The total number of substantive bill drafting requests received by North Carolina legislative staff is down by almost 17% comparing May 4, 2009 with the same point in the 2007 Regular Session, a reduction from 3948 to 3293. The dropoff has accelerated since I reported a 12% drop as of March 23, 2009.
Interestingly, the number of bills filed in North Carolina has dropped during bad economic times. During the eight-month long 2001 recession, bill filings dropped by 3% compared with 1999; there was a sharper 32.3% drop from 1989 to 1991 during that recession; while bill filings dropped 32.3% between 1929 and 1931.
The final House drafting request deadlines have now passed, just a few requests remain to be processed before this Wednesday’s appropriations bill filing deadline, and resolutions are exempt from the deadline. Senate deadlines were a month ago.
I had noted previously that our paper consumption on an average per bill is down by 36.8% as we implemented in January formatting changes that cut the average length of a bill by 18.5% and are printing 22% less copies of each bill.
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The table below shows the statistics in greater detail:
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| 2009 long session drafting | ||||
| requests as of May 4 compared | ||||
| with same point in 2007 Session | 2007 | 2009 | CHANGE | |
| RESEARCH DIVISION | 406 | 421 | +3.69% | |
| DRAFTING DIVISION | 3627 | 2906 | -19.88% | |
| TOTAL | 4033 | 3327 | -17.51% | |
| BLANKS | 85 | 34 | -60.00% | |
| SUBSTANTIVE TOTAL | 3948 | 3293 | -16.59% | |
