We are into the homestretch of this state legislative session. Between now and mid-March, members of the state Senate and Assembly will attempt to pass a flurry of bills—some significant, some not—but all primarily ones they can campaign on during the summer, leading up to the November elections.

The easiest way for unscrupulous legislators to get bad legislation passed is to give it a “short and sweet” run through the legislative process at the eleventh hour, keeping concerned legislators and constituents in the dark.

Their strategy will include quick public hearings with minimum notice given, followed very shortly by a floor vote—again with the minimum 24-hour notice. As always, there will be late-night fiascos where legislators cast clandestine votes on important bills while reasonable people sleep. There’ll be voice votes, so constituents won’t have a record of how their representative or senator voted on an issue. All of this means that concerned Wisconsin citizens need to get informed now on the issues their elected officials will be acting on this session. Here are a few to think about.

Early this week the state Assembly will vote on the so-called “Frankenstein Veto" resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 5 (SJR 5). Right now, the governor has the power to create sentences in a bill passed by both houses of the state legislature by combining parts of two or more sentences.

This strong veto power allows the governor to create provisions that the legislature never intended the bill to have. SJR 5 restores appropriate law-making power to the legislature by preventing the governor from creating new sentences in a bill related to revenue that has already passed both houses of the state legislature.

The state Senate will likely vote this week on the anatomical gifts bill, Senate Bill 310 (SB 310). SB 310 makes numerous changes to current laws regarding anatomical gifts, including allowing 15-and-a-half-year-olds, or “emancipated minors,” to make anatomical gifts of their body parts without parental approval. The sweeping changes in the bill include awarding the priority to make an anatomical gift on behalf of a deceased person to a “health care agent,” effectively giving the health care agent more authority than the decedent’s spouse, adult child or parent.

In the Assembly, state representatives will be probably be voting soon on the Chemical Abortion Hospital Mandate bill. Senate Bill 129 and its companion Assembly Bill 377 would force all Wisconsin hospitals, including those with religious associations, and all hospital personnel, regardless of their religious or moral objections, to provide emergency contraception also known as “the morning-after pill” to sexual assault victims.

A Senate committee is presently reviewing the Christmas Tree resolution, Assembly Joint Resolution 5 (AJR 5), that the Assembly passed just before Christmas. AJR 5 restores the name of the decorated tree displayed in the state Capitol during December from the “state holiday tree” to the “Wisconsin State Christmas Tree.”

On another note, there will be a couple of public hearings for a proposal to remove the statute of limitations for civil cases regarding childhood sexual abuse cases. The Senate version of the bill, SB 356, will have a public hearing on Wednesday, January 16, while the Assembly version, AB 651, will have a hearing on Thursday, January 24. While childhood sexual abuse cases are absolutely heinous, this bill would allow individuals to bankrupt churches, schools, and groups such as the Boy Scouts decades after the incident, instead of targeting the perpetrators of the abuse.

During this session, legislators will also introduce a partial birth abortion ban that would allow Wisconsin to prosecute that procedure on the state level. The pro-abortion crowd will most likely introduce their legislation around the same time; a bill that would repeal Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban. Roe v. Wade made Wisconsin’s criminal abortion ban obsolete back in 1973, but if that notorious case were overturned at the federal level, Wisconsin would already have a law in place criminalizing abortions.

And these are just a few of the issues that will be debated and voted on over the next 8 weeks. As Christians, our foremost civic duty is to pray for “kings and all those in authority.” We need to pray that our state legislators will pursue the Light in a government that is inundated by darkness. To our prayers we must add action. We must get informed about what is happening in our state legislature and at the appropriate times, get involved. Right now would be a perfect time for each of us to take up that challenge. Much hangs in the balance.

For Wisconsin Family Council, I’m Julaine Appling, reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.