For the past two weeks we've been busy getting bills ready for introduction. 12 proposals from the office were sent to the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) for drafting where the attorneys take our ideas, research, and supporting documents and do some legalize magic to turn them into bills and resolutions. They dealt with homeless, convention of states, veterans memorial, and lower education. A lady came in yesterday asking us to submit two bills she drafted because no one else could take them. Each representative can introduce up to 10 bills each year and we were submitting 8 bills and 3 resolutions, so we accepted.
When we get the bills back from LRB, we visit the other representatives and ask for co-introducers and co-sponsors to sign the bills to show support for them. We then submit the bills to the Chief Clerks office who assign it a House Bill (HB) number. Then the House session convenes and the Bill is Introduced for the "First Reading" to determine if it moves forward to committee or dies.
I'll follow HB2036 about the Veterans Memorial throughout this thread as an example.
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2036&year=2018Take aways:
The last day for bill introductions is January 24th. If you want to ask your rep to work on a bill for you, it should be done early preferably in November or December. Give them your idea, evidence and research, news articles, court cases, pics & graphs, and whatever information you can to help them draft your bill.
It's important to talk to and answer questions from the Reps and their staff. They are not firearms people so you have to teach them everything. The Reps and staff cannot get sponsors for pro-gun firearms bills if they don't know what to say and what it's about.
Rep Kong's office staff, Crystal and Sarah prepare to submit bills for introduction.
The bill goes to the House Chamber who convenes every day (except for Recess days) to decide if the Introduced bill passes (first reading) to continue on or dies.
This is the stage we are currently at. Committee hearings will start at the end of next week or the following week.
This is the status of the Veterans Memorial bill we submitted. Notice the co-introducers and it passed it's first reading.