| There are over 800 bills that have been introduced this year. Many of them are terrible bills that will fundamentally change things in this state – our economy, our business atmosphere, where we can build a house, what our kids are being taught in school, tax policies, and your mode and cost of transportation. These are big things. All of them. You may be a 2A person. You may have a passion for legislation regarding tax policy. Or, you may wish to make sure our law enforcement organizations are not dismantled. The thing is, you can’t just compartmentalize. Many of these things are intertwined.
As an example, I’ve added a bill that will be heard this week. SB 5340 will change the law for someone running for school board. It will change the qualification requirement from U.S. Citizen to allowing those who are not citizens but are legal permanent residents to run for that office. You may not have kids. You may think that it might be a good idea – that legal permanent resident is fully invested in the community. Why not? I have several friends and loved ones who are immigrants. It does take a lot of time and effort to become a citizen. I loved them before they were citizens and I love them after. But are we going to go down the road where people who are not citizens can run for office? The next step is that “well, if we have non-citizens run for office, we should have those upstanding people able to vote, as well.” After all, if they are invested enough to run for office, what’s the difference between that and voting. Do you see how that bill – that mindset – would fundamentally change how we elect our representatives? Again, I know many who are legal residents and those who have become citizens. This is not a statement against them in any way – it is against the idea that we should allow people who are not citizens of the U.S. to hold office. Bear in mind, this move would ultimately affect every single thing I mentioned in the first paragraph.
I didn’t add many bills to the list this week, because I made some other changes and I wanted to get you used to the new format. I wanted to keep things fairly short, so I have the bills in two sections – good and bad. I fixed the two errors I made last week. The Capital Gains bill is in the Bad list and I corrected the bill number for the increase in the gas tax. But here’s how to use my chart.
1. Bill number – I have added a link to the bill report to the bill number, so all you have to do is click on it to get the bill explained in layman’s terms. The Bill Report gives you background, it defines terms, and it gives details about what the bill will actually do. Sometimes that’s tough to figure out just by reading the bill.
2. Then I added a short explanation.
3. Finally, I give you where the bill is. If you click on the link in that column, it will take you to a page that lists all of the members of the committee where the bill currently resides. There is one bill that doesn’t have the link. It’s one that has already gone through the whole process in the Senate and has been voted off the floor. It will now go through the process in the House. (It’s a bill requiring Critical Race Theory to be taught in K12. This bill is on a fast track to be signed into law shortly. Any bill that has made it to Rules or has passed the floor is moving fast – you need to take action quickly on these!)
4. Here is a short summary of what process a bill must go through to pass.
a. It starts in a committee in the “House of Origin” (Senate committee for senate bills and House committee for House bills).
b. The bill must pass out of committee where it goes to rules. If you see a bill in Rules, you know that it is very close to going to the floor for a vote, especially if it’s a Democrat bill and has been voted out of committee this quickly.
c. From Rules, the bill goes to the floor.
d. If the bill is voted off the floor, it then goes to the “Opposite House” and goes through the same process.
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