MT House Legislative Recap
 | Author:
Julie Dooling, House District 70 Representative
MT State Representative |
MT House Legislative Recap; Week 1 Recap Julie Dooling, House District 70 Representative Day One at the Capitol officially started at Noon with our Swearing-in Ceremony, but most folks were there hours before, finding offices, and desks, getting settled in, and most importantly getting caught up with old friends, colleagues, and meeting new Legislators and Staff. Immediately after the ceremony, there were receptions and meetings.
As the Chair of House State Administration, which meets 5 days a week, I started working on the details of my committee weeks ago, finalizing seating charts, roll call, and scheduling hearings for bills. We started our 1st committee meeting at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning with an agenda of introductions, committee rules, SAVA (State Administration and Veterans Affairs) interim overview, and heard the first bill, HB 81, at 10 a.m. HB 81 presented by Rep Mitchell from Columbia Falls, is “AN ACT PROVIDING FOR A STATE VETERANS' CEMETERY IN FLATHEAD COUNTY AS FUNDING ALLOWS”. Currently, there are only 3 other State Veteran’s Cemeteries in Montana. This bill was unanimously passed in committee and also on the House Floor.
I also am on the House Transportation and Agriculture committees again this session. We’ve been very busy in those committees too. Currently, there are 4425 bill draft requests with a good portion being placeholder titles, but 362 bills have already been introduced. In the last 2 sessions, less than 40% of the requests were actually introduced as a bill. Many of the 362 bills are Department or Agency bills of varying types, but this session we will see many bills due to the Governor’s Red Tape Relief Initiative to remove excessive, outdated, and unnecessary regulations.
Stay tuned for HB 198 and “Welcome to the House!”
~ Representative Julie Dooling
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