This Week (In Social Services): Deadline Time
by Adam Hyla
Some old bills and some new bills show up this week in committee. They’re the last to be heard before cutoff arrives: it’s deadline time for legislation.
Looming Tuesday is the House’s deadline for policy committees to review and vote on bills. If they’re not approved by the majority vote of their designated committee by end of day Tuesday, house bills that don’t impact state spending will be dead. The House Ways and Means committee and other committees that deal with the operating budget, like Health and Human Services Appropriations, has an extended deadline of Tuesday, Feb. 9.
Count House Bill 2906, which would bring in $100 million for affordable housing development, and H.B. 2622, the Fair Tenant Screening Act, among those nearing the cutoff dates without a vote scheduled. Though neither are on the agenda, H.B. 2906 may get one today at 1:30, while H.B. 2622 could get its turn tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.
First, on Monday, we have a committee vote on H.B. 2623, which makes mortgage lenders grant a one-year reprieve to any borrower in foreclosure who also happens to be receiving unemployment benefits.
After the House cutoff Tuesday night, the Senate has just three days to get its bills passed out of their committees. Bills not voted out over there, too, will be dead by the weekend. As is typical at this point in the process, big, important, complex bills must fit through an opening that’s getting smaller and smaller.
Medical interpreters are getting a chance at reorganizing in the direct employment of the state, and under a collective bargaining agreement, with S.B. 6726, which will be heard Tuesday by the Senate’s labor and consumer protection committee. State and federal funding pays for interpreters that allow patients who don’t speak English to communicate with their doctors — a service that immigrant groups said last week was vital to the welfare of 400,000 people.
The Senate Health and Long Term Care committee is looking at a new bill to devise appropriate, adequate alternatives to the institutional settings in which the state’s developmentally disabled live, as officials look for ways to save money by closing them down. It’s S.B. 6780, to be heard this Wednesday at 8 a.m.
Senate Bill 6639, which eases sentences for felons with children, will be heard this Thursday before the Senate Human Services & Corrections Committee. The bill’s House twin got a hearing last week.
One thing has cleared the first cutoff hurdle: looming for a vote on the House floor is H.B. 2484, which gives tenants and landlords 30 days’ notice before an eviction when they’re in a month to month rental agreement. The bill originally introduced included a 60-day eviction notice for anyone living in their rental unit for more than a year, but was changed in the House Judiciary Committee. A vote won’t necessarily take place this week; legislators’ deadlines for all floor votes is Feb. 16. Its companion bill, S.B. 5549, is ready for a floor vote over in the Senate.
