March madness

There is an increasing intensity up on the hill as the days of the session are drawing to a close. We’re spending more time on the House floor and less time in committees. In fact, Wednesday morning is the last time Standing committees meet. After that it is 100% floor time. A lot of the work has been done, and it’s sort of like the preseason and conference games are over, and now it is crunch time and the bills are coming fast and furious. Many of the “biggies” are still out there and it feels like each bill matters more and more. The background reading and research reminds me of cramming for finals in college.

Today in majority caucus we reached consensus on a caucus position regarding the increased motor vehicle registration fee. We agreed to increase that fee to $20.00 a vehicle (highway vehicles only, not four wheelers etc.). There was some discussion of having a sunset date on the bill of 3 years from now, or at least a discussion of repealing it at some date when the economy begins to improve. I voted for that amendment, but it failed to pass with the majority caucus. A great presentation on restoring the sales tax on food was given by Rep. McIff. He makes a compelling case for that tax which is stable and spread over a broad base and would bring in an addition $160M even with the protections he has included for low income people and most of the advocates for low income issues are supporting his bill. Then Rep. Ray presented his bill which would increase the sales tax on cigarettes to 1 cent over the national average, $1.22 or thereabout. An analysis would be done each year and the tax would maintain the level of always being 1 cent above the national average. I have received a tremendous amount of emails supporting the cigarette tax. There are tremendous and compelling arguments for the benefits of the cigarette tax, including the number of people who will quit smoking, and the number of adolescents who will never start, as well as decreased health care costs for smokers and their families.

My bill, HB434, is most likely going to head to interim tomorrow. It is a bill addressing Air Quality and would increase the number of participants on the Air Quality Board by one additional member representing the public and another member representing the local health department. The good part about taking it to interim is that it allows the issue to be discussed through the year. This will give us the chance to investigate the rule making process within the Department of Air Quality and examine how or if we should address the composition of the Air Quality Board. We will now have a chance to bring all the stakeholders together and gain consensus on some long term views that will be helpful as we move forward. I feel optimistic about this opportunity, and although I would like to have seen this bill pass out of committee this session, given the time and political restraints I am facing right now it is the more expedient thing to move it to interim.