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N.D. (AP) – The North Dakota Legislature is entering its first full week after its mid-session break, with each chamber consider bills approved by the other. Some resolutions are still being considered in their respective chambers.
Among the highlights will be the state’s new budget forecast, parking meters and Sunday shopping.
BUDGET FORECAST
The most important day of the 2017 legislative session may be Thursday when lawmakers get a new revenue forecast that will be used to write the state’s upcoming two-year budget.
An advisory group of lawmakers, state officials and business leaders last week recommended lower projections for tax collections in creating that budget.
The Legislature has idled major spending bills until the new economic assumptions are released.
State Budget Director Pam Sharp says tax collections are more than $50 million lower than what was expected so far this year. The deficit was based on a previous revenue forecast in November.
BLUE LAWS
The Senate will consider a bill this week that would repeal the state’s longstanding Sunday business restrictions.
The bipartisan measure lifting the state’s so-called blue laws narrowly passed the House 48-46.
The National Conference of State Legislatures says about a dozen states have some form of Sunday sales laws, but only North Dakota prohibits shopping on Sunday morning.
North Dakota residents can order alcohol at a restaurant or bar late Sunday morning but must wait until afternoon to go shopping because of the ban that’s rooted in religious tradition.
North Dakota law once required most businesses to stay closed on Sundays. It was changed in 1985 to allow grocery stores to open.
The Legislature in 1991 allowed most businesses to open on Sundays but not before noon.
PARKING METERS
North Dakota is the only state in the nation that prohibits parking meters but they may rise again if the House has its way.
Sen. Jessica Unruh, R-Beulah, is the sponsor of the bill that would lift North Dakota’s parking meter prohibition, which was put on the books after a vote of the people in 1948.
The measure passed the Senate and heads to the House floor this week.
City officials in Fargo and the state Transportation Department support the addition of parking meters.