Montana Legislature

Hundreds of bills await action in Helena

Posted: Nov 22, 2012 1:12 PM by Marnee Banks - MTN News

HELENA- Montana's 63rd Legislative Session will get underway in just a few weeks, and lawmakers will be busy. There are more than 950 bill draft requests, about average, waiting for action.

There were more than 2,200 bill draft requests last session, about half were introduced, and just over 500 actually became law.

There are about 20 Legislative staff members who are busy drafting bills. They are non-partisan and work for both chambers and both parties.

If a legislator has an idea the staff works with them to get their idea in a draft form.

"We try to keep it in real plain language so the average citizen can access the law without having to go through an attorney, to make it more simple and easy to understand and easy to implement. It really does come down to problem solving. We try to help the legislator. We are just the technician that tries to help put their ideas into the code in a way that makes sense," explained Legislative Services Executive Director Susan Byorth.

There were more than four-million pages of bills printed last session.