From the Capitol with Steve Firman - February 17, 2022
posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 in Government Affairs
February 17, 2022 Legislative Update
Tomorrow, February 18, marks the end of one of the busiest weeks in the legislative session. Legislators have been racing to get bills of interest past the first legislative "funnel" deadline. This is the final date for bills introduced in the Senate to be passed out of a Senate committee and bills introduced in the House to be passed out of a House Committee. Spending and tax bills are exempt from the February 18 deadline and are considered “funnel-proof.”
Many contentious bills have been going through the process this week, along with other bills that are easily agreed to by legislators, but must go through the process nonetheless. Once the dust settles over the coming weekend, we will have a pretty good idea of what the Legislature will focusing on for the remainder of the session. But it is important to realize that nothing is ever completely dead. Legislators have a number of ways that they can bring a bill back to life; for instance, they can attach a dead issue to a spending bill, making it exempt from the subsequent funnel.
The next winnowing of bills comes at the “second funnel”, March 18. To survive this second funnel, bills must have been passed out of one chamber on a floor vote and passed out of committee in the other chamber. This funnel process is self-imposed by the Legislature as a way to deal with the enormous number of bills filed each year. In a normal year, about 1200-1400 bills begin the process toward enactment; only around 100 are actually signed into law by the Governor.
In our next report, we will be able to share which bills are continuing to move through the process and which ones were stopped by this first narrowing. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have questions on the process or a specific piece of legislation.
Steve is the Director of Government Affairs for Grow Cedar Valley and serves as the CEO of Pharmacy Marketing Group, Inc. (PMG) and President of FPCI, an administrative management and public policy consulting firm,
steve@growcedarvalley.com