John --

It is now Week 4 of the legislative session, which means deadlines are due for bills to be turned in. That helps explain why it’s so hectic around these parts!

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Our deadline for Senate bills to be introduced was yesterday, with the House’s deadline coming up later this week. We are on track to possibly have over 2,000 (!) bills introduced, which is quite a bit higher than normal. In my experience the last three years, it’s usually closer to 1,500 or so bills introduced. And since we won’t have any extra committee hearings to hear the bills, that means longer committee hearings the next couple of weeks.

And while I co-sponsored dozens of bills this year, including many by Republicans, I introduced myself sixteen bills this year, which is quite a bit higher than recent years. Some of these are caucus priority bills, others are bills I’ve run before, and others are brand new for this legislative session.

Here are the bills and bill numbers for my sixteen bills. You can look at all of these bills at the legislature’s website at azleg.gov; just type the appropriate bill number in the top right hand corner to bring up each bill.

SB 1077 – Countywide elections; vote by mail – Allows counties the options of moving to all vote-by-mail elections.

SB 1078 – Vehicle registration fees; proration – This was an issue by a constituent. Allows vehicle registration fees to be prorated if a vehicle registration isn’t used for an entire calendar year.

SB 1214 – Administrative costs; limit; STO’s – Caps the amount of administrative fees that STO’s can deduct. Currently at ten percent; this bill would lower it to five percent.

SB 1215 – Teachers academy; counselors; social workers – Expands the Arizona Teachers Academy, a program that offers financial aid to teachers who commit to teaching in Arizona schools, to students studying to be school counselors or school social workers.

SB 1216 – School counselors; grants – Appropriates dollars to hire more counselors in schools and lower our student-to-counselor ratio to 500:1 over five years.

SB 1284 – Students; community college grants – Creates a two-year promise scholarship program for students studying CTE fields in community college. Covers tuition and fees as a last-dollar scholarship.

SB 1442 – High school success program; appropriation – Allocates $15 million per year for a pilot program to help high school students in lower income areas prepare for college.

SB 1443 – Schools; bullying policy; definition – Requires schools to develop bullying policies to better help students.

SB 1444 – Schools; excused absences; mental health – Clarifies in state law that excused absences for students in K-12 schools can include those for mental health reasons.

SB 1445 – Suicide prevention training; school employees – Expands the work we did last session on required training in suicide prevention for college students, which would now include those studying to be a counselor or school social worker.

SB 1446 – Student identification cards; suicide prevention – Requires ID cards issued to high school students and students at a state university or community college to have a suicide prevention number printed or placed on the card.

SB 1545 – Conversion therapy; prohibition; minors – Would ban conversion therapy in Arizona for children under the age of 18.

SB 1603 – Employers; paid family leave – Would expand paid family leave opportunities for working families.

SB 1609 – Antidiscrimination; housing; employment; public accommodations – Would expand non-discrimination protections at the state level for sexual orientation and gender identity.

SB 1614 – Consumer data; privacy – Allows consumers to have more control over their data and strengthens privacy laws.

SB 1628 – State finance review; task force – Creates a state task force to collect more data on tax credits and the impact they have on state revenues.

I’m hard at work talking to committee chairs to have these bills heard in hearings over the next couple of weeks. I am particularly proud of my bills on mental health support in our schools, and hope to have those heard in the Education committee very soon.

Meanwhile, along with tracking my own bills, there are hundreds of other bills coming down the pike, many of which I haven’t read yet or analyzed with staff. So if you email or call our office asking about a specific bill, especially if it’s a House bill, there’s a chance we haven’t come across yet, unless it’s a controversial bill that has been reported on in the news.

I serve on three Senate committees (Appropriations, Finance, and Commerce), so if a bill is assigned to one of those committees, I am briefed by staff before each committee hearing and do my own research as well. If a bill is assigned to a different committee, I usually analyze it for the first time during our caucus meeting that meets every Tuesday morning to go over bills that passed their committees the previous week.

When a bill is ready to come to the full Senate floor, that’s when I will do a deeper dive on each bill, particularly the ones that didn’t go through Appropriations, Finance, or Commerce. I analyze each bill – this involves reading the actual bill, the fact sheet that helps explain it, and what the committee vote was. I also read through the Request to Speak (RTS) system to see who supports and opposes the bill.

So if you are one of those individuals who use RTS, I see your names! I often look for constituents or groups that I work with to see where folks stand on each bill. After going through all of this information, I will then make a decision on how I will vote on the bill. We still have to watch out for things like floor amendments or last minute changes to bills, but that is generally how the process works.

So as we continue going through bills this week, please continue to reach out to me if you have any questions or have thoughts on any particular bills. I read through every email I receive, and respond to as many of them as I can. Just doing my job!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s update – stay tuned every Tuesday morning for more updates! And on Monday mornings, I post a weekly video on social media outlining the week ahead at the Senate.

Thank you for all your help and support – please consider a contribution today as we gear up for this fall!

Sean


http://www.seanbowieforaz.com/

Paid for by Sean Bowie for State Senate. Authorized by Sean Bowie.