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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | September 24, 2013 10:31 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Rob Teplitz |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Donations of Judicial Candidate Reserve Funds |
| In the near future I plan to offer legislation that would modify Section 3250 of the Election Code. This section deals with the residual funds, and the change would pertain specifically to the residual funds in the campaign accounts of judicial candidates. This change would have the effect of bringing the Election Code in line with the “Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in Judicial Campaigns” (Chapter 39 of the Pa Code). These guidelines prohibit sitting judges from any involvement in political activities unless they are a candidate. The problem is that once they are no longer a candidate they can no longer retain their campaign accounts, hence they must distribute their “residual funds”. Currently, the wording of the Election Code is ambiguous as to what is to be done with these residual funds, and it could be interpreted that they are to be distributed only to any various political committees and that the distribution of these funds to any non-profit and non-political group is prohibited. My changes would amend the Election Code to allow for permit judicial campaign committees to donate their residual funds to a non-profit community organization, as opposed to a political one. |
Introduced as SB1128