Connecticut Bill in Legislature

There is also a bill pending in the CT legislature. It is 'Raised Bill No. 5618'. If searching for this bill on the CTGA website, you need to know it was introduced in 2006, not 2008. I guess CT reuses the bill numbers every year. How they keep track of anything, I'll never know. I have been unable to find who sponsored this bill or if anyone co-sponsored it. I have been able to determine the following: It was referred to the Joint Committee on Public Health on 2/28/2006 and had a public hearing on 3/2/2006. The status page is here. I have been able to establish the membership of this committee as follows:

Public Health Committee

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Dist. - Name	Position					Party
S04 - Handley, Mary Ann	Co-Chair					D
060 - Sayers, Peggy	Co-Chair					D
038 - Ritter, Elizabeth B.	Vice Chair					D
S14 - Slossberg, Gayle S.	Vice Chair					D
S30 - Roraback, Andrew W.	Ranking Member					R
108 - Carson, Mary Ann	Ranking Member					R
S02 - Coleman, Eric D.	Member					D
S34 - Fasano, Leonard A.	Member					R
S20 - Stillman, Andrea L.	Member					D
075 - Aldarondo, David	Member					D
128 - Ayala, Andres	Member					D
019 - Bye, Beth	Member					D
011 - Christ, Michael A.	Member					D
134 - Christiano, Tom F.	Member					D
061 - Fahrbach, Ruth C.	Member					R
138 - Giegler, Janice R.	Member					R
101 - Heinrich, Deborah W.	Member					D
125 - Hetherington, John W.	Member					R
053 - Hurlburt, Bryan	Member					D
114 - Klarides, Themis	Member					R
047 - Malone, Jack	Member					D
089 - Nardello, Vickie Orsini	Member					D
024 - O'Brien, Tim	Member					D
046 - Olson, Melissa M.	Member					D
102 - Panaroni, Peter J.	Member					D
139 - Ryan, Kevin	Member					D
107 - Scribner, David A.	Member					R
026 - Tercyak, Peter A.	Member					D
106 - Wasserman, Julia B.	Member					R
098 - Widlitz, Patricia M.	Member					D

You can find this list here complete with email addresses and websites. If anyone gets a positive response from any member, let us all know so we can track what is going on. We need to make this happen, both in CT and nationwide. Why is this bill sitting untouched in committee? Anyone aware of what the arguments against adopting the NLC are? Let's get organized!

Bill in the Illinois Legislature

There is a bill in the Illinois State Legislature to adopt and join the Nurse Licensure Compact. See the full text of the bill (HB 4503) here. The bill is currently referred to the Rules Committee. I am not sure of how to get it moved out of committee and out to the floor for a vote. Is anyone out there familiar with the status of this bill? Does anyone know who is fighting against it's passage? Let us know who we need to lobby. The sponsor of the bill is Rep. Sandra M. Pihos and it has been co-sponsored by Rep. Patricia R. Bellock. I have been unable to locate any record of any discussions within the legislature concerning this bill and it's expectation of getting passed. The members of the Rules Committee are as follows:

Chairperson :	Barbara Flynn Currie	D
Republican Spokesperson :	William B. Black	R
Member:	Gary Hannig	D
Member:	Brent Hassert	R
Member:	Arthur L. Turner	D

Their names are links to their legislative bio pages with contact information. I cannot find any link to the members' email addresses. Perhaps a few phone calls would be in order. If anyone can locate email addresses for Illinois legislators, this would also be of great help. All in all, at least there exists a bill to act on. Anyone from Illinois out there to give us a hand?

Current state list

Here is the list of states and where they are in the process of adopting the 'Nurse Licensure Compact' as of right now. This list is by no means authoritative. It is what I was able to develop over just a short time searching the web. I hope some of you out there will be able to expand on it.

Arizona Alabama Alaska Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri

Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Compact member states

Legislation pending

No legislation Proposed

Unknown

Passed, awaiting implementation date

As you can see, there are many states who have already adopted the compact, but only two that I could find currently in the process of adopting it. Let's increase both those numbers.

Who we are and what we want

WE are really just me right now. I am hoping to become we in very short order. I have decided that there needs to be an active group of people, medical professionals and non-medical people, who wish to actively work for enactment of the 'Nurse Licensure Compact' in more states. My eventual goal would be to create a true national nursing license. In future posts, I will go in to the reasons why I feel this is necessary. I will also address the objections that some have over the passage of the compact. I hope to make everyone aware of where bills are introduced in the states that have not yet adopted the compact and the status of those bills. For now, I just wanted to get a group started and build from there. If you feel as I do, you are welcome to 'hop on board', as it were, and help build a grassroots movement toward passage in more states. If you are one of those against the compact, you are welcome as well as I am truly interested in hearing and discussing your objections. If anyone knows of any discussion currently happening out there, please let me know and I will be sure to 'get the word out'. For now, welcome and let's get started.