We’re now past the final deadlines for most bill introductions in the 2009 long session of the North Carolina General Assembly. Total bill filings dropped by 23.6%, with a 19.4% drop in the House and a 29.2% drop in the Senate. When factoring out companion (identical) bills, there were 26% less total filings.
Resolutions and a few categories of bills (such as redistricting) can still be filed.
Here are comparison stats from 2009 and filings at the same point in the 2007 session:
HOUSE SENATE TOTAL
2009: 1651 1101 2752
2007: 2049 1555 3604
CHANGE -19.4% -29.2% -23.6%
A companion bill is the same bill as another filed in the other house (they miught be filed at the same time or later in the session. In 2007 there were 1137 companions, in 2009 there have been 926. Factoring these out, here’s how many different bills were filed:
2009 1826
2007 2467
CHANGE: -26.0%
As mentioned previously, the total of bill drafting requests dropped by 16.6% between 2007 and 2009. the disparity between this number and the total bills filed indicates a sharp uptick in drafting requests that did not result in bills being filed. In 2007 a total of 3,948 drafting requests were made, resulting in 2,467 filings (62.7%), while in 2009 3,627 requests were made with 1,826 bills filed (50.3%).
In 2007, there were 24 House bills and resolutions and 20 Senate bills and resolutions filed after the deadlines.
