Ahh, the joy of committees
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Feb 20, 2006 Posted by Bill Luckett
This is just part of the "fun."
Sen. Kathryn Sessions, D-Cheyenne, specifically invited me to the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this afternoon to see how the panel handled her bill on registration of sex offenders. Obviously, she was excited about her bill, which she and Attorney General Pat Crank said also had the support of the governor.
Have you ever been to a legislative committee meeting? They can be a little trying. There were four bills on the agenda this afternoon. Sen. Sessions' bill was fourth. Third on the list was another sex offenders' registration bill, sponsored by Sen. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan. And the first two were unrelated. Here's how it went.
First up was a highly unexciting bill sponsored by Sen. Jayne Mockler, D-Cheyenne. It was about criminal background checks for firefighters and related emergency workers. I'll spare you the details, except to say that the FBI had an issue with a recent law the Legislature passed, so this was kind of a housekeeping measure to fix the problem. In about five minutes, the committee gave the bill its approval. All right! Things are moving right along.
Then came bill No. 2, "Uniform Fraudulent Transfers Act." This is when things got a little off track. The bill was one of those that many states pass, so we all have similar laws on our books regarding certain issues, to keep us in line with other states. This bill aims to replace the "Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act," which has been on Wyoming's law books since about 1918. The idea is that it updates the law to conform to the changing times. It addresses issues like insider trading and other things that might not have been very big issues in 1918. To make a long story short, the committee spent about 45 minutes learning about the bill from people who testified, and then they passed it on for future consideration by the full Senate.
Two down, two to go! Only, Sens. Sessions and Burns had different bills addressing the same issue. Not only that, but there are a handful of bills now working their way through the House that touch on similar areas of law. Committee Chairman John Hanes, R-Cheyenne, suggested that the sex offenders' registration legislation should be studied over the next year, so the committee hopefully can come back with a consensus bill that they know will work, rather than spend a lot of time tonight figuring out which is the best bill to adopt. After about 30 minutes, the panel decided to postpone further action on the legislation, and the issue is one that the committee will recommend for interim (between legislative sessions) study over the next year.
This didn't entirely please Sen. Sessions, but she didn't raise a fuss about it. Even though Gov. Dave Freudenthal wanted the Legislature to address the issue promptly, and even though Attorney General Crank said that only 118 of Wyoming's 900-plus sex offenders are listed on the public Website, people of this state will have to wait another year before the Legislature takes action to address the issue. Sen. Sessions wasn't happy about it, but she decided to go with the flow and work on the issue over the next year.
"I have real concerns about the vulnerability of our communities," she said. "Hopefully, we'll get it done and get it done right."
That's just the way things go sometimes in the legislative process. Some bills take a year or several years before they get on the law books. How many years did lawmakers fight for a bill banning open containers of alcohol on our highways, for example? And even now, some of them are working to expand the scope of that law to match what most of our cities and town have on the books - to prohibit not only the driver, but everyone in the car, from having an open container of alcohol. A positive way to put it is that the wheels of the Legislature grind slowly but finely. I'm guessing our state will improve the process for getting sex offenders registered, but it will take at least another year.
In other news, and perhaps this is because this is my first session in seven years in which I'm not a newspaper reporter, there doesn't seem to be too much exciting legislation being considered this year. I ran this idea past one veteran legislator, and she said it feels that way because there's not very many controversial issues so far. That will probably change over the rest of this week and especially once legislators begin their work on the budget next week. Tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon, the House Revenue Committee is scheduled to work on eight bills that would provide tax relief to the people of the state or assistance in paying for groceries or utility bills. Wednesday, the same committee is scheduled to look at a few measures to send local governments more state money. So there are some higher-profile issues on tap. Stay tuned.
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Re: Ahh, the joy of committees
Feb 22, 2006 | Jimmy Porter | jporter@dteworld.comI wonder why legislatures feel they have to submit something to be voted on. Wouldn't it be nice if they could have some of those sessions for sleeping or catching up on their newspaper reading. Some of the submissions are below those of thinking humans.
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Re: Ahh, the joy of committees
Feb 20, 2006 | Shoffstall | gshoff@rangeweb.netI'm not sure who decides what topics will be dealt with by interim committees, but I think that the issues that die because there are too many bills on the same topic during the session ought to be studied by the interim committees. There is time for public input during those interim meetings, as well as time for the legislators to debate the issues and come forth with a recommendation for the entire legislative body. That seems a more fair way to proceed with important topics than to just assign them all to be heard in one day during February where the legislators are under time constraints and where the chairman of the committee has the power to kill a bill by not even bringing it to the committee.