Our Stories

We’ve just passed the third major cutoff of legislative session – Wednesday (March 8th) was the deadline for most bills to pass out of their “house of origin,” meaning a full vote of either the House or the Senate.

Today marks the second big deadline of legislative session. “Fiscal cutoff” is the deadline for bills with budget impact to be voted out of a fiscal committee. This week has truly been a marathon of bill hearings and committee votes (called “executive session” in legislative lingo) going well into the night. These will continue all day today until the deadline of 5pm. 

Whew! Session is in full swing with more bills introduced in the last two weeks. Committees are engaging in hybrid hearings and getting smoother at switching back and forth between remote and in-person testimony.

This session, Stand is advocating for restorative educational justice by urging lawmakers to build a debt-free youth justice system. One way to reduce the harmful impacts of juvenile legal system involvement on young people’s educational and life opportunities is to eliminate the ineffective and inefficient practice of imposing financial restitution in juvenile cases.

Whew! Session is in full swing with more bills introduced in the last two weeks. Committees are engaging in hybrid hearings and getting smoother at switching back and forth between remote and in-person testimony.

Happy first week of session! I started as the Government Affairs Director with Stand for Children in August, so this is my first legislative session with Stand, and I’m excited to move forward our collective priorities together! I’m also excited to be coming into a hybrid legislative session, with more ways to participate than ever […]