Chris Dodd: “just this week the National Conference of State Legislatures released its latest Unfunded Mandates Report. Based on…”

“just this week the National Conference of State Legislatures released its latest Unfunded Mandates Report. Based on President Bush's budget request, and the budget resolution before us, the NCSL Report labels the $40 million in fiscal year 2005 funding for election reform under the Help America Vote Act an unfunded mandate of $560 million. The budget resolution before us does not include sufficient funds to ensure that necessary election reforms can be achieved by the States in time for the 2006 elections. I regret that the resolution does not reflect the bipartisan recommendation of the Senate Rules Committee with regard to payments to the States for election reform under the Help America Vote Act, P.L. 107-252, HAVA. In our letter of February 24 to the Budget Committee, Chairman Lott and I expressed our concerns that the $40 million funding level proposed by President Bush's budget for fiscal year 2005 was insufficient to fully fund the required election reforms which States must implement by the first Federal election in 2006. Based on estimates by the States, the bipartisan Carter-Ford, Commission, and numerous experts, Congress authorized a total of $3 billion over 3 fiscal years for implementing these requirements. To date, Congress has funded roughly $2.4 billion in section 257 requirements payments.”