Committee adopts amendment to House Bill 4,103 and refers bill to Ways and Means

The Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology on Feb. 20 voted to adopt the dash-4 amendment to House Bill 4,103 and then reported the bill to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means with a "do pass as amended" recommendation.

Committee staff told members the dash-4 amendment would substantially modify the proposed commission on artificial intelligence's purpose, duties, membership size and structure. The amendment would also direct the Department of Administrative Services to employ, at the appointment of the State Chief Information Officer, a strategic artificial-intelligence data protection and privacy official to support the commission's work, authorize DAS to charge fees for services to state agencies, and provide a general-fund appropriation for staffing and administrative support (the appropriation amount was described as not yet determined).

Senator Pham moved adoption of the dash-4 amendment and later moved that House Bill 4,103 be reported out "do pass as amended" and referred to Ways and Means. Both motions passed without recorded roll-call tallies on the record.

Several legislators praised the amendment for broadening participation and for including a proposed seat representing people with lived experience of multimodal communication disorders, a change credited in the meeting to assistance from John Merrick, whom one legislator singled out for helping craft that language.

The committee chair closed the work session after confirming there were no further items on the bill. The bill now proceeds to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means for budgetary review and further consideration.