OCR Text |
Show First Week of Utah House Business Sets Record The House of Representatives Repre-sentatives began the first week of the Utah Legislature's Legis-lature's 41st session with a record flow of business. busi-ness. The first day 96 pieces of legislation were introduced for consideration. con-sideration. This topped the record set last year of 50 bills. By the end of the week 125 bills and 9 resolutions had been formally introduced. intro-duced. Speaker Ronald Ren-cher Ren-cher (D-Ogden) explained, explain-ed, "We have been able to speed up the machinery machin-ery of the legislature through the relatively new pre-filing system which allows bills to begin be-gin preliminary processing proces-sing before the actual session begins. This allows al-lows the legislature to begin work the first day instead of using several days to get organized. "The first day we had 19 bills and 2 resolutions cleared through the Rules Committee so each standing committee could begin their evaluations. evalu-ations. We hope to continue con-tinue improvements such as this so we can take full advantage of our representatives' re-presentatives' time," said Speaker Rencher. On the second day of the session five pieces of legislation were considered con-sidered and passed. They dealt' with topics rang-1 rang-1 ing from a white water boating resolution to an act which would legally allow males to be dental hygienists. During the rest of the week 14 bills were passed. These included in-cluded a bill which allows al-lows grandparents the right to visit with children child-ren whose parents are divorced at the discretion discre-tion of the court. These bills have been referred to the Utah Senate for final action. All of the committees of the House of Representatives Repre-sentatives were organized organ-ized and began their work this week. These committees com-mittees review legislation legisla-tion in .detail and make recommendations to the full House of Representatives Represent-atives before a bill is voted upon. During this first week Governor Calvin L. Rampton addressed the Utah Legislature and explained ex-plained legislation which he considers important. He also gave recommendations recom-mendations about the state's budget. , Other business included includ-ed the reports of research re-search studies which had been carried out during the year. An evaluation of Utah's property tax policy and suggestions about necessary changes in the state constitution were among these reports. re-ports. The House of Representatives Repre-sentatives will be aided in their work this year by improvements in computer and printing service. An important addition to the daily computer com-puter sheets is recording the cost of each bill as it passes so no money will be spent which is not available. Overall, the House of Representatives of the Utah Legislature is organized or-ganized and active in the business of providing carefully considered laws for Utah. |