Playing by the numbers

Typically, committee agendas are done in relative numerical order, especially at the beginning of the session when most bills are still in their first committee. We've been watching the HCPAC agenda pretty closely trying to estimate when we might have to be at the Roundhouse.

On Monday it looked like we were set to go on Thursday. There were only 7 bills left ahead of us, and there have been anywhere from 9 to 13 bills on each agenda so far. They have thrown in a bill or two from "behind" in an effort to group similar bills on the same day.

Last night I checked on Thursday's agenda, expecting, hoping HB 196 would be on it. We weren't. In fact, all of the bills except one scheduled for Thursday have higher bill numbers than ours.

I was very disappointed. I contacted our sponsor to find out if there is anything going on behind the scenes that we need to be aware of and if we should contact the committee chair directly. According to Rep. Gardner, all is well. He, too, had been hoping to be heard this week. He said they are trying to move groups of bills. (Most of the bills on the schedule for Thursday have to do with voting and ballots. But there are some that don't relate to that topic, and I guess it doesn't quite make sense why they would skip us and the other 7 bills ahead of us in that instance. If they were **all** voting and ballot bills, I could see it, but they aren't.) At any rate, Rep. Gardner says we are ok. No petty politics at play right now. So we are just waiting some more.

I will keep checking the agendas and hope that we are on next week.