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Committee clears several administrative and ethics bills; campaign‑funds penalty increases advance
Summary
The committee adopted technical and administrative measures: an amendment and passage motion on SB 278 to increase penalties for using campaign funds for personal use, HB 1420 standardizing county/city filing periods and petition circulation, and a timing change to runoff notice windows. Several measures were adopted or advanced; others were pulled for rewrite.
In addition to major policy hearings, the committee processed several administrative and ethics measures.
SB 278: Committee members adopted a clarifying amendment correcting a statutory cross‑reference and moved the bill forward. The measure increases penalties for knowingly using campaign or carryover funds for personal use, scaling felony classes by amount: class D for certain thresholds, escalating to higher classes for larger amounts.
HB 1420: An Association of Arkansas Counties package bill cleared committee. The measure standardizes filing periods for county, city and school candidates and sets a uniform 90‑day petition circulation period; it passed without recorded opposition.
Runoff timing: The committee also approved changing a runoff interval (from two to four weeks in the cited provision) to standardize timing for voters and accommodate election testing and early voting schedules.
Other business: Sponsor and staff agreed to redraft SB 515 (monuments) after extensive debate. The committee adjourned after routine votes and scheduling for follow up work.
