On Monday the House State Affairs committee postponed a vote on a bill to tighten up campaign finance regulations.
Senate Bill 200 requires a campaign finance report and a disclaimer on ads, no matter what time of year they run, if the advertiser spends more than $100.
Secretary of State Jason Gant told committee members that current law sets the ad amount at $2,000 and requires a disclaimer on ads that run 60 days before an election.
Representative Charlie Hoffman says the proposed law allows politicians to respond more effectively to negative ads.
“If someone’s sending out postcards or robocalls to my constituents, at least this bill gives me the decency to go back, set the record straight, and call them on information that may be lying, misleading, untrue,” Hoffman says. “Really, it opens up the process so that we know who’s attacking. I think every one of us is owed the decency of knowing who’s coming after us, and this bill would do that.”
The bill had no opponents but inspired a lot of questions from committee members. They particularly want to know how emails or other electronic transmissions can be assessed for a dollar amount.
Committee discussion has been postponed to Wednesday to give bill sponsors time to draw up answers to the questions.