Legislative Updates

Good news! HB221 passed the House Floor with a 38-37 vote yesterday. Whew! That was as close as it gets. Next it needs to go to the Senate Rules Committee, the Senate HHS Committee, and then the Senate Floor ALL BEFORE THE SESSION ENDS ON THURSDAY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. That's five days away from now. This last part is going to be a sprint to the finish line.

The purpose of HB221 is to require standardized immunization education before a parent can claim an immunization exemption. Similar legislation was passed in Oregon 2 years ago and their immunization exemption rates decreased as a result.

We have support in the Senate and Senator Shiozawa has agreed to be the Senate sponsor. Senator Shiozawa is a physician and is very well respected in the Senate. Honestly, we couldn't have picked anyone better to represent HB221 in the Senate. The only concern that Senator Shiozawa has (at this point) is that we'll run out of time before the bill can be heard on the Senate Floor. He asked that anyone who wants to help support the bill should send a quick email to everyone on the Senate Rules Committee, asking them to assign the bill to the Senate HHS Committee for reading on Tuesday.

If you've written letters in the past to House Representatives for HB221, you can recycle the info by changing the recipient to a Senator rather than a Representative. The members of the Senate Rules Committee are as follows:

Senator Weiler: tweiler@le.utah.gov
Senator Van-Tassell: kvantassell@le.utah.gov
Senator Debakis: jdabakis@le.utah.gov
Senator Henderson: dhenderson@le.utah.gov
Senator Hinkins: dhinkins@le.utah.gov
Senator Knudson: pknudson@le.utah.gov
Senator Madsen: mmadsen@le.utah.gov
Senator Mayne: kmayne@le.utah.gov
Senator Urquhart: surquhart@le.utah.gov

I've been at the Capitol about 3-4 days a week for the past several weeks. In speaking with House Representatives, I can promise you that your correspondence makes a difference. If you can help recruit a few people in your family, neighborhood, work, schools, or professional organizations to help, that would be FANTASTIC!

Beth Luthy
801-960-0083