BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 1059 |
By: Turner, Chris |
General Investigating & Ethics |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
It is held that the availability of financial information concerning officeholders and candidates is one factor in ensuring full transparency on the part of candidates and elected officials. C.S.H.B. 1059 seeks to improve the transparency of the financial information of those who hold the public trust and to make state-required personal financial statements, in some aspects, more closely mirror what is required of federal officeholders under federal law.
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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.
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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.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 1059 amends the Government Code to require each personal financial statement required to be filed by certain public officials and candidates to be submitted electronically through a secure website maintained by the Texas Ethics Commission.
C.S.H.B. 1059 changes the reporting categories for the personal financial statement based on an amount to reflect the following reporting categories: less than $200; at least $200 but less than $1,000; at least $1,000 but less than $2,500; at least $2,500 but less than $5,000; at least $5,000 but less than $15,000; at least $15,000 but less than $50,000; at least $50,000 but less than $100,000; at least $100,000 but less than $1 million; at least $1 million but less than $5 million; or $5 million or more. The bill repeals a provision requiring an individual to report an amount of stock by category of number of shares instead of by category of dollar value.
C.S.H.B. 1059 requires the description of a gift required to be reported by an individual filing a personal financial statement because the gift's value exceeds $250 to include the actual face value if the gift is cash or a cash equivalent and requires such description to include a statement of the value of a gift other than cash or a cash equivalent.
C.S.H.B. 1059 requires a personal financial statement to include an account of the financial activity of the individual required to file a personal financial statement and an account of the financial activity of the individual's spouse and dependent children if the individual had control over that activity for both the preceding calendar year and, listed separately, the year before the preceding calendar year, for information relating to certain specified sources of income required to be reported.
C.S.H.B. 1059 changes the required contents of an account of financial activity as follows: · replaces the category of the number of shares of stock of any business entity held or acquired with the category of the dollar value of shares of stock of any business entity held or acquired as information required to be identified; · includes the date that a total financial liability in excess of $1,000 was incurred among the information to be identified related to the liability; and · requires the identification of any other source of earned or unearned income not reported under other parts of the statutory provision specifying the required contents of an account of financial activity, including public benefits or a pension, individual retirement account, or other retirement plan, and the category of the amount of income derived from each source.
C.S.H.B. 1059 requires the commission to make financial statements available to the public on the commission's website not later than the 15th day after the date the statement is required to be filed or is actually filed, whichever is later. The bill expressly does not require the commission to continue to make available on its website a financial statement that the commission is authorized to destroy after the second anniversary of the date the individual ceases to be a state officer and prohibits the commission from making available on its website a financial statement that the commission has received notification from the former state officer to destroy.
C.S.H.B. 1059 repeals a provision requiring the commission, each time a person other than the commission or a commission employee acting on official business requests to see a financial statement during the one-year period following the filing of the statement, to place in the file a statement of the person's name and address, whom the person represents, and the date of the request and requiring the commission to retain such statement in the file for one year after the date the requested financial statement is filed.
C.S.H.B. 1059 specifies that its provisions relating to the electronic filing of a financial statement, the reporting categories for financial statements, the reporting of gifts of a certain value, and the contents of a financial statement in general apply only to a financial statement filed on or after January 1, 2017.
C.S.H.B. 1059 repeals the following provisions of the Government Code: · Section 572.022(b) · Section 572.032(b)
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EFFECTIVE DATE
On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2015.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 1059 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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