Highlighting This Week’s Hearings
This week, I presented five of my bills in three different committees:
SB269: Transparency is an essential element of good government. Yet again this year, I’m sponsoring legislation to expand coverage of our Open Meetings laws.
SB281: As Chair of the Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG911) Commission, I learned that there are significant problems with our State’s payment process. This bill would create an accessible “payment tracking portal” for vendors to learn the status of their pending invoices.
SB486: Gender assigned (female/male) bathrooms cause problems for people with disabilities, trans- folks, and women who are tired of waiting in long lines. This bill requires businesses to display an inexpensive, gender-neutral sign on the door of any single-occupancy bathroom.
SB523: There are crisis-level staffing shortages in health care and other fields, especially during the pandemic. Brought to me by the former publisher of The Washington Post, this bill would allow qualified individuals, regardless of immigration status, to obtain occupational or professional licensure.
SB542: Nonprofits that provide vital services for our constituents struggle with unacceptable delays in government grant payments. This bill would require “Payment Parity” to support our nonprofit organizations.