Weekly Legislative Update #8

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

Monday and Tuesday of last week were the last two days of crossover recess; things once again went into full swing on Wednesday. The second part of the session is generally the same structure as the first, so similar to early January, committee hearings take the largest share of time for legislators. This means that we will have disproportionately more testifying to do in the next few weeks than later, such as in April. The flip side is that there were fewer planned floor sessions this week, which means that the two chambers did not have to “gavel in” until Friday and were able to save some of their 80 allotted legislative days.

This week we testified on four bills which all received a unanimous passing vote in their initial chamber, so all stand a high likelihood of making it into law. The first was a bill to ensure that teaching licenses are denied/revoked for teachers found guilty of sexual crimes (SB 2043). Another bill that stands a good chance of making it to Gov. Armstrong’s desk is HB 1247, which would protect student victims of sexual assault. The third bill was designed to increase funding for gambling disorder prevention and treatment (SB 2205), and the final bill (SB 2242) called for a legislative management study of ND higher education institutions, focusing on a variety of measures such as cost, quality of education, transfer credits, and more. While all these bills stand a good likelihood of making it into law, we prefer to not take chances. Therefore, we testified in support of all four on your behalf, to help ensure they make it into law.

Next Week

Next week will be much like this week, but more intensive, with testimony on 10 bills. Some noteworthy bills being heard will include potential legislation on human trafficking prevention and awareness education for students (SB 2330), school district compliance with state laws (SB 2104), and students reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools (HB 1222). See the table below for more information on hearings for these bills and many others.

Current Status

Each bill’s upcoming actions are shown in the following table. 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. If you want to testify on a bill or 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.