Wednesday, February 15, 2017

"Good Morning"--2/15/17

Posted on 9:15 PMby with 4 comments
Hello everyone! This week is the last week that the House will be hearing new bills, so it has been a busy week in committee as legislators pushed to get their bills out of committee and onto the floor. I started the day at the Senate Finance committee, where they had 16 bills on the agenda, which, by Senator Cajero Bedford's calculations, would take us 8 hours to go through (in reality it took 4 and a half). However, because of this, the committee started at 8 this morning, so I missed the first hour of the committee (if you want, you can watch the whole meeting here).

Since there was nothing scheduled for the floor, next I went to Appropriations, where the JLBC gave presentations on the budget of the Department of Child Services (DCS), followed by a presentation for a request for more funds by the DCS, followed by the same for the Department of Economic Security. The JLBC, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, prepares economic analysis for the legislative bodies on prospective bills and different government bodies. If you want some light reading about them or our budget you can click here. 

And now for the quote of the day, which comes from Rep. Blac as she passed me in the hall this morning. It's been such a pleasure to not only watch our legislators throughout this session but to interact with each of them within the House and in elevators and hallways. I am so grateful for this opportunity and for the kind greeting of Rep. Blac this morning (that probably is way more exciting to me than it should be). 

4 comments:

  1. TreyFebruary 19, 2017 at 9:46 PM

    Wow, I was surprised at the number of bills that were mentioned in your previous posts, but if the House only hears new bills for a few weeks, suddenly that seems like a very small number of total bills. What do the representatives do when not discussing bills, other than fundraising or campaigning? Keep up the politicking!

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    1. Michelle GoldbergFebruary 24, 2017 at 11:27 PM

      The Representatives spend the year after/before the legislative sessions drafting bills and deciding what to do when the legislative session is going on (from my understanding). One of the most startling things was arriving day one and legislators already had multiple bills on the calendar all drafted and ready to go

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  2. Ameya KapurFebruary 20, 2017 at 1:13 PM

    Hey Mimi! What is the process by which senators go through the bills because 4.5 hours definitely seems like a lot?

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    1. Michelle GoldbergFebruary 24, 2017 at 11:33 PM

      Hi Ameya! When a senator/representative gets an idea for a bill, they draft it alongside the legislative council (a nonpartisan group of interns who know all of the language that is typical of the bill), and then it is read the first time. Then the speaker/president decides what committees it should go on, and then the committee chairman must decide whether or not he/she wants to hear that bill. If so, then the bill goes through committee, where it has to pass before going through the democratic and republican caucuses, where each parties familiarize themselves with the bills and debate among themselves. Then it is placed on a calendar of the whole, where it is read a second time on the floor and debated, and needs to pass again. After that there is a third and final reading, where it needs to pass in order to go to the other chamber of the legislature and do it all over again. If the bills passed are not identical, it goes to a conference committee and then sent again to the chambers to pass. And then the governor has to sign it into law. Thank you for making me type all this I hope you learned something!

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