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III. Overview of the Bill Drafting Process
5. Delivery of Introductory Bills
The complete bill package then is ready to be delivered to the
sponsor (or the primary sponsor if the bill has multiple sponsors).
Under the rules of both houses, only the sponsor of a bill (or the
primary sponsor if the bill has multiple sponsors) may file a bill
with the office of the Secretary of the Senate or the Chief Clerk
of the House of Delegates.
When a bill is submitted to the Secretary or Chief Clerk, it is
assigned to the appropriate standing or select committee in the
house of origin under the direction of the presiding officer, dated
(with the bill's introduction date), given a bill number, and initialized
into the computerized bill status system. All copies of the bill
are numbered, dated, and stamped with the committee reference. The
original copy of the bill in its backing is the official copy of
the bill from which the bill is printed for distribution to the
members of the General Assembly and the public. Of the four duplicate
copies of the bill attached to the backing, one copy is retained
in the Secretary's or Chief Clerk's office and three are returned
to the Department of Legislative Services.
The process of delivering bills to sponsors is different during
the "prefile" period in the interim. Section 2-1502 of
the State Government Article provides for prefiling, which is the
filing of a bill before the legislative session begins. Under
§ 2-1502, on or before November 15 (or November 20 in a Maryland
legislative election year), a member or member-elect of the General
Assembly may request the Department of Legislative Services to prepare
a bill for prefiling. The proposed legislation is drafted by department
staff and two copies are mailed to the sponsor. If the sponsor wants
the department to file the bill for introduction, the sponsor must
make any necessary changes or corrections on one of the copies,
initial the copy, and return it to the department on or before the
second Friday following Thanksgiving (or December 10 in a Maryland
legislative election year). If the sponsor chooses not to prefile
the legislation, it is prepared in the "backings" format
and delivered to the sponsor on the first day of session.
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