“Feels like I’m Pushing a Rope” House Speaker
We heard 40 Bills in the House today. But, nothing failed. House has 59 Senate bills on 3rd Reading Calendar.
Morning Session: 14 bills with 3 circled. 3 opposed, but nothing with more than 10 votes.
o Legislature was going “very slow” as confirmed by Speaker Wilson.
o Stopped around 11am to work on “technical difficulties”.
o SB73 - READING ASSESSMENT EXPANSION AMENDMENTS (64-1-10)
o Assessment in K 1st and 2nd, and effective in real time for teachers to track students. Has not existed in 4th, 5th, and 6th. "Not intrusive", and take 2-3 min to give.
o Expanding Tests. Look at it this way, if there were legislation to slowly restrict the 1st or 2nd amendment would you support it? Now, some may say this is “not as important, but I beg to differ. We all say that we are testing our kids too much, and that we want more parental and local control, but here we have the State mandating tests. Afternoon Session: 16 Bills – 11 “To Concur with Senate” – 6 Contested, 4 with ten or more votes. “Feels like I am pushing a rope” – Speaker Wilson o HB99 - Enhanced Kindergarten Amendments – Reduced $8mil note (43-27-5)
o "Optional", Lots of assessments – Heard on 2/12/20
o HB114 - Early Learning Training and Assessment Amendments - Reduced $5mil note (38-33-4) o Early learning, State Board to rules for early learning - Local Education Agency (LEA) o HB246 - Mental Health Workforce Amendments – (59-10-6)
o Do we want to micro-manage with legislation (Thurston warned to not speak about committee vote)? 90% will stay, $1.6mil o HB83 - Voter Registration Information Amendments (46-22-7)
o Pub Rep would be at same as general citizen for protecting private info. How to make voter records private? Opt. out online, avenue for why we need to give private info? Vote and history would be included. “Saunter” (or recess, or a break) for Dinner.
*Evening Bill from the Senate: HB364 Abortion Revisions (16-7-6) Harper, Thatcher, Weiller opposed. • It was interesting to watch a Senate Floor debate. Much more quiet, much more emotion, and the roll call voting is great, where no one can watch what others are doing and then make up their mind. Evening Session: 10 bills. 2 contested but only 1 with more than 10 votes.
• SB179 - Public Infrastructure District Amendments J Dunnigan (53-13-10) https://www.followthemoney.org/entity...
o SB228 from '19, Developer not required to ask to create a district, or "truth in taxation" because they must have 100% of the voters (district) must approve and the land developers must approve. NO DEBATE, but 13 opposed.
- 1 NEW numbered bills