A Thousand Bills

There are now more than 1,000 bills floating around the Legislature, and we've only completed a third of the session.

Filings today and Friday were particularly heavy as we've hit the deadline for introducing rules bills. This legislation authorizes the rules that state agencies and programs need to operate, and by my count they represent one out of every five bills introduced.

Another popular topic this session is crime and punishment: nearly 11 percent of the bills would create new offenses, stiffen or change punishments for existing crimes or address the probation or parole systems.

About 8 percent of the bills involve taxes (almost all propose cuts, credits or exemptions).

The Charleston Gazette's Phil Kabler reports that there is huge backlog in the office that drafts bills for introduction (third item in column).

I count 1,063 bills as of today, while there were 1,352 bills introduced as of Day 20 of last year's session. That reflected about 58 percent of the eventual total.

Most Senate bills this session must be introduced by Feb. 19, while that deadline in the House is Feb. 23 (the session ends March 10).