Latest news with #Bill20
CBC
17-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Political parties enter Edmonton's municipal election
Campaigning is underway ahead of Edmonton's municipal election, and voters are starting to see the impacts of the legislative changes made by Bill 20 and 50.
Calgary Herald
29-04-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Alberta bill seeks to reintroduce union, corporate contributions, ban tabulators and lower recall threshold
Alberta is seeking to overhaul how its elections are administered including reintroducing union and corporate spending, increasing election spending limits, and banning vote tabulators as well as change rules around citizen initiatives and recall. Article content Article content Bill 54: the Election Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 was tabled in the legislature by Justice Minister Mickey Amery on Tuesday. Article content Article content 'I believe democracy thrives when people trust the process,' Premier Danielle Smith told reporters about the bill. Article content Article content She said the timing of the announcement, coming the day after the federal Liberals won Monday's election, was coincidental. Article content 'We were going to introduce it regardless of what the outcome of the election was. It just so happens that this is the timing now.' Article content The bill spells out more than 50 proposed changes to rules around elections and would amend seven government acts, some of which mirror the changes made to municipal elections announced last year via Bill 20. Article content Here are some of the major changes coming via Bill 54: Article content Unions and corporate donations Article content If passed, the legislation would allow Alberta corporations and unions to make contributions to parties, constituency associations, leadership contests and third party advertisers, among others. Article content Article content Such contributions are prohibited under current rules in both provincial and federal elections. Article content Election spending limits Article content The bill proposes changing the formula-based approach to provincial election spending limits to a limit of $5 million for each registered political party. Article content Expense limits per candidate are set to rise to $75,000 from $60,800, and expense limits for parties in a byelection will grow to $75,000 from $28,000.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Here's how the Texas Legislature is hoping to crack down on AI-generated child porn
The Texas Senate unanimously passed legislation Wednesday to outlaw AI-generated child sexual abuse material in a move lawmakers said will give police better tools to crack down on child exploitation. Senate Bill 20 by Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, would criminalize the possession of obscene material appearing to depict a child, "regardless of whether the depiction is an image of an actual child, a cartoon or animation, or an image created using an artificial intelligence application or other computer software." Under the proposal, the offense would be a state jail felony but a charge could be upgraded for previous convictions. "Technology, whether through AI or other programs, has enabled child predators to produce material that is obviously so offensive, and I believe it has no redeeming value whatsoever," Flores said from the Senate floor Wednesday. "In fact, these materials are often used to groom and abuse children." Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the three-term Republican who presides over the Senate, designated SB 20 as a priority for the 89th Legislature and praised the chamber for its vote. "With the proliferation of AI-generated pornography, steps must be taken to protect Texans, and specifically children, from harmful computer-generated content and the crimes that arise from it," Patrick said in a statement. "I named SB 20 as a priority because Texas law must do more to eliminate all types of child pornography and stop the crimes that result from it." The Senate on Wednesday also approved SB 1621, a bill by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, that would make additional changes to the penal code to tighten child pornography laws and includes a provision outlawing AI-generated child sexual abuse material. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Senate OKs bills to crack down on AI-generated child porn
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Flexing muscles while giving up the reins
The REINS Act creates a conundrum inside the Kentucky Capitol: By asserting its power the legislature could cost Kentucky its power to run regulatory programs. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Sarah Ladd) It's said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind. Yet one must wonder why, in the same breath as claiming to be the most powerful of the three coequal branches of state government, supporters of two bills pending in the General Assembly would want to give that power over numerous state regulatory programs to the federal government? That is the conundrum of House Bill 6 and its counterpart Senate Bill 20, both pending in the Kentucky Senate. Kentucky's General Assembly has determined, over many years and with many votes, that Kentucky should manage regulatory programs under various federal laws — including laws regulating air pollution, water pollution, waste management, occupational safety and health, drinking water, underground injection associated with oil and gas production, among numerous others. No one requires Kentucky to run these programs. If Kentucky decided tomorrow to no longer do so, a federal program would be implemented in place of Kentucky's. With longer wait time for permits. With higher permit fees. With federal agency and federal court enforcement. It was the General Assembly that directed the executive branch agencies to apply for delegated authority from the federal government to allow Kentucky agencies to operate the programs, to issue the permits and to conduct the inspections. With that authority comes a binding obligation, voluntarily accepted, to maintain the programs in a manner that meets the requirements of the federal law and is timely updated to reflect changes in federal regulations. The federal program standards are national minimum standards, intended to establish a national floor of worker public, and environmental protection, against the one-downmanship and economic protectionism that prevailed among the states and too often prevented states from adopting adequate protections. (Regrettably, Kentucky has in many cases converted those floor standards of protection into our ceiling, but that is an issue for another day). Regulations impose standards of conduct and responsible behavior, such as limiting pollution of the public's air, land and water and protecting workers in the workplace from hazards. As such, regulations have costs — costs for compliance, costs for pollution control, costs for worker protection — that are internalized through regulation and passed through to consumers, rather than being paid for downwind, downstream and downhill, in morbidity, mortality and loss of quality of life. Not controlling those harms and impacts also has a cost, yet all too often, the focus in 'cost-benefit' analyses overemphasizes compliance costs while minimizing benefits to both the regulated and the public. Or ignores those offsetting benefits completely. So it is with HB 6 and SB 20, which would decree that unless it falls within one of six enumerated exceptions, no state agency has the authority to file any regulation that would impose compliance costs of more than $500,000 over a two-year period. No consideration is provided in the bill to offsetting benefits, such as avoided costs to workers and public health, safety and the environment. And no exception is provided to allow state agencies to adopt regulations needed to allow continued state management and control of delegated federal programs. One reported explanation from the House floor debate was that it 'is about a reset to make sure and remove all doubt that the most powerful branch of government is the branch that has the most elected people in it — that power that this country was founded on is spread across 138 individuals. We should … never allow unelected bureaucrats to set the policies that affect the everyday lives of Kentucky citizens.' Called the 'REINS Act' for 'Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny,' the bill might better be called the 'Giving Up The Reins Act' since the outcome of the bill if enacted will be that all of the delegated federal programs will be subject to challenge, de-delegation, and replacement by federally-run programs. You read that right. The muscle-flexing will likely result in de-delegation of the federal programs that the General Assembly directed those 'unelected bureaucrats' in the state agencies to apply for, receive, and implement in the first place. And in the meantime, as noted by the secretary of the Energy and Environment Cabinet that implements many of these delegated programs, the bills would hamper the cabinet's ability to effectively protect Kentucky and Kentuckians from environmental harms. Each of the federal program delegations requires certification from the states that they have the legal authority to maintain, administer, implement, and enforce the federal law and regulations. A state agency that no longer has the power to timely adopt state counterpart regulations as federal regulations change, can no longer demonstrate that authority. And any notion that the economic impacts of these regulations have not been thoroughly considered is misplaced. Each of the federal regulations adopted by Kentucky agencies as part of these delegated programs, which represent most of all state regulations, have been thoroughly vetted and subject to significant scrutiny for costs and benefits at the federal level, and are again subject to such analyses and legislative review as part of the state administrative regulation process. Blanket prohibitions on adoption of regulations based solely on the projected compliance costs, and ignoring the offsetting health and safety benefits of regulation, such as HB 6 and SB 20 propose, add nothing of substance to the process. The General Assembly cannot have it both ways. If it believes that state agencies should continue to manage these federal programs that are intended to protect workers and the public and to create a healthy and livable environment in which Kentuckians can live, work and do business, then it should shelve HB 6 and SB 20. If it would rather assert its 'power' by preventing Kentucky's agencies from adopting regulations needed to maintain the regulatory programs it directed them to adopt and manage, it should be ready to give up the 'reins' on these programs, with all of the economic disruption, delays, environmental damage and loss of control that will follow. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House panel keeps 15-day voter-registration deadline
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — An attempt to change the deadline for voter registration has failed in the South Dakota Legislature. The deadline currently is 15 days before an election. Republican Rep. Heather Baxter wanted it to be 30 days. One reason Baxter gave was that the earlier deadline would coincide with South Dakota's 30-day residency requirement to register to vote. House now says no to US constitutional convention The House State Affairs Committee on Wednesday rejected her legislation, House Bill 1103, on an 8-4 vote. Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson testified in favor of changing to 30 days. Anderson said her office received several hundred applications on October 21, the last day when registrations could be accepted ahead of the 2024 general election. Harding County Auditor Kathy Glines opposed changing to the earlier deadline. Glines said it would conflict with timelines for special elections such as runoffs and for school elections. 'We don't have an issue with the 30 days, but we need to get everything to blend,' Glines told the committee. She said changing to 30 days would force auditors 'to pick and choose what law you want us to break.' Committee members also rejected three other bills dealing with elections and campaign finance. Senate Bill 20 which sought to specify that voters must use a black ink ballpoint pen when marking a ballot. House Bill 1104 which sought to require standardization of paper ballots including color-coding for primary elections. Senate Bill 11 which sought to limit amounts that an inactive candidate committee can transfer to other political committees. Currently, those committees can transfer unlimited amounts. Republican Rep. Jon Hansen said he understood the problem that Republican Sen. Michael Rohl is trying to address in SB 11. 'I think we can work on something in the future,' Hansen said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
