Assemblywoman Robin Titus, R-Wellington
Assemblywoman Robin Titus, R-Wellington, has introduced legislation that would reduce the number of bills each legislator can introduce and cut back on the additional measures leadership in each house can request.
She said the idea is to cut back the total number of pieces of legislation the Assembly and Senate must consider each session. She said there are so many pieces of legislation now that lawmakers don’t have the time to carefully consider each one, which results in problems with measures that become law but are flawed.
Titus said if there are fewer bills each session, it’s possible those kinds of problems could be reduced.
AB256 would reduce the number of measures an incumbent member of the Assembly can request from 10 to eight and the number of bills each senator can ask be drafted from 20 to 15.
Newly elected Assembly members would get five instead of six bill drafts and senators nine instead of the current 12.
The bill would also cut back the number of measures each house can request after the start of session from 60 to 40 and make similar reductions in the number of bills that leadership in the Senate and Assembly can request.
Constitutional officers would also see their allowed bill draft requests reduced, the largest cut being from the Attorney General who would have 14 BDRs instead of 20.
AB256 was referred to the committee on Legislative Operations and Elections.