BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2626

By: Tepper

Elections

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Constituents have expressed concerns regarding the difficulty of obtaining campaign finance reports for candidates who file with entities other than the Texas Ethics Commission. Current election law only requires certain counties, cities, and school districts to make campaign finance reports publicly accessible on a website, exempting less populous political subdivisions from the accessibility requirement. In order to increase transparency, all political subdivisions that accept campaign finance reports from candidates should be required to make such reports publicly accessible online. C.S.H.B. 2626 seeks to address this issue by requiring any political subdivision that receives campaign finance reports to make the reports publicly available on a website and maintain the report online for at least five years.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2626 amends the Election Code to require the clerk, secretary, or presiding officer of the governing body of a political subdivision, as applicable, to make any campaign finance report filed with the political subdivision by a candidate, officeholder, or specific-purpose committee available to the public on the political subdivision's website not later than the 10th business day after the report is received.

C.S.H.B. 2626 authorizes the authority with whom such a report is filed, before making the report available on the Internet, to remove each portion, other than city, state, and zip code, of the address of a person listed as having made a political contribution to the person filing the report. The address information removed must remain available on the report maintained in the authority's office. The bill requires a report made available on a website to be accessible on that website until the fifth anniversary of the date the report is first made available.

C.S.H.B. 2626 applies only to a campaign finance report required to be filed on or after the bill's effective date.

C.S.H.B. 2626 repeals the following provisions of the Election Code:

· Sections 254.0401(a-1) and (c); and

· Section 254.04011.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.

COMPARISON OF INTRODUCED AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 2626 may differ from the introduced in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

Whereas the introduced, through its amendments to Subsections 254.0401(a-1) and (c) of the Election Code, made applicable to all counties and municipalities, regardless of population, the requirement in current law that the clerk of the county and the clerk of the municipality make any campaign finance report filed with the clerk by a candidate, officeholder, or specific-purpose committee available to the public on the county or municipal website, as applicable, not later than the fifth business day after the date the report is received, the substitute does not include the introduced version's revision to that requirement but instead includes a provision repealing those subsections.

The substitute changes the day on which the clerk, secretary, or presiding officer of a political subdivision's governing body is required to make a campaign finance report available to the public on the political subdivision's website from not later than the fifth business day after the date the report is received, as in the introduced, to not later than the 10th business day after that date.