UNPSENT CAMPAIGN MONEY                                                                         S.B. 1022:

                                                                                                    SUMMARY OF BILL

                                                                                      REPORTED FROM COMMITTEE

Senate Bill 1022 (as reported without amendment)

Sponsor:  Senator Dave Robertson

Committee:  Elections and Government Reform

CONTENT

The bill would amend the Michigan Campaign Finance Act to do the following:

-- Allow a candidate committee's unspent money to be given to that candidate committee to pay its outstanding debts, if the former candidate did not become a candidate again and the committee had not been terminated.

-- Allow the Secretary of State to fine the committee, or a new committee formed by the candidate, if he or she received the unspent money and later became a candidate for the same elective office.

-- Prescribe misdemeanor penalties for a person who knowingly disbursed unspent money from a candidate committee in a way prohibited by the Act.

-- Allow unspent money of a candidate committee that had been terminated to be given to a political committee or independent expenditure committee, in addition to the recipients currently allowed.

-- Permit a candidate committee or a committee to deposit the proceeds of a joint fund-raiser in a secondary depository for certain purposes.

-- Specify how a connected organization could transfer contributions it collected to a separate segregated fund.

MCL 169.205 et al.                                                    Legislative Analyst:  Nathan Leaman

FISCAL IMPACT

The bill could provide a negligible increase in deposits to the State's General Fund regarding the civil fines that the Department of State could impose for violation of the proposed provisions. The Department anticipates that there would be relatively few violations but any civil fines levied by the Department would be deposited into the State's General Fund/General Purpose (GF/GP) revenue. The amount of potential additional GF/GP revenue is indeterminate and would depend on the number and amounts of fines eventually levied by the Department of State.

In addition, an increase in misdemeanor arrests and convictions could increase resource demands on local court systems, law enforcement, and jails. Any associated increase in penal fine revenue would be dedicated to public libraries.

Date Completed:  6-4-18                                                     Fiscal Analyst:  Joe Carrasco

Ryan Bergan

This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.