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Senate Government Operations reviews bill to expand voter protections, debates candidate-disclosure hosting and temporary penalty relief
Summary
The Senate Committee on Government Operations on May 5 reviewed House/Senate Bill 298, which renames and reorganizes voting protections to give the attorney general investigatory authority, tightens access to voter checklists, and assigns candidate financial-disclosure duties to the ethics commission — a change that prompted debate about website posting, staffing, and a proposal to suspend penalties for this election cycle.
The Senate Committee on Government Operations on Tuesday reviewed House/Senate Bill 298, a measure the House recast as the "Voter Protections Act," and questioned several new provisions that alter who enforces voter-rights claims and where candidate disclosure materials must be posted.
Tim Duffland, who identified himself to the committee as "the second house," walked members through draft 5.1 and told the panel the House changed the bill's name, rearranged how the statute treats vote-dilution and vote-denial claims, and added a definition of "protected class" that explicitly includes disability and a phrase the draft calls "membership in a language minority group." Duffland said the bill's placement under chapter 35 would "enable the attorney general to have civil or investigatory authority" to pursue claims under the statute.
Why it matters: Committee members said the definitions and enforcement changes could affect when and how plaintiffs bring claims, how municipalities must…
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