Local legislators pre-file bills ahead of Legislative Session

Over 230 bills have been pre-filed prior to the start of the legislative session set to start on Monday.

As of this morning this includes nine bills from local legislators.

Many of the prefiled bills within the state deal with recovery from the pandemic or are related to emergency powers of the Governor following concerns from legislators over the year.

Among the local bills it includes four bills filed by 19th District Representative Jim Walsh that includes topics such as adding rules that require a state of emergency within the state must limit each proclamation to a single county, requiring separate proclamations for each county impacted, and a requirement that specific facts must be given for each county as to why the emergency is being declared and what it will take for the proclamation to be lifted.

Also included by Walsh is a bill that is focused on “Reducing the administrative cost of state government” and that would disallow salary or wage increases within many government related positions, including legislators, for a period of 24 months following passage.

A bill filed by 24th District Senator Kevin Van De Wege would bring the option of allowing a city or county to create a “metropolitan park district” to impose a sales and use tax to pay for the assets, if approved by local voters.

Van De Wege also introduced a bull that would create a temporary tax reduction for electric utilities to lower costs to customers.

Other bills from the local legislators would create a program to convert unused public buildings into homeless housing, expand some vessel permit rules, and other issues.

Locally filed bills;