HSTA-260425-1515

I'd like to call this meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to order. The time is 3:17 on Saturday, April 25th, and we're here in Room 120. Members present include Representative St. Clair, Representative McCabe, Representative Vance, Representative Holland, Representative Himschoot, and myself, Chair Carrick. We have a quorum to conduct business, and extreme thank yous to our staff: Cecilia Miller, Renzo Moises, and my staff, Stuart Relay. Thank you all, especially for being here on Saturday.

We have just a couple of items on today's agenda. We're going to start with an introductory hearing on Representative McCabe's House Bill 371 relating to campaign contributions distribution limits. And then we will complete our amendment process on House Bill 188 from Representative Mina regarding a welcoming Alaska office. And, uh, if time allows, get to our final item, but likely just do those two today. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and start with Representative McCabe's House Bill 371, and I would just ask, uh, Rep McCabe and staff Alicia Va'almida to please go ahead and put yourselves on the record and introduce us to the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the House State Affairs Committee. For the record, my name is Representative Kevin McCabe. I represent House District 30, and today I'm introducing House Bill 371. House Bill 371 is about transparency and accountability in Alaska's elections. At its core, this bill ensures that Alaskans know who is funding the political messages they see, especially when that funding is coming from outside our state.

This legislation makes several targeted updates to our campaign finance laws. It requires groups participating in Alaska elections to maintain a physical presence in the state. It strengthens disclosure requirements for contributions and expenditures and adds transparency around bundled contributions and coordinating— coordinated fundraising activities. Activity. Importantly, the bill also, also addresses independent expenditure groups that are primarily funded by non-residents.

Under HB 371, those groups must clearly disclose when a majority of their funding comes from outside Alaska, so voters have that information when evaluating political communications. This is not about limiting speech. It's about ensuring transparency so Alaskans can make informed decisions with full knowledge of who is trying to influence our elections. The updates in this bill build on amendments we developed last year and I offered on the floor, and pretty much everybody seemed to agree with the amendments, and they all said this should be in a bill for every single amendment. So here is your bill.

While those amendments did not advance at that time, there was clear interest in having those ideas reviewed through the committee process, which is why we're here. This bill provides that opportunity. So with that, Madam Chair, I will turn it over to my staff, Ella Shiva, for the sectional analysis if you should so desire, and then I'm happy to answer questions. Excellent. Thank you very much.

Let's go ahead and go through the sectional if you'd like to do that, Ms. Almeida, and.

Then we will turn to committee questions after that. Yes, thank you, Chair Carrick, members of the committee. For the record, my name is Ellie Shaver Almeida, staff to Representative Kevin McCabe. Bear with me as there are many sections, but I'll do my best to be brief. Section 1 adds legislative finding and intent.

It establishes that transparency in elections, particularly regarding ballot propositions, is essential to the best interests of the state. And that disclosure of substantial non-resident funding supports voter awareness of an informed elector and election integrity. Section 2 expands reporting requirements for persons making independent expenditures. It requires more detailed disclosure of expenditures, contributions, officers, directors, and organizational leadership, including enhanced identification requirements for individuals and non-individual contributors. Section 3 clarifies and updates exemptions for small candidates and groups by adjusting thresholds and requirements for those raising or spending under $5,000 in a calendar year for groups, or including both primary and general elections for candidates.

Section 4 updates electronic filing requirements and outlines when paper filing is permitted, including for certain municipal candidates in small municipalities and individuals without reasonable access to technology. Section 5 creates a new section requiring disclosure of bundled contributions. Candidates must report individual— individuals responsible for aggregating more than $10,000 in the contribution cycles during an election cycle. Section 6 requires groups and non-group entities making independent expenditures to register with the Alaska Public Offices Commission and provide a physical address in Alaska or that of an in-state registered agent. Section 7 requires those entities to maintain an in-state address or appoint a registered agent and to notify the Commission within 10 days of any changes.

Section 8 establishes a $3,000 annual contribution limit to groups or non-group entities that make only one independent expenditure. Section 9 requires group or non-group entities that receive a majority of their funding from non-residents or non-Alaska incorporated entities to register as majority non-resident funded entities. Section 10 requires those majority non-resident funded entities to include clear disclosures in their communications stating that a majority of their contributions came from outside Alaska. Section 11 updates campaign finance reporting timelines including revisited pre-election and post-election reporting requirements. Section 12 strengthens reporting requirements for independent expenditures, including enhanced 24-hour reporting for certain expenditures and contributions made close to an election.

Section 13 prohibits the Alaska Public Offices Commission from changing reporting formats during an election cycle. Section 14 requires majority nonresident funded entities to report contributions over $500 within 24 hours, including detailed contribution information. Section 15 updates rules for post-election campaign asset disposition, clarifying what property candidates may retain, including one computer, one printer, bulk mailing permits, photographs, greeting cards, and campaign signs, and how they remain— and how the remaining assets are handled. Section 16 adds a definition for election cycle within campaign finance statutes. Section 17 establishes applicability, stating the bill does not apply to contributions made to influence election occurring before the act's effective date.

And finally, Section 18 provides for an immediate effective date. Thank you, Madam Chair. That concludes the sectional analysis. That was pretty whirlwind. Thank you for going through that.

I'm sure we probably have a lot of questions, and does anyone want to take the first, the first question? If not, I will. I'll happily jump in here.

So I know we've talked about bundled contributions before, and could you just again remind us what your understanding of a bundled contribution is? And then I'm also curious if the Division of Elections has a term for this type of contribution. Do they— like, do they consider bundling contributions You know, they have a term for that that they're currently using because we're adding that to statute. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, um, once again, Representative Kevin McCabe from House District 30.

So the bundled contributions were, um, say there was a group of people that wanted to give $250 or $200 each, but they didn't want their names to be listed in APOC. They could give it to Ashley Carrick, say, and then she could contribute $10,000 worth of $250 or even $5— some of them are as low as $5 contributions— as if they came from, from you. So essentially, that's, that's it. There's probably a better definition for sure, and it would certainly require, um, uh, you know, APOC to develop their definition, but That's typically exactly what it is when you, you know, you just don't— maybe I wanted to give to your campaign, but I didn't want to be my name to be on the APOC list as contributing to your campaign. I could give it to somebody that was bundling together the contributions and then they would contribute it.

It's a little bit sketchy in my opinion. It kind of skirts the law in my opinion, but My opinion doesn't count. APOC's does. So. [Speaker:MS. MCCABE] Does— as a follow-up, does APOC currently have a term for that type of behavior?

So this would be— this is a new section to describe that kind of behavior. [Speaker:MR. WRIGHT] Madam Chair, Representative McCabe again. Yes. It doesn't have typically— it doesn't have a definition for this.

Frankly, the reason for this bill is because many of our statutes are so outdated, mostly due to computers and the internet and online donations, Venmo, PayPal, those kinds of things that where you can donate from hundreds or thousands of miles away, $5. They call that smurfing, you know, when there's 100 $5 donations all coming from New York City for a campaign and they all come together via Venmo or something like that. So, there is a number of problems with our statute right now because of the internet and computers. Frankly, a good chunk of this law was written in 1972, which is about 4 years before I remember the first VIC-20 or Commodore 64 computer. Those that are my age, you gray hairs in here, would know what that is.

But—. [Speaker:MS. KELLY] And I guess—. Object.

I guess I would also note too that there's— that's one end of, of a potential spectrum. There's also— I mean, I've gotten contributions that I didn't solicit for, for like $1.31, and I'm— I've wondered why would somebody contribute $1.31? And then you come to find out that there's another entity generating for donations and then distributing them, but they're going under the individual's names who had originally donated. They're just going in percentages that are odd and often very small. So there's also that behavior too, but that's captured under APOC.

And what you're talking about, in so much as it's occurring, is not— that's not being captured or looked into. That's correct, Madam Chair. Thank you. And I think it helps too, as we talk about this bill, we've all been candidates before. Well, Representative St. Clair has worked with candidates and was a candidate before.

So I think we're all familiar with some of these types of contributions, but as members do ask questions, if you can provide more context so that anybody who's listening can understand better what we're talking about. Representative Himschuh. Thank you, Chair Carrick. I'm wondering if we could just take— if we could just go section by section and have questions on each section. Is that— or is that not, um, an efficient use of time.

We, we can, um, we have about half an hour today to discuss this bill. It's my intention to bring it back up, so if you want to start with a few questions, and then if others want to jump in the queue, we might have to skip around. But if it's invited testimony— sorry, through the chair— is there invited testimony as well? No. So we can— we're, we're in a very open format right now for questions and discussion.

If you wanted to start with any particular section, please go ahead.

Sure. Yeah, I can just jump in on Section 2, I think it was.

Well, on Section 1, on line 31, the address of the contributor's agent. What is an agent? Through the Chair. Thanks. So, Representative Himchute, through the Chair—.

Sorry, that's Section 2. Apologies. Yeah, I see that. So an agent would have to be established in state. So if you were going to contribute from out of state or if you were going to get out-of-state contributions, in this case— and I'm.

[Speaker:JOHN GATZA] I'm not real sure of the statute, but if you were to get out-of-state contributions for— I think that's independent expenditure group. You would have to— so large contributions, in other words, we're talking, you know, millions of dollars, you would have to have an in-state agent instead of just having somebody out of state throwing money at an IE. So we want to know who from outside the state is a major contributor. Contributor. So this is the George Soros 1630 Fund, Koch Brothers, everything we've all heard about.

We want to know who in state we can actually contact and talk to.

Follow-up? So do we— we don't have this now. We would establish these agents in the state, and so then somehow if you were going to be a million-dollar donor to an Alask— an Alaska election, you can't— would this make it so that you can't donate directly, you have to have an agent in the state through which you donate? Through the chair, Representative McCabe, my vision with this and Ledge Legal's vision was this would be similar to having an agent for your business. So if you have a, uh, um, say an LLC and you're an out-of-state person, you always have an agent that does your business for you.

It's an address, it's a place to go, it's somebody to contact local that knows how to get a hold of you if you're cruising the Caribbean or, um, you know, somewhere in the Bahamas or something like that. So it was just a, a means to put a little bit tighter control on the out-of-state money that's flowing into the state. Quick follow-up. Follow-up? So it says for someone who's not an individual, so my dad wants to donate to my campaign, he does not live in Alaska, he can donate to my campaign?

That's correct. But if, um, I don't— I can't think of an entity out there, but some national environmental group wanted to donate to Rep. Carrick's campaign.

That hasn't occurred, by the way, just theoretical example. So what I heard. So like the Safari Club wants to donate to Kevin McCabe's campaign. Safari Club would have to have an agent in state because they're not an individual.

So, um, go ahead. Yeah, through the chair, this is Ellie Chevalmeida for the record. So they would either have to have a physical Alaska address or an agent who has a physical Alaska address. Okay. All right, thank you.

Right in. If I might, Madam Chair, one more thing. Remember, this is, uh, if you're looking at, um, seems to me this was ballot propositions for the most part. This wasn't necessarily your campaign. It was mostly the ballot propositions that we are concerned about, that, you know, we file a ballot proposition, whether it be repeal ranked choice voting or it could be to limit the legislature to a 90-day session, and all of a sudden we get $20 million donated from somebody outside the state that really has no vested interest in this state, they don't even have an address, that's, it seems to me, was what we were trying to hit on here.

Not necessarily the funding coming to your campaign from relatives or—.

Do we have— I know Representative Himschuh has probably, as I would too, a lot of questions. Do we have— Other members that want to hop in the queue? I'll go to Representative Holland and then come back. Great. Thank you, Chair Carrick.

Two questions I wanted to touch on first, but I think I want to begin with the bundled contribution disclosures that we were just on, just because I have a question here I'm still trying to make sense of. If you look at page 4, starting at line 22, where we— show that the candidate's got to make this report of the name and employer of each person reasonably known by the candidate to be a person who's provided bundled contributions. I'm trying to clarify here whether the $10,000 is the total amount of each individual who is part of contributions that are then bundled into larger amounts, or if the $10,000 is the amount of the contribution that's received from some aggregator that has individuals within it. It's not quite clear to me whether this $10,000, if it's applying to an individual who's part of a bundle or whether it's applying to the amount of the bundled contribution. Could you clarify that for me?

Through the Chair, yeah, that's a fair question, actually. It's a really good question. So our idea is mostly we're trying to hit on the big money. So the big money donors that can put in, um, and I'll give you an experience. My experience with a, uh, with one of the repeal things, uh, to in the last ballot or the last election cycle is they didn't want their name to be on the top 3.

We would love to give you $250,000 or we would love to give you $10,000 or whatever the money was, but we don't want our name to be listed as a top 3. So the objective became to find somebody that would be willing to give more to bump this person down out of the top 3, which is what we require in law right now, right? And so, it became kind of a weird— this weird drill where you're looking for a bigger campaign donor to bump somebody down so that you can get their money, you know, or get their donation. So, this restriction— and Ellie can correct me if I'm wrong— but this restriction seems to me to be focused on those higher that put together $10,000 or more and then contributed it.

Thank you. Follow-up? Follow-up. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Do you have any— through the Chair, do you have any thought on how we might interpret or perhaps tighten up this reasonably known by a candidate? I'm looking at that language and looking at that saying that I could see a candidate having all sorts of different ways of being able to say, "I didn't reasonably know where that came from." Have you thought about any way to make that a little tighter so that there isn't what I think is a barn door right here for these campaign contributions to be made with any number of ways to obfuscate a little bit the process by which they were recorded? Sure. Through the Chair, I put that in there specifically so I could get you to offer an amendment and then you would support this bill. Okay, one more follow-up and then I'm done.

Follow-up? Hook, line, and sinker, I guess. There is in the case, through the chair, on page 4 where the $10,000 is applied on an election cycle. On page 5, there's a $3,000 amount that's done each election year. And someplace else, there's another dollar amount that's done on an election year basis.

I'm curious, you know, in the— Some of the other campaign finance legislation I've seen this shift away from years to just election cycles as a default across all measures of giving to just kind of simplify and avoid the gaming that goes on of trying to rush in one donation by the end of the calendar year so you can get the second donation in the next one, particularly for larger races across the year. Have you given some thought to this general notion of intent? Do we really want to— have the calendar year, and so 2 donations for larger races, or would there be benefit in starting to standardize on election cycles as a way to bring consistency to this process and avoid whichever method you use? Some you can do, you can double up on, some you can't double up on. Sure.

Through the Chair, you found the other spot in the bill that I was fishing for your amendment. So I do believe that there is a There is a problem with that. You're exactly right. Somebody gives $5,000, or the maximum we could give even before there was no limit, on December 31st, and then they give the next maximum on January 1st because it's a different year. I believe it should go in election cycle, but, you know, I don't quite know how to do that.

And I think, remember, this bill was put together from about 8 different amendments, and there's It's a first start, it's a first stab at it, and I'm sure that it's going to take some amending to get it the way we want it. And frankly, I didn't really have any invited testimony because I figured you guys are invited testimony. We've all been through this, right? So—. Thank you.

I think I'm hooked deep enough. Yeah, I'm also pretty hooked on a lot of the ideas that are in this bill. I know we have limited time today, but does anyone have— we're going to bring this bill back up again in so much as time allows us to do so this session. I do want to keep exploring this concept while we have session left before us. Representative Vance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to point out that the comments about election cycle versus election year, for the public listening, that legislation has not passed.

We are still currently upon under each election year in contributions according to those rules with APOC. So just so that there's not any confusion, but I imagine that is going to be addressed later this year.

Representative Himschuh. Thank you. Just going to a more general overview, and I appreciate putting this all together in a bill. I think there's a lot to think about and look at in this bill.

Did you get any memos?

Through the Chair, so, Representative McCabe, legal memo, we got one legal memo that talks about— so it's basically talking about Public Offices Commission versus Patrick, and it seems to me it mentions Citizens United as well. Yeah, there's been some discussion with Ledge Legal on it, and I'm happy to share those legal memos. My objective in this is nothing more than to get it right for the current, you know, computers and internet and Venmo and all that. And I will say that there have been some things that have crept into APOC with regulation that need to be cleaned up. Over the years, one of which was a memo we all got recently that said, "Hey, yeah, I know our— I know that the statute says that campaign signs prepared for an election have no monetary value and they may be retained or disposed of at the candidate's discretion, but if you reuse your campaign signs, you have to declare them as a donation in kind." Well, that's totally counter to what the law says and counter to what its intent was.

There's a bunch of other stuff in there having to do with the way that we— that's still in APOC that we're going to have to sometime or somehow get rid of that have to do with internet ads, you know, so especially ads that come to your cell phone. How do you parse those out on, you know, where did they come from? You know, you have an ad aggregator, RepublicanAds.com, Optima, there's 100 of them, right? And an ad comes to your cell phone, and you're expected to know before it gets there what game it's going to come through, or is it going to come through the Wall Street Journal or through your ADN app, or— and there's— it's unknowable, but you still get penalized for it. So those are the kinds of things that we are trying to fix in this.

So—. Quick follow-up? Follow-up? Just a comment that the campaign sign thing threw me for a loop. I have a picture in my phone of somebody who was at a— some kind of a market in Klawock, and they had to transport valuable breakable items.

And I found two of my campaign signs had been sliced into boxes to be able to move these things. I thought, that is fantastic that those things have been put to good use. But if you have 21 communities and you can't get to any of them by car, you know, and then you're supposed to figure out how many campaign signs you have. So yeah, we need to do some updating. And anybody who's gotten campaign signs before knows they are definitely a valuable asset.

They're very, very expensive. And please stop vandalizing them. So Madam Chair, if I might give you one other example for Representative Himschute.

When I very first ran the very first time, my sister-in-law was a rock collector. You know, those rocks that you go around and painted rocks, and people put them on gas pumps. And so she painted up a bunch of rocks. Rocks with my, um, you know, campaign logo, right? So we called APOC and said, do we have to do— is this a donation in kind?

And, and the answer was, well, what's the value of a rock? Well, it's a rock. So then it became, well, what's the value of the paint that is on the rock and the time it took to— and I'm like, really? I mean, anyways, so it turns out that the value of a rock As long as it's bigger than the 3.5, you know, the little size like buttons, is about $5. So if you look back far enough on my APOC, you'll find money for donation in kind for rocks.

That's—. You know, God bless APOC. Well, I want to go to Vice Chair Story too, who, by the way, joined us at 3:19, and I forgot to say that. But I guess I have kind of a rhetorical question, and there's been somewhat of an uptick, I think, in citizens looking at APOC and valuing the transparency that it provides, which is a good thing. Like, it's good that citizens want to do that.

I think everyone in this room agrees on that. But just as a somewhat rhetorical question, it seems to me that this bill is addressing some of the areas where maybe the public should be focusing. And is it your opinion that the public generally is focused on the kinds of problems that they should be focused on when they're making APOC complaints and APOC is having to make some determinations?

Madam Chair, Representative McCabe again. So, yes, I think that there are— I wouldn't call them loopholes, but there are hidden corners. There are places where candidates can take advantage of APOC reporting. Such as getting a donation on December 31st and again on January 1st. You know, you stand and get a $10,000 donation at midnight and you put $5,000 in one year and $5,000 in the other.

There's ways that you can take advantage. We need to be certainly more transparent for the public to be able to see that. But there are also ways that the public, in an attempt to weaponize, in my opinion, another government agency and harm a candidate can absolutely find loopholes and do that. One of which is that— is the ad aggregate thing for digital ads that I was talking about. That's— it's so hard for a candidate to know that.

I don't— maybe we should bump it up to just reporting the, you know, the group that does it, whether it be, you know, ActBlue is a donation place, but RepublicanAds.com. I'm only familiar with the Republican one, sorry. Or Optima or one of the firms that, you know, maybe it's better just to report that, especially in our case. You know, we're not talking millions and millions of dollars. I mean, if you really look at it, APOC reporting is more restrictive for a for a school board candidate in Alaska than it is for the President of the United States, right?

So, do we really need that level of scrutiny? We certainly need a level of scrutiny when it gets into the big money, but a ROC, really? I don't know.

Yeah, I think— thanks for adding that perspective, because I think sometimes some of the things that are in this bill are addressing potentially, and, and to some extent we don't know how pervasive some of the issues addressed in this bill are, but we don't know that. And I think sometimes I wonder if the public shouldn't be more focused on issues like what's contained here. If bundling contributions is extremely common— I don't know that it is, but if it is, this bill would kind of work to address that. Independent expenditures, which are very pervasive And the donations for those independent expenditures are addressed to some extent in this bill. So I think there's a lot of things the public focuses on that maybe their time would be more efficiently spent if they were focused on some of the other issues that are out there.

So we have time, I think, for a couple more questions or comments. I'll go to Vice Chair Story and then back to Representative Holland. And then we'll probably have to move on for today. Thank you, Chair Carrick. And I'm sorry to the committee that I was late this morning and to the sponsor of the bill because you probably covered one of these questions in your opening statement.

But, and of course, we do not want to be doing things that discourage candidates from running because, you know, we want people to feel they can be very much active in democracy and And so I was just like the general, are there similar laws in other states?

And of course, natural to that is something we've already mentioned about being challenged in court and what were the outcomes. We can go down that way. But there is a lot of questions.

And even like you— greater than $10,000, like was that threshold chosen because of things modeled on other states? And I'm going to let you go whichever way you want to on these and what you think I think is most relevant. I'll just mention two more things. One of them was in the section where it says about bundling, the name and address and employer of each person reasonably known by the candidate to be a person who provided bundled contributions. And that, I didn't understand that language.

That seems to put a candidate— anyway, who would challenge that? And then the last thing I'll say—.

—Do you think APOC has the staffing right now currently to do what is in this bill? Thank you. And through the Chair, Vice Chair Story, I do not think that APOC has the staff to do what they are supposed to be doing. Even now, they don't have the staff to do what the statute clearly says they are supposed to do, which is to examine all reports and then compare all reports. They are not doing that.

They are only examining a report that they get a complaint against, and that's not what the statute says. It clearly says they're supposed to examine all the reports. They obviously don't have the staff to do that. Um, we have gotten crosswise with them. I have gotten crosswise with them before because, um, uh, I assumed that if there was a problem with my report that they would call me and say, "There's a problem with your report.

You need to fix this." And I would say, "Oh, holy cow, I did it wrong. Let me fix that right away." Instead, by statute, 4 years and 11 months after the problem, somebody files a complaint, and now all of a sudden I have a fine that stretches $50 a day for 4 years and 11 months, right? So, yes, that is a problem. And I will tell you that Um, I have talked to dozens of people about running for office in various different locations, and virtually to a person they have said, I don't want to deal with APOC, so I'm not going to run. I don't want the reporting.

There used to be people in the valley that would do your APOC reporting. No longer. There are, there are very, very few people, and they charge a huge premium to do your APOC. I will tell you that it is not good for marital bliss if your wife does your APOC. So, and don't ask me how I know that.

But, and she's probably listening right now and I'm in trouble, but it is what it is. Violation. So, in any case, it is a, it needs, you can tell just from our discussion that it needs to be updated. There's, you know, there's new terms, there's new ways of doing things. And I think that we need to— and, you know, if it doesn't pass this year, if we can make it a better bill for next year with amendments or whatever, I think that's important.

Because once again, you guys— I mean, we, we're the ones that deal with it, right? And we need to make it so that people are willing to run, that APOC is not the hindrance that it is right now. So I don't know if that answered all your questions. I tried. No, but thank you.

That was— I was glad you chose that question. If I could real quick through the chair, I did actually do some research on what other states had implemented laws like this this morning, and many states have strengthened their disclosure laws, including Texas, California, Arkansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and I'm sure that's not a comprehensive list, just for further information.

Thank you. And it would be great to see how states have— if it's possible to maybe ask CSG or NCSL or some of these national groups that look state by state at policy, because I know we have a legal memo about Citizens United. I think it'd be great to see that. But how have states gotten right up to as much as they can do on disclosure without coming into conflict with Citizens United. So, you know, I don't know if this bill, you know, strikes that balance yet, but it'd be interesting to see how far can we go without running up against that.

Yes, Madam Chair, thanks. And actually, we did have long discussions with Ledge Legal, and we changed many of— much of what we put in here. Some of the amendments, as they were put in here so that they were just right up to where we could be constitutionally and with the court cases. So I might actually have a whole document about that that I'm happy to share. So that'd be great.

We're gonna— I know we have a lot of discussion to have. I'm gonna let the last question go to Rep. Holland, if you'd like it, and, and maybe if not, then Rep. Vance. I'd be happy to let Rep. Vance have the last shot at it. Okay, we'll, uh, Rep. Vance, go to you, and then we're unfortunately going to have to move on for today.

Well, Madam Chair, I was just going to have a statement about the conversation rather than a direct question because I feel like we're all kind of moving in the same direction here. And just an observation of— and it's based on ads that I was seeing again, um, you know One of the reasons that the, that ranked choice voting was adopted is it was dark money, of eliminating dark money. Well, we have that and we've had that in place because Alaskans wanted to have more campaign disclosure and we've had it for 4 years. But we, I have people tell me, I don't feel like it shifted as much as far as the transparency of who's influencing our elections on large scale, a small scale. And I think this bill is targeting those areas that, that maybe slipped through the cracks and, and what Alaskans thought was happening.

So I think if we keep that in mind of what Alaskans were wanting by supporting, you know, that get rid of dark money, then, then we'll all like accomplish the goal with this legislation of making sure that these independent expenditure groups, which are kind of in the background. You know, as candidates, we have to put a clear disclosure up front and groups have to do that. But these IEs are these kind of ghost contributors that, that most Alaskans don't know who they are or what they do. Right. And in this bill, I think is what is trying to find that, that has slipped through the cracks and, um, I think that's where a lot of the concern of Alaskans lies is where, where do all, where are all these other flyers and radio ads coming from that we've never heard of?

And, um, I'm, I'm hoping that we can, we can get to that and figure out how to not bump into the constitutional concerns because Alaskans have been asking for it for a long time. So we keep making tiny little steps of progress, but this may be one that can help us get that much closer to what Alaskans are wanting.

Thank you. Um, I agree. So I'm hoping we can bring this bill up a couple more times. And given that it's late in session and, um, this bill was introduced later in session, it's probably not something we can finish discussion on this year. But if we can, we can.

I mean, that would be great, just given our limited time. But I would like to bring this up a couple more times, so I hope we can get to quite a bit more question and answer time. Representative McCabe, do you have any concluding thoughts today? Thanks, Madam Chair and committee. I appreciate the opportunity to bring this to the committee and do some work on it and get a bill out that we all agree on and that we all sort of bipartisan.

I know this issue is— Rep. Vance said is— I've had many conversations with the co-chair of Finance, for instance, who said if we could stop dark money from coming in, outside money from coming into the state, You know, without Citizens United, we could actually accomplish something. Alaska, frankly, is seen as a cheap date by some of the outside influencers that are running independent expenditure groups, whether it be— could be the NRA, it could be, you know, the environmentalists that contributed to the chair's candidate. I'm kidding. Kidding. Oh, Marty.

You know what I mean. We just have too much going for us here in Alaska with the resource development and everything else. And a lot of people outside of Alaska have decided that they want to influence what goes on in our state. And frankly, we live here, it's our state, and I think we need to be the major influencers. So, um, however we can do that would be great.

Thanks. Thank you, Rep McCabe. Um, thanks for bringing the bill forward, and to Miss Almeida for helping answer some questions today. Also, for the record, my constituents are my biggest contributors, and they're in many cases also quite environmentally conscious. And so I don't have any Nature Conservancy or Greenpeace direct donations, just for the record.

Okay, so we have one other item on today's agenda, and I just wanted to state for the record because we do have— I want to thank Austin McDaniel for calling in from Anchorage on the public records bill. We're not going to get to that bill today, so Mr. McDaniel, feel free to join us at a future hearing, and I apologize that we're not able to get to that today. Um, at this time we're going to bring back House Bill 188, which we had gotten to the point of doing amendments on, and we were right in the middle of that process when we concluded our last hearing. So we're going to jump right back into it, and for members A reminder, we had put an amendment on the table, uh, Amendment Number 1 on the table. I'm gonna ask that if Representative Holland could, since he made the motion to put it on the table, if you could please make the motion to.

Remove that item from the table. Chair Kerik, I move to remove Amendment 1 from the table. Okay, seeing and hearing no objection, Amendment 1 is back before us for discussion. We were under discussion on it. I think we pretty much answered all the questions.

Is there any further questions or discussions on Amendment 1?

And there, there was an active objection on this, so, um, how about I'll— if there's a question, then I'll just go ahead, just for process sake, I'll make sure there is an objection on the table so we can have discussion, and then I'll go to Vice Chair Story for a question if you have one. Ah, yes, thank you, Chair Carrick. I was actually hoping to have a little, uh, context on the amendment again and a refresher on that, if I may. For the record, Genevieve Mena. I represent House District 19 in the Alaska Legislature, the Anchorage neighborhoods of Airport Heights, Mountain View, and Russian Jack.

And I'm here with my staff, Temeli Vasalanoa. Amendment number 1 is put forth because when we were working on the committee substitute for this bill, it was largely in response to the transfer of the Alaska Office of Refugees to the State Department. Federal refugee and resettlement dollars have been delivered through Catholic Social Services for the past 20— over 20 years, and this is now a federal requirement that it has to be through the state. And when we created the committee substitute, our intent was for the director of the Welcoming Alaska Office and the director of the Alaska Office of Refugees to be separate positions, but the committee substitute had them as one single position. So this amendment separates these positions to be two separate FTEs, and the director of the Welcoming Alaska Office would be appointed by the commissioner.

However, the Alaska Office of Refugees refugees director would be a position that would just be hired up similar to other positions in the state. And one big difference that this makes is that it also makes it easier to be able to fund the director of the Office of Refugees through federal dollars, because there's a federal fund called the CMA, Cash and Medical Assistance grant that can fund any administrative purposes related to refugee and resettlement purposes. I also believe we have on the line Isispat Rosano, who was the former Alaska Refugee Coordinator for the state, who could also answer questions about how these federal funding programs work. I think in the— I really appreciate her being available. Questions.

In the interest of time, unless members have burning questions for her, we're gonna continue forward. Um, is there any additional question or discussion on Amendment Number 1?

Thank you for that recap, Representative Mena. I'm going to remove my objection. Is there any further objection? Seeing none, Amendment Number 1 is adopted. And this brings us to Amendment Number 2.

Representative Holland. I move Amendment Number 2. I'll object for discussion. Representative Holland. Great.

Thank you.

Amendment Number 2 makes a few changes to ensure that we're helping newcomers not only to find jobs, but also to start their own businesses. It makes two small additions to duties of the Welcoming Alaska Office. One is to reduce licensing and other barriers that prevent newcomers from starting a business in addition to barriers to finding employment. So it's adding this starting a business to some of the work that they would do. And second is to develop a strategy to support newcomers in starting and scaling new businesses.

It also ensures that a member of the advisory committee meet— committee be a representative of the business and economic development community. That is, it currently reads with just a representative of the business community. We wanted to ensure that if somebody in that position had a lens also on economic development and growth of new businesses as opposed to just somebody that came from an existing business. It's important to, I think, for context here, recognize that immigrants are about 80% more likely to be starting a new business than the general population. It's pretty remarkable.

It's an MIT study. Fortune has found that 46% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or refugee or immigrant children. It is new businesses that create the vast majority of new jobs in Alaska. 89% Is what the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development found, is that 89% of net new job creation over 10 years is started by businesses less than 5 years old. So if we're increasing the ability to start new businesses, we are creating not only economic opportunity for those people that are starting those businesses, but that's what creates employment for the rest of the community at this point.

So this amendment is again doing basically one fundamental thing, which is just ensuring that the office's scope of work and coordination includes helping people access and pursue the opportunity to start new businesses in addition to the original language that just focuses on finding a job. Thank you. I'll start with asking the bill sponsor for input, Representative Mena. Thank you, Chair Gray. This is a friendly amendment.

Chair Gray. Oh my goodness. I'm in committees with him too often. It's okay. It's Saturday.

Chair Carrick. This is a different committee. This is a friendly amendment, and I appreciate Representative Holland for keeping a strong eye on the role that new Alaskans play in not only finding a job, but being able to invigorate our economy with small businesses. I'm sure that my mom would have very much appreciated having someone to call with a particular lens to people coming from immigrant communities when she was starting her small business. And so I'm supportive of the amendment.

Excellent. And likewise, I'm very supportive too. And I appreciate Rep. Holland sharing some of the data behind this because I think that's really valuable to hear and understand about small business development in Alaska. Is there any further discussion on this amendment?

Okay, I'm going to remove my objection. Is there any other objection? Seeing none, Amendment Number 2 has been adopted. So it's my understanding that Amendment Number 3 will not be offered. There is an amendment, and then a different amendment, um titled Amendment Number— Conceptual Amendment Number 4, also known as I.5, and that this amendment is being offered in substitution as it contains some clerical and conforming changes, but it is essentially substantively the same as the prior Amendment 3.

So just with that context, I'm going to ask Representative Himschoot to move her Conceptual Amendment Number 4. Correct. I will not be offering Amendment Number 3. However, I would like to offer— I'm not sure what makes it conceptual Amendment Number 4 versus just making it Amendment Number 4. Just call it, just call it Amendment Number 4.

Okay, I think it's Amendment Number 4. All right, and I'm just going to object for discussion so that you can describe Amendment Number 4. Um, I'd love the opportunity to describe my parts of it, and then the reason that it changed also included a conceptual amendment that Representative Holland was going to offer. We just incorporated it into a new amendment to avoid all that back and forth here at the table. So basically, I took out the— this Amendment Number 4 would take out the word "new," with the idea being immigrant is defined in federal code, and basically it says any alien who is not a diplomat, who is not an exchange student.

Like, it tells the folks who are not an immigrant, they don't have the status of immigrant. And so by taking out "new," we're no longer looking for a period of time that makes you an immigrant. Rather, you're just— you're an immigrant. So— and I think the second thing we did was to take out the— English and native language in order to just focus on whatever the language needs are for— yeah, yeah, for, um, for the purposes of language development. And it's intended for that language development to be sort of career-specific, so it's not getting people to full academic fluency, you can go and write your PhD.

Rather, it's to help folks understand the specific vocabulary needed in any workplace and then in specific workplaces. And then Representative Holland added to that, so it might be helpful to have him speak to the section he put in, if that's okay. We'll just, we'll just go to him for discussion. Okay. Okay, so Amendment Number 4 is before us, and I'd first, before we go to Representative Holland, If we could go to the bill sponsor, do you have any comments on the amendment?

Chair Carrick, I am— I'm supportive of this amendment. This is a.

Friendly amendment. We had a bit of discussion about how newcomer in this bill is defined by someone who's just come to Alaska within the past 36 months, but then the bill throughout it uses the terminology new immigrant. And after talking with Representative Himschoot and then also many of our stakeholders, we thought it was most appropriate to just remove new because you could be someone who has immigrated here and you've been in Alaska for 15 years, you've been working, but now you've developed the, the basic fluency, English skills, and job skills to be able to figure out what your next step might be. Maybe you want to look at doing an apprenticeship or maybe starting your own small business. And so removing this time barrier for someone who might be an immigrant would make sense for this office.

So I'm supportive of that part. And then the second part about making the service, the language instruction more general in the welcoming office, welcoming center, which is different from the actual welcoming to the Alaska office. I think that makes a lot more sense, and it's, it's, it's cleaner than being specific about languages in the bill.

Thank you. Representative Holland, did you also want to speak to the amendment? Yeah, thank you, Chair Carrick. Just to clarify the additional piece that I coordinated with Representative Himschute on the section on page 4 of the amendment Up at lines 6 through 9, where it discusses deleting the following services, the new, and then adding coordination. This applies on the bill to page 6.

Sorry to get you jumping around. But what we observed last time when we met, the welcoming center under the current draft said that the welcoming center shall provide the following services, and then enumerates the language instruction, employment training, and assistance. And we wanted to clarify that the Center, in addition to providing those services, which could become quite expensive and create a very significant fiscal obligation, that in fact the understanding and intent was that the Center would provide or coordinate those services and access to those services. So the additional component that we put in the Amendment was to clarify that the Center is providing or coordinating rather than simply providing. And creating that obligation of service delivery.

So this is intended to be supportive of all those other organizations that are already providing these services and the role of helping provide access to them. Thank you, Representative Holland. I'll say I really appreciate that particular component of this amendment because there's probably a lot of services available through referral, and sometimes it's not having everything available but knowing who to refer people to. So I really appreciate that that's included here, and then also that we are, um, doing referrals for language assistance for what languages might be required or valuable for that particular individual. So, um, I, I really also support this amendment.

Representative Vance. Thank you. Um, I like that we're removing the word new, um, but the question I have just in general about this is, are these services available to every Alaskan? I mean, obviously, people that are just coming need help being pointed in the right direction. But are these services available through community economic development for any Alaskan who might be trying to be able to start a business and things like that?

Just broad stroke, I know this is specifically the welcoming office, but do we already have these available for other Alaskans? And then this office is like, hey, we understand that you need some assistance with language and making sure that you are being pointed in the direct direction on services that you didn't know was available. Are we, are we giving parity to every Alaskan. I'll maybe go to Representative Mena first and then Rep. Pimshute. Thank you, Chair Carrick.

Through the chair to Representative Vance, I think that's a really great question, and it also shows the purpose of what the welcoming office will— would be. We have a lot of these services already. I think about, um, the— you have the— if you're looking for a job, you could, um, go to the job center in Midtown Anchorage through the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. If you're trying to work on your language skills, or maybe you are trying to get your GED or do an apprenticeship, In Anchorage, we have the Alaska Literacy Program that helps adult learners gain those skills. And that's open to anybody.

It doesn't matter how long you've been in Alaska, where you're coming from. If you need those skills, those are provided to you. So many of these different services exist already. But if you're someone who is just in the situation where you're new to the state, and you're trying to navigate things, or you're an immigrant, and you're coming from a different cultural background, language background, the office exists not to necessarily create a new layer of government to create these services again, but to help all of these existing state departments be able to better coordinate with each other on how to be more welcoming and accessible to different types of populations that we want to make sure that we include in our state, and also to help new Alaskans figure out how to discover that the Alaska Literacy Program exists or that the job center exists, etc. So the, the office is more to help the state better coordinate with each other on these services, rather than just trying to create a new special office that recreates all of these services.

Thank you. I do have a follow-up on a different question. Sure, follow-up. In—. If we have legal online, or if the maker of the amendment can answer the question, there's a definition of immigrant according to, you know, a federal definition, which I think is helpful.

But do we have a state definition anywhere else in statute that you're aware of?

In the conversation with legal, did that come up? Um, through the chair, I didn't have the conversation with legal, and I My assumption is they would have pointed to that first, but I don't— I can't say for sure. Okay, thank you.

So we don't have legal online, but I, I guess I would probably concur with Rep. Himschute's assessment for why that's the reference as opposed to another definition in state statute. Um, it's my intention we take action on this bill today, but I think that's a good question to potentially follow up on, and just if there's, if there's a conforming definition that would work better in state statute, then I would— I don't know what the sponsor would like to do, but I would certainly be open at least to the idea of conforming that way. These are all the questions I have at the time, so—. Okay, I have Representative Holland and then Representative McCabe. I think I did.

No, I'm all done. Thank you. Okay, Representative McCabe. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I really don't have a problem with it, but new and welcoming seem to kind of go together.

So somebody's been in the state for 15 years, I just wonder if a welcoming thing is really necessary, you know. You know, you see what I'm saying? So I always thought that it was a new immigrant who was kind of part of the part and parcel of what we were trying to do was address new immigrants to the state, not those that have been here for 15 years. But I mean, not, not really. It's more of a semantic thing in my mind than anything.

So I'll go to the bill sponsor and then the amendment sponsor. Representative Mena. Through the chair to Representative McCabe, I think that's an interesting comment, especially because In most other states where they have these offices, they're called Office of New Americans. So we're doing something unique where we're calling it a Welcoming Alaska Office. It is semantics and duly noted.

Representative Himschu. Thank you. Through the chair, what we were facing was how do you, how do you prove that? Is it— do we set the time at 5 years? I've had students who became relatively fluent in English in a year and other kids who needed more than 5 years.

So as far as language services, so it was cleaner to just say immigrant, but— and then who are we to say what the needs will be of each immigrant? But I agree with you, my original goal had been to just set a timeline on it, but then what are we going to do, ask you to produce your whatever document that shows when you came in? And so it just— I think became cleaner to just say immigrant. Follow-up? Follow-up?

Thanks. Yeah, so it's through the chair, Representative Timm. It just seems to me at some level it could be insulting. So somebody's here, they've been working for 15 years, and they walk in and welcome. I've been here for 15 years working my tail off.

You know what I'm saying? So I don't know, it just—. Quick follow-up, we can mandate that they say how do you do instead of welcome.

The How Do You Do Center? Representative Himschoot. Yeah, I would just— Sorry, I could not help myself that one. I would just counter with they're not going to go to the center and seek the services if they're launched. So that's the idea.

I agree that there's some semantic oddity here, but at the same time, I think that the intention is to provide services for not just the 36 months that we would have otherwise covered.

Anyway, Vice Chair Story. Thank you, Chair Carrick. I was just commenting to the committee. I wanted to say that I have some longtime constituents here in Juneau who very much have felt very vulnerable, and they've been growing with their language, older Alaskans and immigrants— immigrant, I can't say— immigrated And I can see very much how this would help them, and they do need someone to help them understand the system because they still really are struggling to grasp the system too. And they're very capable, but it is all very different, and they came here not really knowing the language and followed family and are still— have a lot of questions even of myself and some of the other learn some things about how things work.

And so anyway, I can see very much so where someone would seek to want to do this at a certain point in their life. Cool. Thank you. Okay, can we get a brief at ease? Uh, we'll take a brief at ease.

Okay, House State Affairs is back on the record and we are still under discussion on Amendment Number 4. I can't quite remember where we're at in the queue. Rep McCabe. Thanks. So, um, we, we have some documentation that says under federal law, government-funded or government-operated welcoming office or similar public program generally cannot lawfully offer business opportunities, grants, loans, technical assistance, contracting preferences, or other economic benefits exclusively to new immigrants while excluding U.S. citizens and other long-term residents from the general population.

So perhaps taking the word "new" out is the right way to do it, I think. It goes on to say such a policy would likely violate multiple federal statutes and constitutional protections.

So that would indicate that passing this amendment would be a positive step for this bill? I think passing this amendment would at least be essential. Yeah, essential to making the bill constitutional, maybe. Okay, well, that's interesting information. I'd love to maybe have that shared also with the committee too.

Um, I guess in the interest of time, I think I had objected so we could have discussion on the amendment. I'm going to go ahead and remove my objection. And seeing and hearing no further objection, Amendment Number 4, also known as I.5, is adopted. And we are back to the underlying bill. I, um, I'm going to ask Vice Chair Story for a motion.

I expect there will be an objection, so we can at least discuss prior to taking action on the bill. And I just would ask that members please try to keep their comments relatively brief. We've had a lot of discussion on this bill, so I, I want to give members a chance for comments though. But Vice Chair Story. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I move that the House State Affairs Committee pass CS for House Bill 188, also known as 34-LS0893/i as amended with attached fiscal notes, individual recommendations, and authorizing legal services to make any necessary technical and conforming changes. Object. OK. Thank you, Representative St. Clair. And I'll ask you to actually hold your objection so others can also make comments too.

But would you like to speak to your objection? I'll speak last. It's fine. OK. I objected for the purpose of comments.

OK. And I'll save my comments for the end. I'll let everyone else do theirs. That sounds good. Um, well, I guess I'll start. The only comment I just wanted to provide is just thanking Rep. Mena for bringing this bill forward because there's certainly a lot of immigrants, and I think with this last amendment we just adopted, generally immigrants who could really use a resource that continues, that's sustainable.

Those resources exist now, but what's in this bill provides for a much more long-term and comprehensive service and referral to service. So I'm really pleased that we have it in front of us. Are there other comments? Representative Vance. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the bill sponsor.

I neglected to get my amendment on time that would have added, you know, awareness about labor and sex trafficking that that, you know, newcomers, immigrants are often susceptible to. And we had worked out some language and I just missed the deadline. But I would like to just say for the record that as this moves to the next committee, I would like for Legislative Legal and the bill sponsor to make sure that, that the language as written complies with Statute 1880 that, um, that says that we have to give equal opportunity for every Alaskan. I, as far as I know so far, Amendment Number 4 likely helped with that compliance, but we want to make sure that we are not running into any of those constitutional concerns, and that can be worked out in the next committee. But, you know, these were the questions that that came up just as we're sitting here of going, okay, making sure that we want to help newcomers, but we don't want to violate our equal protections, our equal opportunity statutes of nondiscrimination.

And by people who have already been here, just as Rep. Pimsheep mentioned, you know, people— these things need to be offered to every Alaskan and they may be in other areas. So every single word matters and we don't want to trip over ourselves in that process. So I'm glad that there is another committee to be able to look at that with legal to make sure that we're being diligent in that. That's the, the only concern that I have that I didn't see before, that we could be running into those statutes. But I know that the bill sponsor cares about that deeply, so thank you for that, and just appreciate the committee's work on it.

Thank you, Representative Vance. Representative Holland. Great, thank you. Through the chair, I just— I think like others, appreciate you bringing this bill to us and the work that the sponsor has done to bring into this. I just want to highlight, as this bill potentially moves forward, how important I think it is, as we've seen in the case specifically of our education system, being able to bring in teachers to help out with the need that we have in our schools for teachers and being able to have an organization who's focused in on people who are coming into our country.

And I realize this is for immigrants and refugees, but just this general notion of how important it is for us to be able to create an environment for people to come to the state and do work and to be a part of our community. And particularly, I really appreciate that we've added a little bit of language in here that recognizes how important immigrants and refugees coming into our state are to our economic development and our future. So I think it's really valuable work that you've done bringing this bill to us, and I just want to encourage us to support this bill moving ahead quickly in this session because I think it's valuable work and I look forward to it being passed. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Holland.

Any additional comments or discussion? Thank you everybody for the great debate on this bill and thorough discussion on some of the issues. And I concur with Representative Vance, there might be a couple outstanding questions here and would just encourage those to get addressed in the next Committee of Referral as needed. And I will go back to Representative St. Clair. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I'll just—. I've.

With the bill sponsor, uh, at great lengths. She knows that my point of contention is the fiscal note. However, Catholic Social Services got a grant in 2025 for $846,000, and if we were to receive that grant— I'll give you all this information— if we were to receive that grant, that would zero out the UGF in this, and I wouldn't have an issue with it. A couple other notes that I, that I found is in 2025 42 refugees were resettled in Anchorage. And then the Office of Citizens Assistance that was emailed out to all of us.

I questioned some of the— I think some fuzzy math was occurring in there. But if we can— and she and I spoke about it— whether they're in the exact same organization, parallel, bifurcated, whatever, I think it can do good things. But like I said, my point contention is, is the fiscal note. And with that, I will remove my objection. Thank you, Representative St. Clair.

Is there additional objection? Seeing and hearing none, House Bill 188, version I, has been moved from committee as amended with attached fiscal notes and individual recommendations. We're going to sign the paperwork as we're leaving. I'll first go to Representative Mena for a comment. And then we'll be adjourned.

Thank you, Chair Carrick. And I want to express my deep gratitude for everybody on the committee for your attention to this bill and the importance of the role that immigrants, refugees, but also anybody new coming to Alaska makes in terms of making Alaska a stronger state. I just want to make two quick comments related to Representative Vance's comments and then Representative Sinclair's. Very much duly noted on any potential constitutional concerns and happy to work more and figure out how do we make sure that we don't run into that. I do want to note that we did talk about integrating trafficking language into the bill, and I actually think it makes a lot of sense, especially because if an individual who might be considered or legally designated as someone who is being trafficked, there are circumstances where they would be eligible for services that are primarily delivered through those federal refugee and resettlement dollars that the Office of Refugees provides.

So I think it's a great complement to the bill. And also to respond to Representative St. Clair's comments, I also agree. I have some concerns about the fiscal note as well. We had a good discussion with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development last week about the fiscal note. They said that if you look at it, most of it is through federal dollars.

The increase in the state UGF, they said, was primarily related to the increase of— to the existence of the new advisory council and amendments where we had expanded— the committee substitute added a few more positions to that council, which they said they would add more work. I am open to working with the next committee of referral to figure out how we can decrease those fiscal notes. And even though those federal dollars that Representative Sinclair noted, over $800,000 to the Catholic Social Services, that's indicative of the amount of federal funds that the state can truly take advantage of and help deliver. It wouldn't erase the entirety of the state office because the Office of Refugees is just one part of the broader Welcoming Alaska office, and you cannot use those federal dollars for purposes that are not outside of refugees. So if you're serving immigrants or other newcomers, you can't use those dollars for that.

But I believe there is a lot of flexibility in the cash and medical assistance funds to be able to help complement a lot of the administrative work of the director of the Welcoming Alaska Office. I know that the Department of Labor is learning more about these funds. I know the Department of Health is also learning more about these funds, and we have a new fiscal note there. And I believe the Department of Health fiscal note should be just federal funds, not state funds. So looking forward to working on that in the next committee.

Thank you, Representative Mena. And while, while you were telling us about that, we signed the committee paperwork. Wonderful. Wow. I just, I'm not sure if I said it for sure.

I said everything else, but just I had a reminder that we do authorize Ledge Legal to make technical and conforming changes. And I, yeah, I think that was in Vice Chair Story's motion anyway. But just put that on the record. Um, okay, that concludes State Affairs for today. Thank you all very much again, and our staff, uh, here in the room for joining us on a Saturday.

We will have one more Saturday hearing this session, and I really thank the committee for taking the time to be here. Our next hearing is on Tuesday, April 28th at 3:15. We will have a presentation on data centers from the National Conference of State Legislatures. And we will also hear the public records bill, House Bill 377, and then a first slash kind of second hearing because we've heard the companion legislation for SB 237 from the Senate State Affairs Committee relating to Social Security, um, cards. So that will be on our Tuesday agenda.

And as time allows, I'd also like to bring back up next week the bill we heard today relating to Um, campaign expenditures from Representative McCabe. And at this time, we're adjourned at 4:36 PM.