Plain Talk With Rob Port

On Tuesday, February 25, lawmakers in the state House of Representatives worked late into the evening to finish work on the hundreds of bills introduced in that chamber this session so that they could be sent over to the state Senate for consideration. This legislative session has seen a lot of bills introduced — the most since the 1990s — and that's put a strain on the process. So much so that state Rep. Landon Bahl, a Republican from Grand Forks, says it's precluding lawmakers from giving important issues the attention they deserve. Bills get "ramrodded" into up or down votes, Bahl said, with lawmakers sometimes approving bad legislation in the hope that their colleagues in the other legislative chamber will address the flaws. Bahl sponsored House Bill 1408 with an eye toward addressing some of these problems. The bill, which passed the House by a wide margin earlier this month, would move lawmakers to annual sessions, albeit within the same 80-day constitutional limit they already have. Bahl thinks that wo