John's Report for the North Dakota Senate Democratic Caucus

Senate Democratic Caucus

End of Week Report (Week 7)

February 19, 2009

Week 7 in the Legislature could be characterized as a sprint to half-time. Known in the Capitol as “crossover” it is a deadline within the session by which each chamber must have all of its bills over to the other chamber. It has led to a week of long committee meetings, late nights, and lots of debate. The flurry of activity is a crucial part of the legislative process that brings us to a conclusion in the 80 days allotted.

Crossover is a crucial time because many bills are amended or defeated. Under North Dakota’s legislative process, every bill has a committee hearing and then comes to the full floor with a recommendation from the committee. Senate bills start in the Senate and House bills start in the House. Crossover is literally the time that the bills “cross over” into the opposite chamber from the one in which it originated. Lawmakers in the opposite chamber then get to review the ideas of their colleagues.

In other matters:

--SB 2278, sponsored by Sen. Tom Fiebiger (D-45 Fargo), and Sen. JoNell Bakke, (D-43 Grand Forks), would ban discrimination against North Dakotans based on their sexual orientation. The state already has similar provisions for traits such as age, race, gender and national origin. The goal of this bill is to prevent gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender North Dakotans from being fired from their jobs, kicked out of an apartment or otherwise mistreated solely because of their sexual orientation. The bill exempts religious organizations. It passed the Senate February 18 and is headed to the House.

--SB 2246, sponsored by Sen. Connie Triplett, (D-18 Grand Forks), attempted to overturn a 1977 law limiting easements to 99 years. After passage of the recent Farm Bill, land owners can get large tax credits for granting a “perpetual easement” of their land for conservation. However, because North Dakota landowners are not allowed under state law to grant a perpetual easement, they cannot enjoy the tax credits that landowners in every other state enjoy. The bill failed to pass the Senate on February 18.

--SB 2258, sponsored by Sen. Tracy Potter, (D-35 Bismarck), Sen. Bob Horne, (D-3 Minot), and Sen. Tim Mathern, (D-11 Fargo) would have strengthened the whistleblower protection law for public employees. The bill was proposed to protect public employees who speak up about wrongdoing at their agencies. Over the last few years, whistleblowers have been dismissed after seeking whistleblower status under the current law. Unfortunately, this proposal went down on the Senate floor on February 19.

--SB 2425, sponsored on the Democratic side by Sen. Joan Heckaman, (D-23 New Rockford), Sen. Aaron Krauter (D-31 Regent) and Minority Leader David O’Connell, (D-6 Lansford), would require a study of moving all state agencies into state-owned buildings. The issue is being discussed because the state is currently paying rent to house state agencies in facilities it doesn’t own. Could taxpayers save money by moving these facilities onto the state Capitol grounds? That is the question this study hopes to answer. It passed the Senate unanimously last week and is headed to the House.

--SB 2283, sponsored on the Democratic side by Sen. Ryan Taylor, (D-7 Towner) and Sen. Tim Mathern, would increase Medicaid aid for pre-natal care. This aid for pre-natal care is crucial for making sure that every child in our state can be born healthy. The bill loosened the income eligibility requirements to 165 percent of the poverty line, or about $35,000 for a family of four. The bill passed the Senate on Thursday and is headed to the House.

--In the matter of budget and economic forecasts, week 7 saw the addition of a legislative forecast to the existing Office of Management and Budget/Moody’s Economy.com budget projection. The legislative forecast was requested by the majority party to reflect their predictions on the state’s tax collections and reserves. These forecasts are important because they are the numbers upon which legislators build the state’s budget for the next two years. This month’s OMB budget predicts revenues and reserves of $978 million. The legislative forecast reduces this number by $209 million to $769 million. The change is based on the fact that legislators are gloomier about sales tax collections, income tax collections and money the state earns from bank account interest.

When Senators come back on February 25, the focus will have shifted. Instead of considering bills proposed by Senators and considered by committees on the Senate side, they will be considering bills proposed by members on the House side and considered by House committees. This will constitute phase two of the 80-day legislative session. Now that many bills have been defeated, and each body gets to have a say on what the other body has proposed, lawmakers are closer to the final package of legislation that this session will produce. The major issues for the second half are setting a state budget, deciding how the state will spend federal stimulus funds and deciding what to do about property and income tax cuts.



Some other highlights of the session thus far:

--As the outside economy deteriorated, the budget forecast that legislators had to work with deteriorated as well. In December, Gov. John Hoeven’s budget address predicted an ending fund balance of $1.2 billion. By February, that forecast had fallen to just under $1 billion. House Republicans are also using their own lower forecast.

--A $100 million income tax cut (HB 1279) proposed by Gov. Hoeven got heavily amended in the House. The bill started as an income tax rate cut that began this year, but was abandoned in favor of an immediate stimulus check program, to be followed by a rate cut (HB 1324).

--The much-publicized pharmacy ownership law change (HB 1440) was defeated in the House. The proposal was to change our state’s decades-old law that prevented non-pharmacists from owning a controlling interest in a North Dakota pharmacy. Its defeat came after a hearing at the Heritage Center that featured busloads of citizen attendees, emotional testimony and an hour-long floor debate.

--A $295 million property tax relief bill (SB 2199) sailed through the Senate on the last day before cross-over. The bill would allocate money to school districts and require those districts to pass that aid on dollar for dollar in the form of a property tax reduction. This has gotten a lot of attention as the cornerstone of the tax-cutting portion of the Governor’s and Legislator’s agenda thus far.

--The Senate-passed state higher education budget (SB 2003) raised general fund higher education spending almost 40 percent from about $440 million to about $615 million. The increase includes more full-time positions for universities, money for one-time projects to catch up with deferred maintenance and bonding authority for projects such as a new dormitory at Williston State College and a wellness center at Minot State University.

--A bill (HB 1487) was approved requiring the Legislature to appropriate any federal stimulus money that comes North Dakota’s way. Now that the stimulus bill passed Congress and has been signed by President Obama, the allocation of North Dakota’s share will likely be a big issue in the second half of the session.