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Committee shifts agency pre-filing to Wednesday before Thanksgiving and moves resolution deadlines earlier
Summary
After reviewing Legislative Council statistics, the committee voted to set agency pre-filing on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and to move constitutional amendment and study-resolution deadlines earlier to ease end-of-year draft congestion.
The panel voted to move the executive-branch agency pre-filing deadline to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and separately approved moving deadlines for constitutional amendments and study resolutions up by seven legislative days, both intended to smooth a recurring year-end surge in bill submissions.
Legislative Council staff presented a memo with five-session and 18-session historical statistics showing agencies often file a high volume of bills at the end of the pre-filing window. Emily said that moving agency filings earlier (staff suggested around Nov. 15 or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving) would allow Legislative Council staff to spread workload and reduce the late-year “dump” of drafts that currently arrives after organizational session when legislator pre-filing has begun.
The state court administrator, via written comments, asked that any judicial pre-filing deadline not be earlier than the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because their North Dakota Judicial Conference typically meets the Monday before Thanksgiving. Committee members discussed having separate deadlines for executive and judicial branches; Emily said that is procedurally possible although executive agencies might push back. Members noted that any rule change would not practically affect the upcoming regular session unless adopted under special-session procedures.
On separate roll-call votes, the committee approved (1) the agency pre-filing deadline change to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and (2) moving the constitutional amendment/study-resolution deadlines up seven legislative days so those measures occur before crossover. Staff said they will prepare rule language for the special session packet and for permanent rules as directed.
Committee members also discussed encouraging agencies to voluntarily submit bills earlier and the potential role of the new policy-analyst division in alleviating attorney workload for draft review.
