Senate Bill Filling Deadline Passes

This year, breaking with its usual practice, the State Senate established a single bill filling deadline of January 28 (last Thursday). In the past, Senators had a period of unlimited filling before one deadline followed by a second period when each Senator was allowed to file only 9 more bills. Unless there is a backlog in the system due to the rush of bills at the deadline followed by the severe weather that hit Nashville the end of last week, it appears the Senate topped out at SB 3915 at the deadline. This reflects a little over 1500 new bills filed for this second year of the legislative session. Almost 2400 bills were filed in the first year. A few more bills will trickle in for private acts for individual cities and counties and it is possible a few bills can make it through the late bills committee. Still, the number is well below recent years.

The second year of a legislative session often has fewer bills since there are many left still pending from the first year, but usually it is not this significant of a reduction. The earlier filing deadline would have been a factor; but, the expected challenging budget has led many legislators not to even file legislation that comes with a significant price tag. This reduction in total number of bills filed reverses a trend that had seen bill fillings growing rapidly from session to session.

In the late 1990's and the earlier part of this decade, 2-year sessions of the General Assembly topped out between 3250 to 3550 bills. Totals fluctuated up and down within that narrow window. The 103rd General Assembly completed its work in 2004 with a total of 3529 Senate Bills. The 104th General Assembly upped the total to 4052; the 105th to 4280. With 2400 bills filed in the first year of this session, the 106th appeared poised to push that record further until this year.

Now the work of sorting through the impact of the legislation begins for legislative committees, staffers and organizations like this one.