Chairman Brooks Moves Two Important Bills Through Committee

Albany. NY -- Senator Brooks today presided over a meeting of the Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security, and Military Affairs in which 2 bills were discussed, voted on, and moved to the main Senate Chamber for an eventual floor vote.

The first bill, S2930A relates to a property tax exemption property owned by certain persons performing active duty in a combat zone.  If signed into law, this bill would allow local municipalities to grant property tax exemptions for active duty military personnel, and service members currently deployed in combat zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.  New York has over 20,000 active duty military personnel and nearly 30,000 reserve troops that can be activated at any time. 

The second bill,  S4756,  falls under the Homeland Security proviso of the committee and relates to direct dialing to public service answering points. When passed, this bill would require that public buildings with multi-line telephone systems configure their system hardware in order to allow any call placed to 911, to be directly connected to a public service answering point.

Both of these bills are now on the Senate Floor Calendar:

What this Means:

The Senate floor calendar is the list of bills that are eligible for a vote before the entire Senate membership. Each bill on the floor calendar is assigned a unique number (a “calendar number”) which determines the order in which the bills are considered.

What Happens Next:

According to legislative rules, all bills must be “read” by the clerk three times over the course of three session days before the bill is eligible for a vote. The rule is in place to guarantee Senators an adequate amount of time to read and analyze each bill they will have to vote on. Informally, this process is sometimes called “aging.”

This three-stage process starts with bills on “First Report”; it is followed by the “Second Report”; it concludes with the “Third Reading.” These steps advance automatically on successive legislative session days. In rare, urgent circumstances, the Governor can issue a “Message of Necessity”. This will add a new bill directly to the Third Reading calendar, bypassing the aging process and allowing for an immediate vote after a bill has been placed on the floor calendar.

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