Senator Erich M. Fabricius submitted the following report regarding Government Bill 83, "An Act to Revise Campaign Finances in Student Government Elections as well as to Provide Substantive Change to the Elections board Appointment Procedure", on Sunday, April 1, 2001, on behalf of the Government Operations Committee, and pursuent to its March 26, 2001 recommendations, by unamimous consent:

Attendance:

There were six (6) Senators (Burgess-Ford, Carlson, Davis, Denton, Engler, Fabricius.) present;

There were three (3) Senators (Brown, Mangum, Mcilmail.) absent;

A quorum was present.

Purpose of the Legislation:

The Campaign Finance Reform Act is designed to make it more difficult for candidates to spend money above and beyond a spending limit without detection.

Background Information:

This bill has been refered to as the Croom-Palin Campaign Finance Reform Act.

Debate:

Concerns arose that the bill attempted to add regulations that relied on a different use of terminology then the current statutes. Terms such as campaigning and candidate are examples. Much of the committee expressed interest in the principles of the bill, but felt they could be better intregrated into the stautes. Senators noted that the regulations might harm the new-to-sg individuals who could not be expected to be familiar with regulations months prior to filing for office.

Recommendations:

The Committee on Government Operations has discontinued consideration of this bill. However, the committee encourages the next session to review its concepts when revising the chapter 7 statutes.