Honorable Jodie Laubenberg, Chair, House Committee on Elections
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB3840 by Laubenberg (Relating to the conduct of primary elections; increasing a criminal penalty.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions are the subject of this analysis. Under the provisions of the bill, the punishment for unlawful participation in party affairs would be increased from a Class C misdemeanor to a second degree felony or a state jail felony, depending upon the specific circumstances of the offense.
A second degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for 2 to 20 years and a state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for a term from 180 days to 2 years or Class A misdemeanor punishment. In addition to confinement, most felony offenses are subject to an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.
Increasing the penalty for any criminal offense is expected to result in increased demands on the correctional resources of the counties or of the State due to longer terms of supervision in the community or longer terms of confinement within state correctional institutions. However, this analysis assumes the provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions would not result in a significant impact on the demand for state correctional resources.