{"id":23405,"date":"2018-02-22T17:31:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T23:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23405"},"modified":"2018-02-22T17:31:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T23:31:31","slug":"election-communication-disclosure-bill-considered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23405","title":{"rendered":"Election communication disclosure bill considered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain election communications would be subject to disclosure under a bill heard by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Sue Crawford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bellevue Sen. Sue Crawford, sponsor of LB839, said the bill was a revision of legislation she introduced last year. She said the bill would close a loophole in current law that allows groups to attempt to influence campaigns under the guise of providing educational materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cElectioneering communications are materials that are targeted at the electorate of a candidate that are distributed right before an election,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cThese communications allude to a candidate without explicitly recognizing the election or their candidacy and therefore [currently] do not have to be reported.\u201d<\/p>\n

As introduced, the bill would define electioneering communications as those that are:
\n\u2022 publicly distributed 60 days immediately preceding an election;
\n\u2022 refer to a clearly identified candidate; and
\n\u2022 are directed at the electorate of the office sought by that candidate.<\/p>\n

The definition would exclude voter guides, communications about pending legislation, candidate debates or communications by organizations to recognized members.<\/p>\n

The bill would require an individual who makes an electioneering communication of more than $250 to file a report with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission within two days.<\/p>\n

Crawford said she would bring an amendment to raise the reporting amount to $1,000 and change the time frame to cover materials distributed within 30 days of an election.<\/p>\n

Jack Gould of Common Cause Nebraska testified in favor of the bill, saying it could help protect candidates from \u201cshadowy\u201d organizations that run attack ads in the final days of a campaign when candidates lack the time or resources to respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kinds of organizations have deep pockets and can attack at any time and destroy someone\u2019s character,\u201d Gould said, adding that the bill would require reporting from these organizations without infringing on their free speech rights.<\/p>\n

Also testifying in support was Frank Daley, executive director of the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. He said the bill would ensure that activity that is identical in purpose is treated substantially the same under the state\u2019s campaign laws.<\/p>\n

For example, he said, a mailer about a candidate that mentions the upcoming election or suggests voting for the candidate must report to the commission. One that does not mention the election or suggest voting for the candidate\u2014but contains all the same information otherwise\u2014does not.<\/p>\n

Currently, he said, there is nothing about the second mailer that is reportable under Nebraska law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose [of LB839] is to disclose who\u2019s talking, who they\u2019re talking about and how much they spent,\u201d Daley said.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certain election communications would be subject to disclosure under a bill heard by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee Feb. 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-23405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-sue-crawford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23408,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23405\/revisions\/23408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}