At the Roundhouse: Dogging a bounty of bills

I’m trying with all my might to stick to business after Dog the Bounty Hunter’s Capitol visit. 

My eyes are still aching from exposure to the abundance of bleached hair and sunburned flesh — and I only saw the photographs — but our 60-day legislative session is just halfway through and onward the non-celebrities must trudge.

We have bill numbers to talk about and a moviemaking threat from Arizona. You can read about Dog lighting up the Roundhouse here. I’ve got to move on.

Today, in fact, is the halfway point of the 60-day session and the formal cutoff for introduction of legislation.

It seems the 70 members of the House and the 42 members of the Senate are on their usual pace of introducing 1,200 to 1,300 bills.

I’m not counting memorials and resolutions, in their various forms, which can jack up the total volume of legislation to 1,500 or 1,700 individual introductions.

By the close of the floor session Wednesday, House members had introduced 582 bills.

Our senators might be fewer but are no less prolific when it comes to great ideas: They had introduced 534 bills by recess time Wednesday.

Does this mean all these bills will be passed? No.

For the last 60-day session, in 2011, the passage rate of some 1,200 bills was 24 percent.

As for that threat from Arizona, its legislature is in session, too, and lawmakers there are eyeing incentives their New Mexico counterparts are offering to film companies to locate productions in the Land of Enchantment.

The Arizona folks are thinking about reviving their own incentives to draw business back.

Dog, by the way, apparently has expended most of his TV show-making bounty in Hawaii and Colorado.