Judiciary conference negotiators reach agreement to package several bills into shell measures

At a meeting of the Committee on Judiciary, House and Senate negotiators exchanged offers and counteroffers and ultimately agreed to assemble a package that would place several bills into legislative shells rather than pass each as originally drafted.

The agreement centers on House Bill 2,164 and related amendments. “The Senate appreciates the offer but is not able to accept the offer,” the Madam Chair said when the Senate first responded to a House proposal. The Senate then made a counteroffer to proceed with a Senate substitute for House Bill 2,164 plus what the transcript calls “the 1 and a half amendments,” described in the meeting as matters addressing a church and a “severity level 7.”

Senator Titus outlined how the other measures would be distributed among shells: “We would place the House Bill 2,349, the scrap metal investigation, into a Senate…we could pick a Senate shell. We would place the claims against the state bill, which is 22 12, in a senate shell, and then we would place senate bill 2 2 2 in a house shell.”

Later in the session a committee member summarized the package numerically and confirmed acceptance: “I think we have 2,164 plus 1 and a half amendments, House Bill 2,349 into Senate shell 2 37…House bill 22 12 into 156 and Senate Bill 2 22 into House Bill 2,183. And, we will agree to your offer.”

Committee members noted remaining business unrelated to the package, including ongoing conference items that would remain in conference or be taken up later. “That leaves 02/1955 then,” one speaker said, and another added that some bills “remain in conference until you concur or…for next year.” The meeting closed after brief thanks to staff and participants.

The discussion recorded in the transcript does not show a formal roll-call vote; the agreement was expressed as an interchamber negotiating outcome rather than a committee motion with a recorded tally.

The transcript identifies the following measures by the forms used in the meeting: House Bill 2,164 (with a Senate substitute), the referenced “1 and a half amendments” (described in the meeting as involving a church and a severity level 7), House Bill 2,349 (described as a scrap metal investigation), a “claims against the state” bill noted as 22 12, and Senate Bill 2 22. Additional bills mentioned as shells or remaining in conference include Senate Bill 157 and Senate Bill 84 and references to bills numbered in the 1950s and 2155; the transcript does not provide fuller statutory titles or subjects for all of those measures.

Because the transcript records offers, counteroffers and an expressed agreement rather than a formal, recorded committee vote, the outcome should be treated as an interchamber negotiating resolution documented in the committee record rather than a final enacted result.