"In the Know" - Start of Session, Bills

Session can be confusing… there are a lot of moving parts and pieces and it only happens every two years. Just when you finally figure it all out, it adjourns and seemingly goes dormant for months. That’s why GNDC is here – to navigate the ride for our members.
 
First week is a majority of orientation and set-up for the settle in – but we already covered that. Let’s cover some bill basics:
 
Bills are submitted primarily by legislators and assigned a number. Additionally, legislation can be submitted by interim committees and state agencies. The number is chronologically assigned by Legislative Council depending on their intent and chamber of origin. This # will be their main identifier unless they are lucky/notorious enough to get a nickname – think “Operation Prairie Dog” or “Streams.”

• 1### = House Bills
• 2### = Senate Bills
• 3### = House Resolutions
• 4### = Senate Resolutions

 
Bills are different than resolutions in their actions. Resolutions are statements or intentions of the legislature – something to get “on the record” to express a sentiment. These are typically related to studies on topics of interest (we’ll get into that more later) or can be a response to a federal issues.
 
Legislators have a limited amount of time to file bills. These bills are compiled by Legislative Council who is responsible for formatting toward finality. A “bill drop” is when Legislative Council allows a cache of bills to become public – publishing them online. GNDC starts combing through these drops immediately to find bills that will or could impact members. Last year, we combed through a record amount of bills (900+) and anticipate this year to be similar.