My name doesn’t have to be first on the sponsor line of the bill.

Sometimes, it’s better to be second, especially if the person who’s first sits on the committee that’s hearing the bill.

Even better if that colleague is in the room where it happens – when the committee leadership meets prior to the public voting session to “recommend” which bills should pass and which bills should fail.

A “bot” is “an automated online account where all or substantially all of the actions or posts of that account are not the result of a person.”

Russian operatives were behind hundreds or thousands of fake accounts on Twitter and Facebook that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages during the 2016 campaign. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election.html

House Bill 465 would require that the use of a “bot” to publish, distribute or disseminate campaign material online be disclosed on the campaign material.

I asked that the bill be drafted, but then I asked Delegate Alice Cain to be the lead sponsor. She sits on the Election Law Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.

We will both sit at the witness table tomorrow.