Dear Neighbor, The 2024 legislative session started this week, and committees have hit the ground running. As a reminder, I sit on the Commerce Finance and Policy, Economic Development Finance and Policy, and Health Finance and Policy committees. The major discussion around the Capitol this week has been the proposed fix to the school resource officer bill. Despite promising to "fast track" the bill, Democrats have delayed moving the bill forward quite a number of times already. On Monday, House Republicans brought a motion to suspend the rules and pass a fix they've been working with stakeholders on for months now. The Democrats voted along party lines to oppose it. We began asking for a special session to fix this problem back in August, before school even started. Now, we're more than halfway through the school year and we still have no House Floor vote to show for it. Over 90% of students want SROs back in schools, and we've seen several incidents already where SROs' hands are tied with fights or other incidents happening in schools. The time to fix this law is right now. Students need to be kept safe, and school resource officers are a huge factor in doing that. Another thing I've heard a lot this week, as well as from a lot of constituents, is that last session's taxing and spending was irresponsible and unaffordable. With a $17.5 billion surplus, Democrats passed a massive state budget that grows government by 40% and raised taxes by another $10 billion to pay for it. If we don't make major changes in spending, we are going to be in a structural deficit within the next few years. We need to rein in state spending now and make sure we're not growing government coffers while family budgets take the hit.  Yesterday we celebrated School Resource Officer Appreciation Day! Our SROs do incredible work building relationships with students and keeping schools safe. Over 90% of students want SROs in schools, but this week has been one delay after another from the Democrats. School safety shouldn't be a partisan issue. Republicans have been working with stakeholders on a fix for the problems in the current law, and we stand ready to move quickly and support a good bill to get SROs back in schools and keeping students safe. |