2018 General Session - Week 2

Week 2 was a productive yet contentious.  It all started with a 7am Monday at the Little America Hotel for our annual Utah GOP Breakfast.

Mr. Peterson's Bills 

HB20 - Political Activities and Elections - This bill was passed out of the House and heard in Senate committee this week.  It goes to the Senate Floor for a final vote.

HB80 - Child Placement Amendments - This bill was heard on the house floor and voted out unanimously.  You can watch the floor debate HERE. 

HB110 - Lobbyist Licencing Amendments - This bill has been held up due to conflicts between our Legislative legal staff and the lobbyist community on how to best proceed with the bill.  We finally held a meeting where we resolved the outstanding issues to the satisfaction of all parties.  A redraft of the bill should be public at anytime.  It will then go to the rules committee and then assigned to Government Operations.  

HB126 - Inmate Housing Amendments - This was an extremely contentious bill to work on this week.  My first meeting was on Monday with the Law Enforcement Legislative Committee who took a vote last week to oppose the bill.  I presented the bill to them for the first time and took some criticism from the Department of Corrections.  Meanwhile, local chiefs and sheriffs sympathized with the bill.  The committee voted to take a neutral stance after our presentation.  

On Tuesday we presented the bill to the Law Enforcement Standing Committee.  The meeting was extremely tense and the bill was panned by the Department of Corrections.  However, I was able to overcome the concerns of the committee and the bill passed on a 5-4 vote.  You can listen to the meeting and the vote below.  

 

You can also read about it in the DNews and the Trib.     

HB193 - National Popular Vote Interstate Compact - I keep getting calls and emails from folks in Utah County who are angry about the bill.  It turns out most of them have been misinformed about what the bill does and when I talk to them about how the bill really works, they put their torches and pitchforks down to do some more thinking.  

HB270 - Teacher Employment Amendments - This bill just became public.  It fixes a technical glitch in our state software system that does not allow a teacher to be credentialed at more than one school district.  Originally, I was told that the bill would trigger a total rewrite of the software since apparently it was programmed back in antiquity.  The note was supposed to be an outrageous number like $40 Million.  Fortunately, the program is scheduled to be rewritten anyway and my bill will provide guidance in that rewrite.  So, the fiscal impact is $0.  

Look for more exciting news in Week 3!