April 7 is the deadline for most legislative committees to schedule work sessions on bills in their first chamber. In other words – a house bill still in the House of Representatives must be scheduled for a work session by the house committee of jurisdiction by April 7. The work session itself must be held by April 18. No scheduled work session on a bill by the deadline gives a strong implication that the current contents of the bill is of very little interest to the committee and the bill, as is, will not become law. There may, however, be some interest in the bill’s “relating to” clause, if it becomes useful at a later date. One can say that nothing is truly dead until sine die.
As a consequence, committees are holding hearings on bills that may be of little interest, just in case. By the way, the deadlines related to bill actions do not apply to the revenue, joint, or rules committees.
As of March 24th, 2,709 bills have been introduced in the 2017 Legislative Session. Of those, the AOC policy team is diligently tracking or monitoring 1,623 (59.9%).
Contributed by: Gil Riddell | AOC Policy Director