Gov. Joe Lombardo has called lawmakers back for a special session to reach an agreement on a key budget bill.

The Legislature will meet in the afternoon on June 7 to discuss the proposed bill.

Furthermore, there is speculation that a second special session will be held later in the week to further deliberate over the Athletics’ stadium proposal.

There are no changes in lobbyist reporting due to this special session.

The Nevada Legislature adjourned sine die on June 6 after failing to pass all five necessary budget bills.

In the rush of the final session day, the public funding bill for a relocated Oakland Athletics stadium failed to pass, leaving the teams future in question.

Gov. Joe Lombardo is expected to call a special session in the next few days to pass the final budget bill dealing with capital improvements and to further discuss the plans for the new Athletics stadium.

This does affect lobbyist reporting. The final report for the regular session is due July 6.

The Illinois Legislature adjourned Saturday, May 27 until their scheduled veto session beginning October 24.

Lawmakers passed House Bill 2079, which allows a township officer to hold a position on the board of a not-for-profit corporation interested in a contract, work, or business of the township if the township officer is appointed by the governing body to represent township interests.

The township officer may actively vote on matters involving either the board or the township if the membership on the not-for-profit board is not a paid position.

If the township officer is not appointed by the governing body, the officer may continue to serve but must abstain from voting on a proposition before the township governing body directly involving the not-for-profit corporation.

If Gov. Pritzker signs the bill, it will become effective January 1, 2024.

The 93rd session of the Minnesota Legislature adjourned sine die on May 22.

Lawmakers passed House File 3, a bill restricting political activities by foreign influenced corporations, and requiring corporations making political contributions to file certifications.

The bill requires any corporation making a contribution to a ballot question or an independent expenditure to submit a certification to the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board that it was not a foreign-influenced corporation as of the date the contribution or expenditure was made.

The bill also broadens the definition of expressly advocating to include certain types of political communications, even if they do not use words or phrases of express advocacy, such as “vote for” or “vote against.”

Expressly advocating is used to identify certain types of independent expenditures that require disclosure and reporting to the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

The bill becomes effective January 1, 2024.

The Fair Political Practices Commission has passed multiple regulations clarifying Senate Bill 1439 and Political Advertising.

The regulations dealing with Senate Bill 1439 focus on who is disqualified and how an officer would know a donor has a financial interest in a proceeding before the officer.

Regulations revising political advertising add additional disclosures and adds regulations to less-used methods of communication.

The Alaska Legislature adjourned sin die on May 17 after a dispute between the House and Senate over the state budget. The main division between the two chambers is the size of the Permanent Fund dividend. The lack of a budget has forced Gov. Mike Dunleavy to announce a special session, starting the following day, May 18. The special session can last up to 30 days. This will affect lobbying reporting if the special session lasts until June.

The Vermont Legislature adjourned on Friday, May 12 after passing bills including an $8.4 billion state budget, expanded child care, and housing issues. Gov. Scott is expected to veto the budget, which will cause legislators to return to the statehouse and find a compromise. The Legislature is scheduled to return from June 20 to June 22 for a veto session.

San Diego, California’s contribution limits have been adjusted for the 2024 election cycle due to inflation. The maximum donation an individual can make to a candidate in a City Council race has increased from $650 to $750 and the donation limit to candidates for mayor and city attorney has increased from $1,200 to $1,350. This change is one of the largest adjustments in San Diego’s history, following historic inflation of around 7% during the two years since the contribution limits were last increased.

The Washington Legislature adjourned a one-day special session after passing a new drug possession law. The new bill makes it a gross misdemeanor to use drugs in public or possess small amounts of drugs and adds alternative sentencing for minor drug offenses. The original bill failed on the last day of the regular session, with both progressive Democrats and Republicans voting down the bill. The new law is a compromise between the parties, with both sides getting inclusions into the law.

The first regular session of the 102nd Missouri General Assembly concluded after passing only 43 policy bills, the lowest number passed by a General Assembly in more than two decades, not counting the pandemic-limited session in 2020. The speaker declared the session adjourned sine die as of midnight May 30, in accordance with the constitution. The Legislature could not agree on a plan to legalize sports betting or to make it more difficult for citizens to change the state constitution through initiative petitions.

Nicolas Heidorn has been hired as the new executive director of the City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission. Heidorn previously worked as chief consultant of the California State Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments committee and as legal director of the government watchdog group California Common Cause. Currently, Heidorn operates a consulting firm that focuses on election reform policy and has spearheaded Oakland’s Democracy Dollars program. With the city’s budget problems tightening the mayor’s budget, Heidorn has been brought in to navigate the program’s delayed rollout and the commission’s bloated caseload.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1317 and Senate Bill 5152, updating campaign and lobbying rules in response to current technologies and practices involving online activity and social media. House Bill 1317 was designed to shed light on special interest “astroturfing” in grassroots lobbying. The new law expedites registration of sponsors of grassroots lobbying campaigns and increases the disclosures that must be made in the registration and any advertisements made by the lobbying campaign.

Senate Bill 5152 seeks to combat the advent of “synthetic media” political ads. These ads are created when, via artificial intelligence or other such programs, media is manipulated to cause a person (in this case a politician) to say or act in a way that did not happen. Senate Bill 5152 gives a target of synthetic media a course of action to force a sponsor or media platform to terminate the synthetic media campaign. The bill also gives the sponsor the ability to add a disclosure to the synthetic ad stating the ad or image is a synthetic media post. Both bills become effective July 23.

Lawmakers voted to schedule a special election on August 8, with the adoption of Senate Joint Resolution 2.

The special election is for a ballot issue proposing a constitutional amendment to require approval by 60%  of voters to approve any constitutional amendment which would be effective immediately upon voter approval. The current requirement is for a majority vote.

The constitutional amendment also modifies procedures for an initiative petition proposing a constitutional amendment by prohibiting any additional signatures to be filed for the initiative petition, if found to be insufficient.

If a referendum petition or an initiative petition proposing a law is determined to be insufficient, ten additional days will be allowed for the filing of additional signatures.

The amendment also changes the signature requirements for an initiative petition proposing an amendment to the constitution to require from each county of the state petitions bearing the signatures of not less than five per cent of the electors of the county, while for all other initiative, supplementary, and referendum petitions the signature requirement remains unchanged, requiring petitions from one-half of the counties bearing signatures of one-half the percentage of electors in the county.

These changes would be effective January 1, 2024, if approved by voters.

Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill changing the name of the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission back to the State Ethics Commission.

The much longer commission name was the product of a major ethics overhaul in 2010.

In addition to the name change, House Bill 572 also clarifies rules for late contribution reporting.

A contribution designated for a general election given close to a primary election date does not need reported within two days.

The new law will take effect on July 1.