Today is Organization Day at the State House. Legislators meet for a day to perform mostly ceremonial functions and then don’t typically return until January when they get to work. Organization Day always struck me as being a little like the first day of school – any divisions between legislators are mostly forgotten and lawmakers are just happy to see each other again after summer break.
Organization Day is used in election years to choose House and Senate leaders and adopt legislative rules for the next two years. But in non-election years like this one, the day is primarily symbolic.
“Organization Day helps to get re-engaged, to begin to focus on the issues coming up,” said Rep. Jeff Espich of Uniondale, the House Republican fiscal leader.
It also marks the first day that members of the House can begin filing bills — senators started a couple of weeks ago — and chamber leaders can start assigning bills to committees.
For me, it means I can start looking at the LSA website for legislation to talk about. I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels here on the blog for awhile.
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