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Senate Rules Committee hears multiple bills and agrees to move five for consideration
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Summary
At a Rules Committee meeting, senators reviewed several bills on retirement, licensing and regulatory cleanup and agreed by voice to pick five bills (SB 409, SB 427, SB 440, HB 455 and HB 973) for future consideration; no roll-call vote was recorded.
At a meeting of the state Senate Rules Committee, members reviewed a slate of bills across retirement, public-health regulation, professional licensure and consumer protection before agreeing by voice to advance five measures for future consideration.
The acting chair opened the session by noting Chairman Brass was absent and then walked members through agenda items including SB 157 (a retirement buyback provision for former legislators), SB 392 (the Waste Reduction Act 2026), SB 395 (addressing communication between the Department of Public Health and the Composite Medical Board on the medical-cannabis program), and SB 405 (raising a statutory threshold from 15,000 to 50,000). A presenter summarized SB 157 as allowing former two-term legislators who had not joined the legislative retirement plan initially to buy back service after returning and completing eight years.
Chairman Burns described SP 261 as an internal change for magistrates’ boards that would "cost the taxpayers 0" and was framed by the presenter as an internal adjustment to board makeup and contribution rules. Senator Kirkpatrick characterized SP 440 as a "red tape rollback bill" to remove obsolete or nonfunctional provisions from Department of Public Health code. On SB 395, Kirkpatrick said the measure seeks to fix a communication disconnect between the Department of Public Health and the Composite Medical Board related to the medical-cannabis program.
On consumer protections, the committee heard SB 409, described by its sponsor as a transparency and consumer-protection bill intended to help homeowners; the committee did not request further questions. Members also discussed a bill to allow professional counselors in their last semester to sit for licensure testing earlier and other housekeeping items.
Before adjourning, the committee listed the bills it intended to pick for future consideration: SB 409, SB 427, SB 440, HB 455 and HB 973. The chair acknowledged a motion (named in the transcript as coming from Senator Albers with a second from Senator Anderson) and called for the ayes; the meeting closed without a recorded roll-call tally.
The meeting adjourned with no recorded final votes on the individual bills discussed and no further scheduling detail provided in the transcript.
