Utah House adopts committee reports, returns multiple bills to Rules and lifts several senate bills to top of calendar

The Utah House of Representatives met in session and adopted multiple committee reports, moved scores of bills back to the Rules Committee for prioritization and placed several recently received senate bills at the top of the House third-reading calendar.

Madam reading clerk opened the floor with committee reports that included a favorable recommendation from the Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee on third substitute Senate Bill 84 (Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity amendments); the chamber adopted that committee report and assigned SB 84 to the Rules Committee for prioritization.

The Health and Human Services Committee reported favorable recommendations on second substitute SB 207 (Pharmacy Practice Act amendments) and SB 261 (opioid settlement proceeds amendments) and recommended SB 223 (youth fee waiver amendments) be returned to Rules because of fiscal impact. The House adopted the Health and Human Services Committee report; the speaker assigned SB 207 and SB 261 to the Senate third-reading calendar and returned SB 223 to Rules for prioritization.

The Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee reported favorable recommendations on fourth substitute SB 200 (State Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice amendments), first substitute SB 246 (Juvenile Justice Modifications), SB 255 (Trespassing of a Long Term Guest amendments) and first substitute SB 267 (respite care amendments). The House adopted the committee report, assigned SB 200, SB 246 and SB 255 to the Senate third-reading calendar, and returned SB 267 to Rules pending completion of a fiscal note.

Madam reading clerk also read lists of House bills that several committees returned to the Rules Committee for prioritization, including House Bills 123, 329 (first substitute 436), 550 and a batch of additional House bills (including HB 93, HB 178, first substitute HB 187, HB 445, HB 474, HB 498, HB 547, HB 553, HB 568, and first substitute SB 240) that the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee sent back to Rules.

Separately, Representative Snyder moved to lift a group of newly received senate bills—SB 182, SB 119, SB 192, SB 144, SB 213, SB 211, SB 133, SB 23, and SB 147—from Rules and place them at the top of the House third-reading calendar; Snyder said they were fiscal-note bills and encouraged colleagues to review them. The motion passed.

Representative Brammer moved to suspend the House's one-day calendar rule so those just-read-in senate bills could be heard the same day; the House approved the suspension and proceeded to the Senate third-reading calendar.

Finally, Representative Moss moved for a short recess ('saunter') until 6:45 p.m.; the motion was adopted by voice vote and the chamber recessed.

No roll-call vote tallies were recorded in the transcript for the committee report adoptions; most approvals were made by voice vote with members responding "aye" when the speaker called for the question. The transcript does not record floor debate on the underlying policy merits of the bills noted above; the actions reported were primarily procedural (committee report adoptions, calendar placements, returns to Rules, rule suspension and a brief recess).