Back after transmittal break

As we come back after the break, we are beginning to see and hear many of the House bills that were moved to the Senate just before the transmittal deadline. I thought it might be helpful to recap just some of the types of bills we see over the course of the session.

Many bills are agency requested legislation that cleans or fixes language in existing law. An example of one cleanup bill would be HB 266. An advisory council was set up for a concealed weapon permit back a few years ago. Now a bill has been passed to eliminate the law that initiated that council. Another type of bill is one that sets up a new function, which is reliant on allowable and available funding. A recent bill of this type, HB 81, which came from the House and passed the Senate, sets a plan to create a State of Montana funded Veterans Cemetery in Flathead County. Other bills start as a short title of the sponsor’s choosing, with the intention of holding a spot for the bill for later introduction. Many are very broad titles, such as “generally revise law” related to health, schools, highways, so-on and so-on. With a bill title this general, the bill itself is very easy to amend, and the final draft of the bill can really go any direction from where it started. Conversely, some bills have titles that have a very tight title that may say something like, “only raise” taxes, revenues, or whatever the sponsors want to happen.

Now some of the numbers, that I find interesting as I watch things move forward. There have been 4,630 total proposed bills during the 68th Legislative session. Of those, 922 have passed the first chamber and another 846 have moved to the other house. Another 1,460 of the bills have been introduced to one of the houses. There have been 83 House bills passed on to the governor thus far for signature. As far as Senate bills, 25 have been signed by the governor. With 1,460 bills somewhere in the bill process, I am sure we will have plenty do in the next few weeks. Looking at my Education Committee schedule, I see 17 House bills that, as of now, have been sent over to the Senate. Our Education Committee has tabled 10 bills, we passed a number of those on, but I could not find the exact amount. In talking to the leadership, there will be a total of 361 House bills coming to different Senate committees. These numbers give us an idea of the volume of bills that have run through this session.

It does look like the budget is coming along and the House will be voting on part of the budget next week. As always, stay safe!

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Sen Russ Tempel, R-Chester, can be emailed at [email protected].