General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022

The big news: Paul Baumbach’s End Of Life Options bill cleared committee.  8-7. Only D to vote no was Nnamdi Chukwuocha.

Here is yesterday’s Session Activity Report.  As expected, HB 280(Bentz) passed the Senate unamended and only needs the Governor’s signature to become law.

The House and Senate are scheduled to each quickly run through agendas.  Then, we get John Carney’s State Of The State around 2 pm.  I’ll try to post a copy of the speech as a courtesy to those who like a mid-afternoon snooze.

Here is today’s House Agenda.  Two bills of note:

HB 310 (Heffernan), which reallocates some funds from last June’s Bond Bill.  A bill like this is generally run every January.

HB 285 (Osienski), which ‘provides COVID-19 related relief to both claimants receiving unemployment benefits and employers who are assessed unemployment taxes, and extends the end date of the Secretary of Labor’s COVID-19 related rulemaking authority.’

Here is today’s Senate Agenda.  Of note:

SB 195 (S. McBride), ‘requires the Department of Education to develop and maintain evidence-based media literacy standards for use by school districts and charter schools serving students in grades kindergarten through 12. The standards and materials must be age-appropriate and must address appropriate, responsible, and healthy online behavior’.

HB 290 (Schwartzkopf):  This bill, which eliminates the sunset provision on allowing ‘…food and drink establishments…to continue to sell alcoholic beverages in transactions for take-out, curbside, or drive-through service and to use outdoor seating for serving of food and drinks so long as the licensee satisfies certain conditions.’  Although we’ve previously discussed this bill, there are two senate amendments that have been placed with the bill.  This amendment ‘requires that, in addition to volume limitations, a restaurant sell food that accounts for not less than 60% of a customer’s total transaction when the take-out, curbside, or drive-through sale includes alcoholic beverages.’  Seems reasonable to me. Whether it seems reasonable to Speaker Pete remains to be seen.

Sorry for the relative sparseness of today’s report, but I’m getting my hair cut within the hour, and they’re bringing in a lawnmower just for the occasion. Gotta book.