Weekly Legislative Update #11
We want to provide you with our most recent update on what happened at the Capitol this past week, each bill’s current status, and what to expect next week. As mentioned before, if you ever have questions about a particular bill, feel free to email us at mark@ndfamilyalliance.org or call 701-355-6425.
Last Week
Testimony for our bills essentially ended this past week, as we move into the part of session dominated by floor votes. However, we still testified on bills related to gender usage in the Century Code (HB 1181), transgender bathroom usage (HB 1144), teaching students about the Holocaust (HB 1527), requiring age verification to prevent minors from accessing online pornography (SB 2380), and prohibiting sexually explicit computer generated images of a minor (HB 1386).
Two pieces of legislation we have been working on received floor votes. The first related to education for students about human trafficking (SB 2330) received a floor vote in the House and passed 90-1 and is now headed to the Governor’s desk. The other, SCR 4017, which would study the issue of pornography as a public health hazard, also passed the House. It does not need to go to Governor Armstrong, since it is a resolution. There are still dozens of bills that have been through all committee hearings but have not yet received floor votes. A lot of activity over the next few weeks will be focused on floor votes in both chambers.
Seven bills we’ve been fighting for made it to Governor Armstrong’s desk and were signed into law this past week. These included: the Pledge of Allegiance bill (HB 1222), establishing and funding an internet crime investigation unit (SB 2167), an increase to the problem-gambling fund (SB 2205), a comprehensive study of state higher education institutions (SB 2242), revocation of teaching licenses for sexual/child crimes (SB 2043), establishing Military Appreciation Month (HB 1148), and establishing Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Day (HB 1403). We want to thank Governor Armstrong for signing these bills and making them into law.
Finally, I mentioned last week that on Tuesday, our “trigger law” hearing would be held before the ND Supreme Court. The hearing went quite well, with the State of ND presenting strong arguments in favor of the law and doing a good job answering questions from the justices. We will have to keep praying that the court sides with those of us fighting to protect unborn life.
Next Week
At this point, we do not know which bills are coming up for floor votes soon (we only find out a day or two in advance, at most) and/or which will be sent to Governor Armstrong for his signature. This is the point in the process where we need your help most.
We have shepherded these 62 bills for the past three months, and now we need you to be ready to make your voices heard like never before! We will be emailing a number of Call-to-Action (CTA) Alerts in the next few weeks on key bills we need to make into law. This could be for an upcoming floor vote or possibly even related to Governor Armstrong signing them. We ask that you take 5 minutes out of your day and respond to our Call-to-Action emails as soon as possible. YOU can make the difference in whether or not legislation based on biblical values makes it into law. Last session, all of you sent over 45,000 individual emails to legislators through our CTA system; trust us, it makes a difference!
Current Status
Each bill’s most recent status and future actions are shown in the following table. Pay attention to the "Current Status" column in the coming weeks, as we will be updating this at the very top with bills that have made it entirely through the legislative process. The table is current as of the end of this week, but things can change quickly. To double-check the most current status of any bill, you can go to this page, type the bill number into the upper right box (just the number, not the HB or SB), and click the search button. Once you are on the bill’s page, click on the tab entitled “Actions”. If you have a question, you are always welcome to reach out to us (mark@ndfamilyalliance.org), and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
How to Take Action
1.) If a bill hearing has been scheduled, but not yet held, the table shows the date, time, and location of the hearing. If you want to testify, you need to write your comments about the bill into a PDF or txt file. This can be a paragraph or longer, but keep to the point. Once that is written, you can go to this page, type the bill number into the upper right box (just need the number, not the HB or SB), and click the search button. Once you are on the bill’s page, click on the tab entitled “Hearings”, identify the hearing, and click the link on the right where it says, “Submit Testimony”. Just follow the instructions after that. Note that there will be a deadline to submit testimony for bills, often early in the morning on the hearing day (this will show once you click on the “Submit Testimony” link). If you have questions about any of this, prepare your testimony document and then call us at 701-355-6425, and we can walk you through it.
2.) If the bill hearing is over, but it still needs to be voted on in a chamber, you can contact your appropriate legislator(s) and give them feedback. If you do not know who your legislators are or how to contact them, click here and then go to the top right corner and click on “Find my legislator.” Type your house number and zip code into the boxes and click the search button. From there, you should be able to find your Senator and Representatives and all their contact information, such as phone numbers and email addresses.
3.) If the bill has passed both chambers and has been sent to Gov. Armstrong, you can contact the Governor via this link and provide input on the bill. Contact Governor Armstrong
Please remember to be respectful in all communications to our legislators and the Governor, and feel free to contact us with any legislative questions.
