March 1, 2019 Legislative Update
Today marks the point in the legislative session by which bills with fiscal impact to the state, not otherwise necessary to implement the state’s budget, need to be voted out of a House or Senate fiscal committee to be considered ordinarily eligible for further consideration.
As a result, almost all of the official action this week was in committee consideration and votes on these bills.
The workers’ compensation/safety related bills we’ve been reporting on already received their consideration as of last Friday’s policy committee cutoff, and so there was no significant change in status this week in any of them.
The next major legislative deadline is March 13th, by which bills need to be voted out of their chamber of origin, House or Senate, in order to stay live.
We’ll be working on the remaining alive bills reflected in the attached bill tracking sheet as most of them head for likely floor votes.
The biggest behind-the-scenes uncertainty remains around SB 5217, the wage calculation/70 percent flat rate bill. Although the bill moved from the Senate Labor Committee at the last cutoff for, in the sponsor’s words, the hope of further discussion or agreement between the interested parties on the bill, no further discussions have taken place and both worker and employer sides to the discussion have signaled a preference for the status quo versus further consideration of the model contained in this bill.
More to come next week as bills start moving to the floor and receiving votes.