SB 284 at House Judiciary - Campaign Expenditure Bill Up in House Judiciary

This bill will be heard today in House Judiciary.

 CS FOR SENATE BILL NO. 284(FIN)

A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED "An Act relating to state election campaigns, the duties of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, the reporting and disclosure of expenditures and independent expenditures, the filing of reports, and the identification of certain communications in state election campaigns; prohibiting expenditures and contributions by foreign nationals in state elections; and providing for an effective date."


BACKGROUND
The Campaign Expenditure bill that was necessitated by the US Supreme Court decision on Citizens United which invalidated some restrictions on corporate independent expenditures in elections.


Alaska prohibited corporations and unions from making contributions to candidates, so the laws requiring disclosures and disclaimers on such expenditures for corporations don't exist.  We do have such restrictions on individuals.  So, essentially, the bills that began in both the Senate and House were aimed at requiring disclosure and disclaimers on contributions and on independent expenditures on advertising supporting candidates directly or indirectly.

KEY TERMS
Terminology is tricky here.  The most critical terms, I think, are PERSON and INDIVIDUAL.

PERSON is an all encompassing term that includes individual people AND corporations and unions.  The key here is that on the federal level, corporations have many of the rights of persons.  Even though this is not our everyday usage of the language, it's how the word is used legally.  An example of how this shows up in the bill is:

prepare and publish a manual setting out uniform methods of
bookkeeping and reporting for use by persons required to make reports and statements under this chapter and otherwise assist all persons [CANDIDATES, GROUPS, AND INDIVIDUALS] in complying with the requirements of this chapter;  [underline bold is new language, in [BRACKETS AND CAPS] is old deleted language.]

INDIVIDUAL is a human being, not an organization.


KEY ASPECTS OF THE BILL

REPORTING AND DISCLOSING - Here's what has to be reported:

(e) Each person [THE REPORT] required to report under (d) of this section shall file a full report in accordance with AS 15.13.110(g) on a form prescribed by the commission. The report must contain
(1) the name, address, principal occupation, and employer of the individual filing the report;
(2) [, AND] an itemized list of all expenditures made, incurred, or authorized by the person;
(3) the name of the candidate or the title of the ballot proposition or question supported or opposed by each expenditure and whether the expenditure is made to support or oppose the candidate or ballot proposition or question;
(4) the name and address of each officer and director, when
applicable;
(5) the aggregate amount of all contributions made to the person, if any, for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election; for all contributions to the person that exceed $100 in the aggregate in a year, the date of the contribution and amount contributed by each contributor; and for a contributor
(A) who is an individual, the name, address, principal occupation, and employer of the contributor; or
(B) that is not an individual, the name and address of the contributor and the name and address of each officer and director of the contributor [EXPENDITURES. THE REPORT SHALL BE FILED WITH THE COMMISSION NO LATER THAN 10 DAYS AFTER THE EXPENDITURE IS MADE].

And individual (that is a human being) acting independently of other persons (humans, organizations, corporations, unions) IS EXEMPTED from some of the reporting and disclosure requirements if the expenditures are under $500 for billboards or printed matter.


There is also an attempt to get past the shadow group names like "Alaskans for Health and Prosperity" and require identification like,

(4) the name and address of each officer and director, when
applicable;

There is also a section that mimics federal language prohibiting foreign nationals from contributing.  The discussions I heard suggested that this would allow the state to take actions when the feds might not want to bother.

There is also a section requiring written and audio disclosure on radio and tv ads.  The broadcast people seem to be strongly opposed to this because they believe it will cut what people can say in the ads because the time it will take to do the disclosure.

The meeting is starting now, so I'll post this now and then blog through the meeting.