Amy Beckham and Shelby Vannoy provide this week’s legislative update and cover two of Farm Bureau’s priority issues – Greenbelt and prohibiting a statewide property tax. Legislation regarding farmer’s markets and deannexation is also covered, as well as what the rest of this session holds for lawmakers.
Amy Beckham: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Farm Bureau on the Hill, I’m Amy Beckham. And joining me for this week’s legislative update from our public policy division is Shelby Vannoy. And Shelby, you have done a great job all session giving us lots of updates about what’s happening on the Hill in Nashville. And this week, we are wrapping things up a little bit. And so we have some good news to kick us off with our Farm Bureau priority issues, the 2023 issues that our team has been working on in Nashville. But the first priority issue that we kind of want to celebrate, a big win is legislation on Greenbelt and how it relates to conservation programs – Senate Bill 711. And Shelby, what happened with that legislation this week?
Shelby Vannoy: Well, Amy I’m pleased to announce that Senate Bill 711 has passed the Senate floor and not only did it pass the Senate floor, it passed it unanimously. Every senator that was present and voted in support of that. So, thank you to Senator Stevens for your work on that. And it is still moving in the house, it is sitting behind the budget. And we kind of talked in the previous episode about what that means. But, we can finally put a bow on the Greenbelt issue in the Senate, and now we’re just waiting with bated breath on what happens in the House.
Amy Beckham: Very good. And moving right along our big effort in prohibiting a statewide property tax once and for all, House Joint Resolution 81. What happened with that priority issue this week?
Shelby Vannoy: Yeah, so lots of things happening. When this first got introduced a couple months ago, which is crazy to think that it’s been a couple months now. But, it was heard in the finance subcommittee and then placed on a special calendar exclusively for constitutional amendments. Because we are nearing the end of session, they’re starting to take up some of those special calendars, so that was considered on Wednesday. There were five constitutional amendments on the calendar, four of those constitutional amendments came out of the subcommittee and were able to move forward. And thankfully HJR81 by Representative Darby was one of the four. So, it’ll be considered in the finance committee next week. And unlike other bills, where you have a House version and a Senate version which are kind of moving at the same time, with constitutional amendments, it’s the same number. So HJR 81, once it gets all the way through the House, it will then be kicked over to the Senate for them to consider. We have Senator Frank Nicely waiting over there with his arms wide open to take it once it passes the House floor, and we’ll see what next week holds. The fact that it came off of that special calendar is a really good sign that we’re about to make our jump over that first hurdle.
Amy Beckham: So you might have said this Shelby, but do all constitutional amendments start in the House and then go over to the Senate?
Shelby Vannoy: Not necessarily. It just kind of depends on what sponsor is willing to go first. The House has a much more multi-step process than the Senate does. Whereas the Senate goes from committee to calendar to the floor, the House has to go from subcommittee committee, oftentimes finance, which has a subcommittee and a full committee, then calendar than the House. So, they typically take a little bit longer to move stuff through the house, especially when it comes to things that may end up on a special calendar like constitutional amendments. So we went ahead and let Representative Darby go first and then get it where he has done such a good job of getting it and we’ll let Senator Nicely take over hopefully next week.
Amy Beckham: So it sounds like we’ve jumped the biggest hurdle, then potentially?
Shelby Vannoy: Yes!
Amy Beckham: Okay. Very good. Good to hear. So we’ll hopefully provide some updates next week on finalizing those two priority issues. But, speaking of lots of things passing in the Senate, we also had another item of business that we’ve been talking about for the past few weeks that has to do with farmer’s markets, and we received some good news with that legislation. So, Shelby, it passed on the Senate floor, but just give us an idea or recap that legislation and give us an idea of what happens and what it means from here.
Shelby Vannoy: So Senate Bill 1049 by Senator Yarbro. Road was up for consideration on Monday and it passed the House Floor I think 26 to 1, so it’s still a really good margin, it still passed. And we are waiting. It also passed out of the finance subcommittee this week because it has a positive fiscal note. So, anything that has a fiscal note that is not not-significant, which means that it has no impact or if it is not positive, it goes behind the budget, which is where a few of our other tracking legislation is. But, because this legislation has a positive fiscal note so it contributes to state revenue, they don’t hold those things behind the budget because it’s not going to cost the state any money, it’s actually making the state to money. So, it moved out of the finance subcommittee this week and we’ve been working the finance full committee so hopefully House Bill 1077, which is the companion to that, will be moving its way through the House and will join the Senate version and then find its way on the governor’s desk for signature.
Amy Beckham: And just kind of as a reminder that legislation allows producers to offer samples and prepared products at local farmers market, so a good, good thing for those producers that sell at farmer’s markets. Another topic we’ve discussed the past few weeks is legislation on deannexation, and this week, it was sent back to calendar on the Senate floor. So, what exactly does that mean, and are we still feeling any good about it Shelby?
Shelby Vannoy: So sometimes, procedurally, one chamber just has to let the other chamber catch up. So, what’s happened in this situation with the deannexation bill that Senator Bo Watson has is that he is waiting to see what the House is going to do. So, the House version is sitting behind the budget. We feel incredibly optimistic that it’s going to come out from behind the budget and continue moving its way along the process, but because there are two separate amendments. The House version and the Senate version are different, not largely different. The context is still the same – that if you own a property, an agricultural property on a city boundary, that this bill would allow you a method to deannex from the city. Just some of the nitty gritty language is a little bit different. So, instead of having the Senate pass this legislation, and you know, heaven forbid it not come out from behind the budget, or the different versions continue to travel on, I think Senator Watson is just trying to play it safe and let the House catch up. We don’t fault him for that one bit, and look forward to seeing what happens in the House and working with both Representative Alexander and Senator Watson on working through those logistics, but we still feel really good about the bill overall.
Amy Beckham: So that’s, I mean, I want to say basically it for this update. But, in a way, those four topics are the main things that we had to cover today, and that kind of means that things are really, really wrapping up. So, you kind of touched on it last week, but does this mean the end of the roller coaster?
Shelby Vannoy: So, we had a lawmaker tell us this week that the plane is coming down to the tarmac, and it may be dragging some members down with it as it goes, as far as if they’re not ready the plane is landing regardless. And although that these four issues have been something that we’ve talked about for weeks and weeks, they’re not the only things we’re tracking. And I don’t know that we’ve ever talked through where folks can find the other issues we’re tracking. So, if you receive the legislative alert, where you may have clicked on the little logo there to listen to this podcast, if you’ll scroll past that, there’s a pretty comprehensive list of a few of the several hundred bills that we track in a legislative session and the House status, the Senate status, as well as what Farm Bureau’s position is on that. So if there’s something that maybe you’re interested in that you haven’t seen or haven’t heard us talk about, it’s very likely we’re still watching it, we just may not be talking about it on the podcast because we’d be here all day if we did that.
Amy Beckham: Yeah, I was gonna say, “pretty extensive” – You just said those words, but that would be an understatement. It is extremely extensive. All the good information if you’re curious, for sure.
Shelby Vannoy: But, the good news is that a lot of those the updates, it’s either that the legislation is not moving and it doesn’t plan to move this year or that it’s passed, which is kind of a telltale sign that the end is in fact near, and we heard as of this morning, I think the House anticipates to take up the “flow motion” movement on Monday, which is a telltale sign that we’re about to wrap this bad boy up.
Amy Beckham: So, for those that might be like me, what exactly does “flow motion” mean?
Shelby Vannoy: Um, well, if you’re asking me, “flow motion” is what my nightmares are consisted of. But, procedurally, flow motion is kind of, where, as I mentioned earlier, I feel like they take the rulebook and they just throw it out the window when it comes to how bills move through committee. So take everything you learned in Schoolhouse Rock and condense that down. Currently, if a bill comes out of a subcommittee on a Tuesday afternoon, for example, it cannot be heard in the full committee until the following week. There has to be a period where the legislation lays over and then it’s considered same thing. That’s why we’ve been talking about some of these bills for weeks is because it takes, it’s a process and it’s a process that works really well. However, with flow motion, they suspend the rules to where some of those procedural things are no longer in place. So, for example, if a bill comes out of a subcommittee next week, once they take up flow motion and the full committee meets later that afternoon, that piece of legislation could very well be on that full committee’s calendar. So, they do this to just try to get things moving quicker in the House to catch up with the Senate, so then, once finance can complete their jobs, the remainder of their time is spent on either the House or Senate floor looking at that legislation. So, we expect that to come Monday, which means that Tuesday through whenever will be just a free for all of bills, and I want to be optimistic and say that everything’s gonna be fine and everything’s gonna work really well, but unfortunately, the reason why flow motion is what my nightmares are made of is that sometimes this is where those unintended consequences come in. If you’ve heard us give a legislative update or have heard our division, speak anywhere, a lot of what we do is watch for unintended consequences. And just with the speed of the way things are moving, we really have to keep a watchful eye on amendments and things that are coming. So, I couldn’t be more thankful that all of our priority issues are where they are, because we’re in a really good spot, but next week will be an interesting week.
Amy Beckham: So, are you thinking adjournment is next week then?
Shelby Vannoy: So, I’m gonna knock on wood. I don’t know if you can hear that or not, but we are hearing that adjournment could be as soon as Friday or even Saturday of next week. So, in the last five years, I don’t know that they’ve ever met on a Saturday for legislative session. But, I know that the Senate is calendered to meet Friday morning, but they have left a note on their calendar that they would meet Saturday if needed, so I feel like both chambers are kind of in agreement that next week could very well be it, which means that this is our second to last podcast.
Amy Beckham: So I was about to say, I would think it’s safe to say that we might not give an update next Thursday, based off of how things…
Shelby Vannoy: We may do a late update next Thursday and just kind of see where we are, but we don’t want to be updating you on things that are changing every five minutes. So, we’ll kind of play it by ear on that one, but I definitely think our next one, our next podcast and update could be a pretty big one to wrap up everything.
Amy Beckham: It definitely could. We will for sure have a big wrap up of all things that happened in the legislature, but I’ll also say this is not the last time that Farm Bureau on the Hill is going to be active in terms of the podcast. We are hopeful that we will be able to provide you if there are some state issues that come up throughout the non-legislative session, but also some national issues, because there are a lot of things happening on the national level, and so we do want this time to be focused on our state issues, because there’s a lot happening that y’all are dealing with, but after this, we are hopeful we can kind of give you some updates on the farm bill, WOTUS, all of that good stuff. So, anything else before we close Shelby?
Shelby Vannoy: I don’t think so, just other than it’s been great to hear from folks as far as those who are following along with the alert or, or listening to the podcast and just encourage you to keep checking those. We did have our first action alert this week for those two bills that we mentioned were on the floor. There could be more that come next week, so definitely keep an eye on your inbox if you receive those alerts, and we just ask that you stand ready to take action so we can adjourn and be ready for January.
Amy Beckham: And finish strong to say the least. Thanks for that update Shelby. Appreciate all those who have listened and tuned in, and we look forward to providing you an update at some point next week. So, have a great weekend and a great next week.
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