Details from district 2: Now over midway, legislators address 450 bills
Greetings from Pierre!
Last week we passed through the halfway point in this legislative session and celebrated that milestone with a little song and music at the beginning of Tuesday’s House session. Yes, there were the sound of bagpipes echoing through the halls of the Capital.
By my count, there have been 450 bills submitted; 241 in the House and 209 in the Senate. With all the bills now in the hopper, committee meetings are starting to ramp up with more hearings, which at times causes limitations on the amount of time each bill has for testimony. As I write this, we have just over five days left before what is termed ‘Crossover Day’ when all bills or joint resolutions have to be dealt with by the house of origin. So, even though we’re past the halfway point, work is speeding up and there’s much to do before this session is in the books.
I’ll briefly touch on a couple of the more high-profile bills that have come before us. The first is HB 1080, which deals with the prohibition of certain medical and surgical interventions on minor patients as it relates to gender identity. This bill originated in the House and after passing through committee, was passed in the House by a vote of 60-10. It then went to the Senate, passed through their committee and passed on the Senate floor by a vote of 30-4. It is now awaiting signatures by leaders of both chambers, after which it will be sent to the Governor’s desk for her consideration.
The second bill I’ll mention is HB 1133, which deals with eminent domain. This bill made it out of committee and did pass on the House floor. It is now in the Senate and will soon be scheduled for committee hearing and possible vote in that chamber. The purpose of this bill is to address concerns about the proposed carbon pipelines and would, if passed, prevent the companies seeking to build the pipelines from exercising eminent domain laws against landowners. The vote on this bill was 40 Yeas and 28 Nays. As a matter of full disclosure, I had concern about aspects of the bill and did vote no on its passage. This will be one to watch as it proceeds through the Senate, so stay tuned.
We have started to go over some of the appropriation bills and my hat’s off to those that sit on that committee. They seem to go every day, all day, and have what appears to be the toughest job in the legislature.
The last item I am going to comment on is HB 1158. This bill deals with counterfeit airbags and was voted on and passed in the House just about an hour ago. With the name and subject, the sponsor did make clear that it did not pertain to any of the legislators currently serving! Nice to know.
