That is the deadline to have bills cross the Capitol into the other chamber before an internal rule leaves bills dead for the remaining 10 days of the 2013 legislative session.
To beat the Crossover Day cutoff, lawmakers will hold a flurry of quick, last-minute committee meetings today timed to get bills to the full House and Senate by Tuesday or Thursday.
Wednesday will be a recess.
“This week will be made up of some long days and we might go as late as midnight on a few of them as everyone tries to get their bill through,” said Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome.
Scheduled so far today are 28 bills for the full House to consider and 12 for the full Senate before legislators race to back-to-back committee meetings.
While some of the bills Hufstetler has given his support to as a freshman delegate have passed the Senate, today will see him present his first bill on the Senate floor as a primary sponsor.
Senate Bill 195 deals with the use and supply of auto-injectable epinephrine, or EpiPens, in public and private schools.
Hufstetler, who is on the Senate Education and Youth Committee and Health and Human Services Committee, spoke of an event at a school in Virginia.
A 17-year-old girl had an allergic reaction at a school that had an EpiPen but the school was authorized to only use it on the student to which it was prescribed. The girl went into anaphylactic shock and died.
The law says students have to have a prescription for it but this bill would allow schools to have these devices available for all students as long as trained school personnel administer them.
Hufstetler said a company has already come forward to provide them to all qualified schools in the state free of charge.
Freshmen Rep. Eddie Lumsden, R-Armuchee, is a co-sponsor on several bills that have already cleared the House.
One piece of legislation that Lumsden has worked on as a member of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee is a bill that consolidates a few different gun bills that have been introduced in the House.
House Bill 512 would change the language concerning where people who are licensed to carry guns can take them, opening up the possibility for firearms to be carried into places of worship, some public buildings and some college campuses.
“The thing is, the author of the bill went to all of the stakeholders, such as the Governor’s Office and the Board of Regents, and had conversations with them before trying to draft the bill,” Lumsden said. “They did their homework, so to speak.”
Lumsden said he expects the bill to be voted on favorably by the committee today after a public hearing and then be passed by the entire House.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper.
Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, said her focus has been mainly on the budget this session as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the chairman of the Human Resources subcommittee.
However, Dempsey will be presenting a bill on the House floor today that would provide for a pilot program concerning state health insurance coverage for bariatric surgical procedures for the treatment and management of obesity and related conditions.
She said funding for the procedure was not available last year so it was removed from the state health benefit plan. House Bill 511 would create a two-year study to see if it could possible be added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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