John Williams updates on today’s action at the Capitol:

Besides the ethics bills, Senate State Agencies spent most of its time on a mind-numbing debate about beer manufacturer pricing. But they also did a couple of other things:

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-Passed Hank Wilkins’ racial profiling task force bill. (SB299).
-Passed Steve Faris’ bill to move primaries from May to the first Tuesday in June and runoffs three weeks thereafter (SB253).
-Failed Bill Pritchard’s proposed amendment to allow legislators to serve up to 14 years in either body. (SJR4).

Also, the House voted down that mayors’ local-control pension bill I wrote about yesterday. 33-45.

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More detail on my blog about the ethics bill you mentioned earlier.  Bill Pritchard complained that a legislator would have to wait a long time to be a lobbyist if he quit the legislature due to financial hardship. Call it the Trent Lott objection.

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