Tuesday’s deadline for bills to pass out of the house of origin saw just four pieces of legislation left behind.
Under the session’s rules, those measures that didn’t get a vote are dead unless they were granted an exemption. The vast majority of exempt bills are those that have an impact on the state budget. However, leadership can grant exemptions to other measures based on their priorities.
Legislative Counsel Bureau Director Brenda Erdoes said the small number of bills left behind this session is probably because committee chairs in both the Senate and Assembly killed a large number of measures April 9, the deadline for committee passage of measures without exemptions. She said 284 measures died that evening.
The four measures left behind Tuesday were all Senate bills. They dealt with regulation of off-highway vehicles, an attempt to regulate “high volume marketplace sellers,” removing the cap on what the Public Utilities Commission can charge to support its budget and an attempt to increase regulation of beekeepers.
The next deadline for lawmakers is May 3 when the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees start the process of resolving budget differences between the two houses.
An important event follows a day later on May 4 when the Economic Forum meets to finalize revenue projections lawmakers must use to build the state budget.
Lawmakers are hoping for an increase over the forum’s December projections to fill in some of the budget cuts they and the governor have been forced to make because of the pandemic-induced economic slump.
The deadline for non-exempt bills to pass out of committee in the second house is May 14 and the deadline for passage from the second house, May 21.
Finally, just a week before adjournment, the five bills that implement the state budget will be introduced May 26.
Between General Fund, Highway Fund, federal dollars and other revenue streams, the total spending proposed by Gov. Steve Sisolak for the coming two years will be slightly more than $31 billion. Fully a third of that total, $11.8 billion, is the Medicaid budget.
