State leaders are trying to stand up a law to massively overhaul Oregon’s campaign finance system.

Now, two years after the original bill’s passage, a new proposal would limit political contributions before the next general election as planned, but give the Secretary of State more time to launch a required system to track spending.

An amended bill, unveiled Monday evening, is shining a spotlight on the divide between the politically powerful labor and business groups who support it and good government advocates who are accusing state leaders of trying to skirt the intent of the original legislation.

House Bill 4018, which saw its first public hearing Tuesday morning, comes as state officials seek to prop up the campaign finance bill passed in 2024. Since then, state leaders have been jockeying over how best to quickly set up the bill for Oregon’s elections. For years, the state has not capped political giving.

State elections officials have warned repeatedly that the legislation from 2024 was flawed and that Oregon was barreling toward a failed implementation. The Oregon Secretary of State says it needs far more money — potentially $25 million — to keep things on schedule.

In addition to a dizzying array of technical changes, the new bill gives the state more time to create an online system to better monitor and track political spending and giving. It would move the start date from 2028 to 2032.

The bill maintains the original plan of capping political donations by businesses, political committees, interest groups, labor unions and other citizens by 2027.

“If our goal is to strengthen trust in democracy, we cannot afford a rollout that undermines confidence in government’s ability to deliver,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in testimony supporting the bill on Tuesday.

“Oregonians deserve campaign finance reform that works, not just on paper, but in practice,” said Read. “They deserve a system that ends unlimited contributions. HB 4018 is a step closer to achieving that goal by preserving the key contribution limits promised to Oregonians while providing a realistic runway for the state to resolve the more complex reporting and transparency issues.”

House Speaker Julie Fahey, who proposed the bill, believes it “addresses the most urgent needs of our campaign finance system,” a spokesperson for the Lane County Democrat said. For the tracking system, the bill “will give the Secretary of State the time needed to build it carefully, test it thoroughly, and roll it out without risking problems in the middle of a major election.”

The bill has the backing of labor groups such as the Oregon Nurses Association, Oregon AFSCME, Oregon AFL-CIO and the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association. Republican leaders have yet to chime in.

“Oregon is fighting hard for a transparent, robust, and intact democracy against a challenging national landscape from federal threats and corporate power. Fair elections are the foundation of this,” said Harper Haverkamp, of the American Federation of Teachers — Oregon. “The upcoming rollout of recently passed campaign finance reforms is something for us to look forward to — but the rollout must be done right.”

Campaign finance advocates offered a withering view of the proposal on Tuesday, saying they were excluded from discussions around crafting the bill and calling on lawmakers to reject the bill. In written testimony, one of them urged lawmakers to “Stop kicking the can down the road.”

The bill “massively changes [the 2024 bill] to come very close to making the contribution limits and disclosure requirements illusory,” Dan Meek, a Portland attorney and campaign finance reform advocate, said in Tuesday’s public hearing.

Among other things, he added, the bill would delay disclosure requirements by three years. It would also only restrict a group’s contribution to a campaign if the Secretary of State’s office determined that a single person had created them with the intent of evading limits, “which will be very difficult to prove,” he noted.

“This is another stealth attempt by legislative leadership and the big campaign contributors to do an end run around on campaign finance reform, before it’s set to be implemented,” Kate Titus, the executive director of Common Cause Oregon, said in a statement to OPB Tuesday.

The bill is scheduled for another public hearing on Thursday.

Latest research from Basware shows majority are investing in technology, but ROI remains elusive

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Calls from boards of directors and executive leadership to “do something with AI” are growing louder, and finance is struggling to answer them. According to a new report from Basware, a global leader in Invoice Lifecycle Management, nearly half of CFOs say they feel increased pressure from company leadership to implement AI across their operations. And while many are investing in agentic AI in response, a majority admit they are largely experimenting with the technology and flying blind when it comes to putting it into practice and delivering ROI.

As revealed in AI to ROI: Unlocking Value with AI Agents report, a global survey conducted by FT Longitude with support from Basware, six in ten (61%) of 200 finance leaders across the US, UK, France and Germany polled say their organization rolled out custom-developed AI agents largely as an experiment, simply to see what the technology could do. And one in four admit they still don’t fully understand what an AI agent looks like in practice.

It’s a vexing problem, and as they look to the year ahead, CFOs need to focus on solving it.

The Rise of Agentic AI

Two-thirds (66%) of respondents to the Basware survey say there is more hype around agentic AI than any previous technology shift, yet three-quarters are still figuring out the best way to leverage it. And the C-Suite is losing patience.

“We’ve reached a tipping point where boards and CEOs are done with AI experiments and expecting real results,” said Jason Kurtz, CEO, Basware.

And as the Basware research makes clear, agentic AI is the key to delivering them. While overall AI return on investment (ROI) rose from 35% to 67% in the last year, survey data shows agentic AI far – and companies using third-party solutions already embedded with AI agents – outperformed all categories with an average ROI of 80%.

Scoring Easy Wins

“Finance teams that focus on areas where AI can have immediate impact, such as automating accounts payable, improving compliance, reducing errors, and detecting fraud, can deliver these results,” Kurtz adds.

Respondents to the Basware survey confirm this, with 72% saying they see accounts payable (AP)—often the most manual and data-heavy part of the finance function—as the most obvious starting point for agentic AI. And it’s an area where Basware can deliver quick wins. At the end of the day, AP is a data problem. and Basware is solving it with AI. Over the last 40 years, the company has built the industry’s largest set of structured, high-quality AP data and processed more than two billion invoices. And it’s applying AI to this data to train its AI agents and deliver context-aware predictions, enabling finance teams to spend less time analyzing and more time deciding and acting. Other areas where they will likely deploy agentic AI:

• Automating invoice capture and data entry (30%)
• Cash flow management (24%)
• Scenario modeling and forecasting (23%)
• Lower operating costs (21%)
• Running real-time risk and market analysis (20%)
• Automating financial reporting and reconciliations (20%)
• Streamlining compliance checks and regulatory filings (19%)
• Detecting duplicate invoices or potential fraud (19%)
• Reducing overpayments or duplicate payments (18%)

Build Vs Buy

Organizations that leverage intelligent platforms like Basware’s Invoice Lifecycle Management that are embedded with agentic AI and uniquely designed to drive these processes can deliver the results they’re leadership is expecting with greater speed and cost efficiency than cobbling together point solutions or attempting to build their own.

Take InvoiceAI, a solution delivered on the platform that intelligently and securely applies generative and agentic AI, natural language processing and deep learning across the entire invoice lifecycle. Leveraging embedded AI Agents, the solution goes beyond simple automation to autonomously processes invoices and deliver game-changing improvements in speed, accuracy and compliance.

From Hype to Reality – and ROI

But achieving these results requires clear strategies and governance to drive them.

According to the Basware survey, nearly three quarters (71%) of finance teams seeing the weakest returns from AI reported acting under pressure and without direction, compared to 13% of teams achieving strong ROI.

“Our research confirms what we see every day: AI for AI’s sake is a waste,” Kurtz said. “Agentic AI can deliver transformational results, but only when it is deployed with purpose and discipline. And that means embedding AI directly into finance workflows, grounding agents in trusted data, and governing them like digital employees. This is how AI moves from innovation to impact. And this is what Basware delivers for our customers.”

To learn more about Basware’s Invoice Lifecycle Management platform and the value it is delivering to enterprises around the globe, click here.

About Basware 

Basware is how the world’s best finance teams gain complete control of every invoice, every time. Our Intelligent Invoice Lifecycle Management Platform ensures end-to-end efficiency, compliance and control for all invoice transactions. Powered by the world’s most sophisticated invoice-centric AI – trained on over 2 billion invoices – Basware’s Intelligent Automation drives real ROI by transforming finance operations. We serve 6,500+ customers globally and are trusted by industry leaders including DHL, Heineken and Sony. Fueled by 40 years of specialized expertise with $10+ trillion in total spend handled, we are pioneering the next era of finance. With Basware, now it all just happens. 

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Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2398888/Basware_logo.jpg

SOURCE Basware

RedChip Companies, Inc. (Media Suite)

ORLANDO, FL / ACCESS Newswire / February 9, 2026 / RedChip Companies, an industry leader in investor relations, media, and research for microcap and small-cap companies, today announced that on-demand replays from its Fintech & Digital Asset Treasury Strategy (DATS) Virtual Investor Conference, held February 4, 2026, are now available.

The conference showcased senior executives from publicly traded companies operating at the intersection of modern payments, financial technology infrastructure, and digital asset treasury strategies. Investors who were unable to attend the live event-or who wish to revisit specific company presentations-can now access full video replays at their convenience.

“The strong engagement we saw throughout this conference highlights the accelerating investor interest in fintech innovation and digital asset treasury strategies,” said Dave Gentry, CEO of RedChip Companies. “By making these presentations available on demand, we are extending access to critical insights into how public companies are navigating evolving payment systems, digital assets, and balance sheet strategies.”

Conference Presentation Replays

Investors may view individual company presentations and Q&A sessions using the links below:

Additional presentation replays are available on RedChip’s YouTube channel.

Each replay includes a management presentation followed by a live investor Q&A session, providing deeper insight into business models, growth strategies, regulatory considerations, and key milestones related to fintech platforms and digital asset treasury initiatives.

The Fintech & DATS Virtual Investor Conference was designed to give institutional and retail investors direct access to companies driving innovation in payments, financial infrastructure, and digital asset management as adoption continues to expand across enterprises and institutions.

About RedChip Companies

RedChip Companies, an Inc. 5000 company, is an international investor relations, media, and research firm focused on microcap and small-cap companies. Founded in 1992 as a small-cap research firm, RedChip gained early recognition for initiating coverage on emerging blue chip companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Daktronics, Winnebago, and Nike. Over the past 33 years, RedChip has evolved into a full-service investor relations and media firm, delivering concrete, measurable results for its clients, which have included U.S. Steel, Perfumania, Cidara Therapeutics, and Celsius Holdings, among others. Our newsletter, Small Stocks, Big Money™, is delivered online weekly to 60,000 investors. RedChip has developed the most comprehensive service platform in the industry for microcap and small-cap companies. These services include the following: a worldwide distribution network for its stock research; retail and institutional roadshows in major U.S. cities; outbound marketing to stock brokers, RIAs, institutions, and family offices; a digital media investor relations platform that has generated millions of unique investor views; investor webinars and group calls; a television show, Small Stocks, Big Money™, which airs weekly on Bloomberg US; TV commercials in local and national markets; corporate and product videos; website design; and traditional investor relation services, which include press release writing, development of investor presentations, quarterly conference call script writing, strategic consulting, capital raising, and more. RedChip also offers RedChat™, a proprietary AI-powered chatbot that analyzes SEC filings and corporate disclosures for all Nasdaq and NYSE-listed companies, giving investors instant, on-demand insights.

To learn more about RedChip’s products and services, please visit:

“Discovering Tomorrow’s Blue Chips Today”™

Follow RedChip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/redchip/

Follow RedChip on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RedChipCompanies

Follow RedChip on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redchipcompanies/

Follow RedChip on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedChip

Follow RedChip on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@redchip

Follow RedChip on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-3068340

Subscribe to our Mailing List: https://www.redchip.com/newsletter/latest

Contact:

Dave Gentry
RedChip Companies Inc.
1-800-REDCHIP (733-2447)
1-407-644-4256
info@redchip.com

–END–

SOURCE: RedChip Companies, Inc.

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire