Weekly Legislative Update #5

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

As I mentioned in our last update, we tackled 9 bills this past week. Most of the proposed legislation just happened to be either focused on pornography or education. Two of the pornography bills concerned age verification for internet pornography access (SB 2380 and HB 1593), another bill would restrict pornographic books in public and school libraries and also included a penalty for enforcement purposes (SB 2307), and finally, a resolution stating that pornography was a public health hazard (SCR 4017).

On the education side of things, there was a bill requiring that history of the Holocaust be taught in schools (HB 1527), another that required intelligent design be taught in schools (SB 2355), and a third that human trafficking education be provided to students (HB 1569). The final education bill would allow chaplains to provide counseling at schools (HB 1456). The remaining bill concerned approval processes for ballot measures (SB 2230).

Aside from this testimony, a number of bills hit the chamber floors for votes, including two very high-profile bills. HB 1373, which would have criminalized mothers who had abortions, was defeated by a wide margin of 16-77, after coming out of committee with an 11-1 DO NOT PASS recommendation. HB 1488, a loosening of abortion restrictions was also soundly defeated with a 6-87 vote on the House floor. Finally, the chaplaincy bill noted in the previous paragraph was heard on the House floor Friday and unfortunately failed by a 35-46 margin.

Next Week

We are now at a point in the session where we are approaching “crossover” when bills passing votes in their initial chamber are now sent to the other chamber for consideration. This means that testimony will probably be ending next week, until after crossover at the beginning of March, when it all begins again for bills that are still alive. In the meantime, all these bills that we’ve already testified on will be coming up for floor votes, so please watch for our alerts. There are sometimes just a few hours between when we find out about a floor vote and it actually happens, so please respond as soon as you can. We know you all have busy lives, but reaching out to legislators as a citizen is something only you can do to defend your values. It only takes a few minutes, definitely makes a difference, and we deeply appreciate it.

Current Status

Each bill’s most recent status and future actions are shown in the following table. We only show “alive” bills in this table (i.e., those that have not been defeated in a chamber, not combined with another bill, etc.), since those are the ones on which you can still take some action. NOTE THAT THE STATUS OF EACH BILL CAN CHANGE MULTIPLE TIMES, IN EVEN A SINGLE DAY.

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 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 “Actions”. This will indicate where the bill is in the process.

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.

Here is a map of the Capitol, so you can find the indicated rooms. Please let us know if you have any questions.