It’s Crunch Time

(Geoffrey Lawrence/NPRI) – All bills must pass out of legislative committees by [April 15] and so committees are packing bills into a marathon session until that point.

Check out the calendar of meetings for today. The Assembly Judiciary Committee scheduled 15 – yes 15 – bills to be heard yesterday morning [and 9 are scheduled for this morning]. Senate Health and Human Services had 11 bills on the agenda for [yesterday] afternoon.

Odds are that committees will meet very late into the night tomorrow as crunch time arrives. Any bill that does not make it through committee before midnight tomorrow dies without a hearing. There are exceptions granted to certain budget bills. However, as per legislative leadership’s new strategy, those bills will go directly to the floor to be heard by a Committee of the Whole anyway.