2021 Legislative Advocacy

HDC is committed to ensuring our members have the information they need to have an active voice as legislative policies and budgets are crafted and passed each year.

January 2021 will be a new landscape as the legislature has never had to operate virtually before. This page will help you stay up to date.

Please check back often for new details and information to help your voice be heard!

Budget

Each session, the State Legislature has one requirement that they must complete: They must pass a balanced budget.

The process begins with state agencies being required to provide their budget requests to the Governor’s office by mid-September. The Governor uses those requests to submit his budget proposal to the Legislature (mid-December) to start their work when the Legislative Session begins in mid-January. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate then propose their idea of what the budget should look like.

In 2021, the Housing Trust Fund is a key budget priority that needs all our support.  

Priority Bills

Although the budget bill is the priority of each legislative session, legislators also sponsor new bills that create a new law or modify a current law. HDC will track our legislative agenda bills. Once session begins in January, you will can find the 2021 list of bills posted here.

HDC’s 2021 State Legislative Agenda will be updated with bill numbers, their legislative sponsor, where it will be in the process, and a brief description of what the bill would do. Throughout the legislative session, we will update the list of bills twice a week.

Hearing for Bills

Due to the pandemic, the full Legislative Session will be held virtually via Zoom.

Once the Session begins, the Senate and House will both begin holding committee hearings. One of the first public hearings will be in House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means to give the public a chance to make their opinion known on the Governor’s budget proposal. Each week, there will be a hearing schedule released that share committees meetings’ date and time.

Along with posting information on our priority bills, we will also share public comment opportunities. The list will also be updated twice weekly. Watch for more details on how to testify remotely when we get closer to January 2021!