ST. PAUL, Minn. – The 134 members of the Minnesota House have introduced almost 5,000 bills this session, a record that averages 33 apiece. The volume is overwhelming the staff lawyers who put the proposals into legislative language. Relatively few bills make it through the committee system for full House debate. Even so, the system is clogging up. What to do? Since 2007 Representative Gene Pelowski, D-Winona, has been pushing to limit the number of bills a single lawmaker can introduce. He also wants a cut-off date to introduce bills. Pelowski also has called for new hardware and software and to trim the legalese that fattens the bills. “We’ve actually broken the revisors’ system that produces bills,” Pelowski said in a KWNO radio interview.
