user-interface change), or 2) have the CFPB link addresses to district boundaries (for example by querying the legislature’s GIS) and automatically flag contributions, which would be more complex and could require contractor work. Sigurdsson said he believed the fiscal impact “would not be real significant” for a modest modification but recommended consulting CFPB IT staff for a formal fiscal note.
Representative Greenman proposed changing the metric from in-district to out-of-state contributions to ease administration for volunteer treasurers; a technical oral amendment was discussed. Multiple amendments were offered and at least one amendment failed on a roll-call (6 no, 5 yes). The DE1 text was adopted in committee and HF 14 47 was laid over as amended for possible inclusion.
Committee members asked that any changes be workable for volunteer treasurers and discussed whether the Campaign Finance Board should receive appropriations to cover contractor work if a software change is required. The committee did not finalize a fiscal note during the hearing and left the bill laid over to allow additional drafting and potential cost estimates.
