February 26 – March 1, 2024
One week to go! This has been a busy one (so what else is new?!) with the fiscal cut-off for bills from the opposite house on Monday and opposite house cut-off today (Friday!). Simultaneously, there have been hearings on three (out of six) of the initiatives to the legislature – the parents’ rights initiative, police pursuit initiative, and income tax initiative. It looks like the legislature will pass these early next week, which means they will not go to the ballot… They will become law.
Additionally, budget negotiations are underway as the hope is to pass the budget on time (March 7th). Legislators need to resolve a number of differences with the operating, capital, and transportation budgets. Here’s hoping they can!
This is a time of a lot of nail biting while waiting for bills to get out of Rules and come up for a vote. There is absolutely no guarantee that a bill that made it out of the original house and through the opposite house policy (and potentially fiscal) committee will get out of Rules and voted on. There are SO many bills and just not enough time to do them all. If you came to the Capitol this week, you would have seen many advocates/lobbyists standing around on the 3rd floor working to do whatever they can to make sure that their priority items get addressed in the manner they want them addressed!!
After cut-off today, the legislature will spend time on the concurrence/dispute calendar. When a bill is amended by the opposite house, it has to go back to the house of origin for concurrence. If the house of origin agrees with the changes, then they do a final vote on the bill before sending it on to the Governor. If they don’t agree, then they ask the opposite house to recede on their changes. If that happens, then there can be concurrence. If it doesn’t happen, the bill is in dispute, and the two houses will need to come together to try to work out their differences so that there can be final passage on an agreed-upon bill. There isn’t much time to do all of this, but it’s all part of the process!
In addition to running the concurrence calendar, the focus next week will really be on the budget. And then Sine Die!!! We will likely send a brief update next week; however, it may take a bit to do a budget summary of items we have been following. Stay tuned!
Thank you for hanging in there… it is amazing how long ago January 8th seems and yet how quickly the session seems to have gone by. Session time is a mysterious thing!
Here is the P4C week eight bill tracker 2024.
Questions? Contact laurielippold@gmail.com
