Legislative Update
Friends and Neighbors,
This week has been a rush of omnibus bills as Democrats continue to push their radical agenda through the final days of this legislative session. All week we’ve been on the house floor late into the evening and even past midnight. I would expect that trend to continue next week as legislation continues to pile up on the calendar for the day.
Instead of working the supplement finance bills this week, the Democrat majority brought forward three of their gun bills last night. H.F. 601 criminalizes victims of crime if they don’t report a stolen gun in a certain timeframe instead of going after the perpetrators of the crime,H.F. 4300 compromises someone’s ability to defend themselves at home with new storage requirements, in violation of the Heller decision by the United States Supreme Court and H.F. 2609 includes changes to the definition of a “trigger activator” that may impact some commonly used guns and render them illegal, in violation of our Constitution. I voted against and strongly argued against all of them but, unfortunately they passed with with no Republican votes.
We need to focus on enforcing our current laws, as we see violent crime increasing across our state, we should be holding these criminals accountable rather than criminalizing law-abiding gun owners. The heavy-handed 48-hour timeline on lost and stolen firearms and the loose definitions in the bill are especially egregious in criminalizing victims. Even AG Merrick Garland admitted it is not the firearm but the gangs who are banned from owning or possessing firearms doing the violence.
Today we are calendared to hear H.F. 5299, the Higher Education budget bill, H.F. 5216, the Judiciary and Public Safety budget bill, and S.F. 5289, the Employment and Economic Development budget bill. However, as with everything around here, that is subject to change as we also have six other bills sitting on the table that the majority was unable to get through the floor process from earlier this week.
Is there legislation you want to see passed still this year or maybe legislation you like to see stopped? Please share your thoughts with me so that I can best represent you on the house floor as we work through these final few weeks of this legislative session.
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