House Bill 1268 is a yummy bill strictly for Legislature nerds (Legi-nerds? Rotunda-heads?).
Currently, legislators may prefile bills with the Legislative Research Council no earlier than 30 days before the beginning of Session—i.e., around the second week of December, after the Governor’s budget address. That limit makes sense, at least in election years, since legislators elected in November probably won’t be ready to write new bills until December anyway.
But apparently Rep. Elizabeth May (R-27/Kyle) and nearly every member of the House want to be able to submit bills earlier. House Bill 1268 would change the post-election prefile start date to the day after the state officially canvasses the election results—usually a week and a day after Election Day. In odd-numbered years, HB 1268 would allow legislators to submit bills as early as July 1.
Rep. May has a spectacular reason for this proposal: she wants more people to read and challenge her bills:
As we all know, it gets a little crazy around here, and so I think that this would give us an opportunity to have opposition to our bills come out ahead of time so it would give us a time to work through any amendments or changes to the bill. It also would give the public more notice for the bills that are coming up in Session. [It] allows for the members to work with any opposition to the language… and it gives a little more time for the language to be right and find the right compromise. It also would allow more interested parties… to come to the table and provide their input. It also would help reduce this last-minute scurrying to fix problems… [Rep. Elizabeth May, testimony to House State Affairs, 2018.02.07 p.m. meeting].
Fascinating! A Republican willing recognizing that making her bills public well before Session and giving opponents more time to attack the bills is actually a good idea that promotes dialogue and practical problem-solving!
I agree completely with Rep. May. If bills start popping up in July, I can spread out my Legislative blogging and cover more bills. And if we see a real clunker of a bill pop up early, we don’t have to sound red alert and scramble folks to call and testify in committee to kill a bill; we can take our time, research, talk to the sponsor, and maybe work toward a better solution that will make more people happy.
Everybody in House State Affairs (except for Rep. Isaac Latterell) thought HB 1268 was a great idea. It is on tomorrow’s House calendar, but hey, it was on today’s, too, and got deferred with a majority other bills thanks to the House’s bogging down in over an hour of debate about homeschooling and sports eligibility (stay tuned for a later blog post!). When it does come, House, zoom it through, go green, and give us Legislative nerds some summer bills!