2006 General Assembly Summary

I came across this handy little document produced by the Division of Legislative Services that highlights different bills that passed and failed in this year's GA Session.

It's a .pdf file so it may take some time to open. The document organizes legislation into various categories such as Adoption, Agriculture, Business, Education, etc.

It's easy to bash the GA so I am going to take some time giving them credit where credit is due.

Here are a few areas where I think the GA made significant progress in 2006:

A bill was passed regarding Small Business health insurance.

The bill "authorizes the establishment of cooperatives for the purpose of offering, providing, or facilitating the provision of coverage for health care services to participating small employers. Membership in health group cooperatives is limited to employers with not more than 50 eligible employees. A small employer health group cooperative is deemed to be a single entity for purposes negotiating the terms, including premium rates of coverage. Cooperatives shall elect to either be the policyholder of a group policy covering employer-members or a sponsoring entity that facilitates the provision of separate policies for each of its employer members."

This is great news for small business owners.

Cable competition

A bill was passed that "establishes a new procedure by which cable operators may obtain authorization to operate cable systems in localities, which may grant ordinance cable franchises as an alternative to negotiated cable franchises. Ordinance cable franchises may be requested by certificated providers of telecommunications services with previous consent to use a locality’s rights-of way, after requesting to negotiate a cable franchise agreement. Upon receipt of an application for an ordinance cable franchise, the locality shall adopt necessary ordinances within 120 days."

I am not sure if my cable bill will go down but at least it's a start.

No Child Left Behind

A bill was passed that "Directs the Board of Education to develop a plan to eliminate initiatives or conditions that are currently being funded by No Child Left Behind, unless such initiatives or conditions are an integral and necessary component the Standards of Quality, Standards of Accreditation, or Standards of Learning."

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for NCLB.

The Cost of College Textbooks

A bill was passed that will address the cost of college textbooks. "The governing boards of public institutions of higher education must implement policies for minimizing the cost of textbooks for students. The guidelines must require (i) that faculty members submit lists of their required textbooks to the university bookstore in a timely manner, (ii) that any on-campus university bookstore selling textbooks to students as part of a package with other study products also sell such textbooks separate of such study products, that faculty members affirmatively acknowledge the price of textbooks they require before the order is complete, (iv) that be encouraged to limit their use of edition textbooks, and (v) that sample of textbooks be made available for in the university library."

For those that have been out of college for a while let me fill you in. Almost ALL college textbooks come with a CD that contains lessons, mini-movies, and a lot of other cool stuff. This bill will allow students to purchase only the CD and not the CD and book.

Well, those are just a few. It's a great summary of the 2006 GA session and it's worth a read.