Arizona Legislature: The Coming Week - part 2

Well, they've reached the first "deadline" week of the session, and that is reflected in the length of committee agendas.

Friday is the last day for bills introduced in a particular chamber to be heard in that chamber's committees.  There are exceptions (bills can still be considered by the Appropriations committees) or exceptions can be made (schmooze the Senate President/House Speaker), but for the most part, proposals that don't pass committee by the end of the week are dead.

...Unless they are revived by a strike-everything amendment (striker) and pasted into the frame of another bill that *did* pass committee.  But that's another post...


This week, because the agendas are so long, and so fluid, this post will be presented in two parts -

Wednesday and Thursday's schedules will be in this part, while the agendas for Monday and Tuesday are covered here.


Notes:

All committees meetings and agendas are subject to change without notice, and frequently do.  If you plan to travel to the Capitol to observe or weigh in on the consideration of a particular measure, check with the lege ahead of time to confirm that the meeting that you are interesting in is still on schedule and your item(s) of interest is still on the agenda for that meeting.

Meeting rooms designated "HHR" are in the House of Representatives building.

Meeting rooms designated "SHR" are in the Senate building.

Some agendas are summarized as "looks harmless", but if they cover an area of interest to you, examine the agenda and the bills on it.  If I missed something significant, please leave a comment letting me know.


All House committee agendas can be found here.

All Senate committee agendas can be found here.


On the Senate side of the Capitol -

- Natural Resources and Rural Affairs, Wednesday, 9 a.m., SHR109.  Short agenda - only two items.  However, its brevity is outweighed by its ugliness.  On the agenda:  a striker to SB1267, essentially decriminalizing agribusiness cruelty toward livestock and imposing a near-absolute gag rule on those who would document the same.  More details here.  Note:  The information at the link is specific to a House bill on the same topic, but the striker contains the same provisions.  The information applies equally to the striker.

- Commerce, Energy, and Military, Wednesday, 9 a.m., SHR1.  Long agenda.  Items include: SB1402, Sen. "Atomic" Al Melvin's move to legally define "renewable energy" as including nuclear energy.

- Public Safety, Wednesday, 2 p.m., SHR109.  On the agenda:  a striker to SB1158, relating to "fireworks; permissible use".  Includes small fines for recordkeeping violations and impermissible use.  Also bars Maricopa and Pima counties from enacting even limited regulation of fireworks in unincorporated areas of those counties; and SBs 1406, 1410, and 1411, part of Sen. Rick Murphy's apparent scheme to all-but-end investigations of child abuse and domestic violence.

- Health and Human Services, Wednesday, 2 p.m., SHR1.  On the agenda: a same-subject striker to SB1308, requiring that health care "navigators" and others related to the enactment and application of the federal Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") subject themselves to state-imposed licensing requirements; SB1390, stating that in health care situations, when there are conflicting directives from a health care provider and a holder of a patient's medical power of attorney, the holder of the power of attorney is presumed to be expressing the patient's wishes; SB1407 and SB1320, relating to the termination of parental rights.  Note: SB1407 is part of Sen. Rick Murphy's jihad against CPS; and SCM1009, a resolution from Sen. Kelli Ward (R-Doctor who can't stand taking care of poor patients) asking that Medicare end its requirement that physicians and other providers "enroll" with a Medicare contractor before they can be paid by Medicare for services rendered.

- Finance, Wednesday, 2 p.m., SHR3.  On the agenda: SB1092, a proposal by anti-education legislators to "fix" the financing system for public education.

- Education, Thursday, 8:30 a.m., SHR1.  A dozen items on the agenda.  Based on the names of the sponsors of most of the (Sen. Kelli Ward, Sen. Chester Crandell, Rep. Carl Seel, etc.), at least 10 of the bills are detrimental to the interests of public schools, public school students, and the public.  On the agenda: SB1095, anti-educational standards, particularly Common Core; SB1100, mandating that public school districts sell or lease buildings that are unused or underutilized to private and charter schools; SB1121, implementing a three-year moratorium on test requirements for high school graduation; SB1228, barring the state's public higher education institutions from admitting students who need any sort of remedial studies in order to meet qualification standards.  Also requires that such institutions offer reduced tuition and fees to students pursuing degree programs preferred by the Arizona Commerce Authority; SB1229, creating a voucher system for higher ed in AZ; SB1310, prohibiting the implementation of Common Core in Arizona; SB1388, relating to academic standards and testing; SB1395 and SB1396, both relating to assessment testing for meeting academic standards.


On the House side of the Capitol -

- Public Safety, Military, and Regulatory Affairs, Wednesday, 9 a.m., HHR3.  Long agenda.  On it: HB2224 and HB2688, diminishing regulation of and increasing permissible uses for fireworks; HB2562, a very long and specific measure detailing the requirements and procedures for investigations of peace officers (not sure that this one is *bad*, per se, but some of the provisions may merit scrutiny).

- Health, Wednesday, 9:30 a.m., HHR4.  On the agenda: Not going to say this one is harmless (there are too many measures, and too many that I don't completely understand), but this one has a number of measures that are actually *good*.

- Higher Education and Workforce Development, Wednesday, 10 a.m., HHR1.  On the agenda:  HB2340, allowing a community college district to reset, and possibly increase, its property tax levy, if the original levy was enacted between 20 and 35 years ago.  A time frame that specific inspired me to ask some questions.  It looks as if the target beneficiary of this measure is the Coconino County Community College District.  That one is in the sponsor's (Rep. Brenda Barton)

- Commerce, Wednesday, 10 a.m., HHR5.  At this time, doesn't look too bad.  Caveat: it's a long agenda, and many of the bills are also long, or at least very technical.

- Appropriations, Wednesday, 2 p.m., HHR1.  On the agenda:  HB2697, the annual legislative move to take control of federal block grants and other monies that the state has some discretion over from the governor and give that control to the lege.  For some reason, whenever this has passed in the past, the governors in office at those times have declined to sign it; HCR2037, a proposal to amend the state's constitution to restrict use of the state's rainy day fund (aka - "budget stabilization fund") to fiscal years where the state's budget is smaller than the previous year's.

- Judiciary, Thursday, 8 a.m., HHR4.  On the agenda: HB2339, allowing people with gun permits to carry their weapons almost everywhere.

- Reform and Human Services, Thursday, 9 a.m., HHR1.  On the agenda: HB2638, stating that CPS information may be provided for investigations of domestic violence or violent sexual assault.  Probably not going to be supported by Rick Murphy is this measure makes it over to the Senate.

- Technology and Infrastructure, Thursday, 9 a.m., HHR5.  On the agenda: a striker (not posted on the lege's website as of this writing) to HB2422.  The text of the striker may be unavailable so far, but the title is not - "municipal policy; authority".  With this bunch, that's probably not a measure that will promote good governance.

- Transportation, Thursday, 9 a.m., HHR3.  On the agenda: a striker to HB2118 (text unavailable) pertaining to utilities and rights of way; a striker to HB2429 (text unavailable) pertaining to "towed vehicles; impoundment notification"; HB2618, removing the requirement that law enforcement officers impound the motor vehicles of people cited for driving without a license; HB2690, mandating that the radar systems used on photo traffic enforcement systems must be calibrated at least once every 24 hours.

Note:  For these last two agendas, Transportation and T and I, I linked to the .pdf version of the agenda is of the HTML version, as is the usual practice, because the HTML version was not available at the time of this writing.  In other words, I expect changes to these agenda, and readers should expect that also.

Legislative floor calendars can be found here.
The lege's calendar of events for the week is here.
AZ Department of Administration meeting public notices are here.