One of the primary tasks of the legislature during the first year of the biennium is to pass a two-year state budget. This budget which will begin on July 1, 2015, determines what agencies and departments are able to spend for programs and priorities. Along with sorting out how all the dollars will be spent, the legislature can also create, develop or adjust policies to direct state agencies how to act. There is a lot of work to do, and to get it all done the legislature creates a division of labor system. Every committee is in charge of a policy and budget area. There are a few committees that only do policy or only do finance but many have the responsibility of working on both aspects.
In addition to these policy/finance committees, there are other committees which are responsible for specific House activities, like the Rules committee which determines what bills are coming to the floor or the Ways and Means committee which makes sure each fiscal bill fits within the perimeters for the spending allowance. There is also a committee devoted to Taxes which is developing the revenue rather than the spending side of the equation.
Each year, approximately two thousand bills are introduced. Of those bills only a fraction actually make it through the process. It seems we never have a shortage of ideas for how to spend money or how to solve real or perceived problems. To help ensure that the most critical budgets and policies are passed, three separate deadlines defining when committees must approve legislation are created every session. Deadlines are enforced to focus legislators' attention and energy into a specified period of time.
The first two deadlines are for policy bills. If you have a bill with no fiscal impact or if you are carrying a bill that has policy with financial cost, you must get the bill heard and passed out of the policy committees by midnight Friday, March 20. The first policy deadline means your bill has to have made it through either the House or the Senate by that date. There are a number of committees meeting until midnight on first deadline, with staff and advocates watching and testifying late into the night.
If the policy deadline was met in one or the other legislative body, then the bill needs to go through the policy committees of the other body (House or Senate) by midnight Friday, March 27. There is a bit of scrambling to meet these deadlines because if you don't meet them, the bill is dead for this term. Well almost dead. A legislator may go to the Rules committee to ask for permission to have a bill heard if it didn't make it through committees or you can try to amend your bill to another bill, either in committee or on the House floor.
After this second policy deadline the Legislature will be on an Easter/Passover break until Tuesday, April 7. When we return, our attention moves away from policy and more toward fiscal bills. The final deadline, which is Friday, April 24, is for committees to approve or choose not to act on major budget and finance bills. Once the bills have gone through all of the committees pertinent for the subject, the bill comes to the House floor for action by the entire House of Representatives. Once that action has been taken the bill is ready for the Senate also to act. When acting on the major budget bills (omnibus bills with many parts to them) the House and Senate generally have very different bills so each body must appoint conference committee members to address the differences.
Since not all bills get heard, and not every bill makes it to the House floor, I appreciate when constituents contact me with personal stories or insights to help me understand bills of importance to them.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions about this year’s Legislative Session. You can reach me by phone at (651) 296-4193, by email at rep.jeanne.poppe@house.mn, or by postal mail at 291 State Office Building, 100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155.