Mr. Peterson's 2012 Legislation Wrap-Up

The General Session is over and it's time to do a post mortem on the work that was done over the seven-week marathon.

Here is a list of bills that I ran and the fate of each:

HOUSE BILLS

HB22 - Centralized New Hire Registry Act Amendments - PASSED - this bill refined the practices of collecting employment information to prevent unemployment insurance fraud and promote more effective enforcement for back child support collections.

HB23 - Special Administrative Expense Accounts Amendments - PASSED - this bill was technical in nature and about as exciting as the title suggests.

HB30 - Unemployment Insurance Amendments - REDIRECTED - some changes needed to be made to the bill once it was written so the bill was redrawn as a Senate bill SB129 which I sponsored in the House.  Its goal was to reduce unemployment insurance taxes by $24.6 Million.

HB58 - Changes to Amendments Incorporated into State Construction Code - FAILED - this was my seismic upgrade mandate repeal bill which I have written much about here on the blog.  The bill was voted down at committee.  However, another colleague of mine felt the issue was important enough that he drafted his own identical version.  I supported and spoke for that bill in Senate committee and it passed as HB305 with a couple minor modifications.

HB133S01 - Vehicle Registration Amendments - PASSED - this is the 6-month car registration bill that allows shorter registrations at a discounted price.  Look for availability in July 2013.

HB379 - Occupational Licensing Amendments - SENT TO MASTER STUDY - This was the controversial "Hair Braiding Bill".  I was asked to adopt this bill for a legislator who had resigned recently and had worked on the issue.  I agreed to adopt it but once I did the background research it became apparent that other legislators had been working diligently on the issue.  Rather than waste their efforts, we agreed to send the issue master study over the interim.

HB383S01 -  International Residential Code Amendments - PASSED -  This bill was an augmentation to a bill run last year that stopped building officials from requiring owners of rental property to cut into their foundations to make basement windows bigger.   

HB388 - Unemployment Insurance Amendments - PASSED - This bill created an exception for Salt Lake City's Head Start program so they were not compelled to participate in the Unemployment Insurance program the state operates.  The SLC Head Start has some unique quirks that made it the only program in the state that was not exempted.  This bill fixed that problem.

SENATE BILLS

SB37 - Intergenerational Poverty Provisions - PASSED - This bill creates a study within the Department of Workforce Services to determine best practices when dealing with those who are trapped in the welfare poverty cycle.

SB104 - Revisors Statute - PASSED - This was a technical cleanup bill that corrected misspellings and punctuation errors in the code.  Yawn.

SB129 - Unemployment Insurance Modifications - PASSED - This bill replaced HB30 above and reduced unemployment insurance taxes by $24.6 Million.

SB144 - Immigration Consultants - PASSED - This was the only bill related remotely to immigration that was heard and voted on this year.  It legitimized and regulated a cottage industry in the immigrant community that was rife with fraud and predatory practices.