After several years of pushing sweeping but controversial immigration reform measures in the state legislature, a Brookhaven representative is hoping a more modest measure meets with success this year.

District 92 Rep. Becky Currie hopes a bill to help strengthen the state’s E-Verify laws survives a Thursday deadline.

That bill was among a package of immigration-related legislation Currie introduced this year, but the only one to survive a deadline for committee action last week.

“I was glad something made it,” Currie said.

Bills introduced in the Senate and House face a Thursday deadline for the chamber they originated in to vote on them.

That follows a deadline last week for committees to take action on legislation. Committee inaction killed the majority of bills, including most of those introduced by local lawmakers.

Currie’s E-Verify bill, HB 1221, would make the Attorney General’s office in charge of enforcing the state’s e-verify legislation.

E-Verify is an Internet run federal programs employers can use to determine whether employees or prospective employees are eligible to work in the United State.

“Everyone is supposed to be E-Verifying right now, but it wasn’t clear who was supposed to enforce that,” she said.

In previous sessions, Currie introduced bills modeled on sweeping immigration laws passed in Arizona and Alabama. In last year’s session, a modified Alabama-style bill passed the House only to die in the Senate,

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling, however, struck down major components of the Arizona law, prompting Currie to reconsider her tactics.

“After the sea change last year, I have decided to do it in pieces,” Currie said, speaking of her desire to crack down on illegal immigration.

In addition to the E-Verify legislation, Currie introduced this year a bill to deny most state and federal public benefits to people not lawfully present in the United States.

She also proposed a law to penalize state contractors that employ illegal immigrant.

Both those bills, however, died in committee.

Currie’s E-Verify legislation is one of only a few bills introduced by area legislators waiting for action by Thursday’s deadline.

District 53 Rep. Bobby Moak has a bill that passed committee that would allow towns and counties to donate funds to the YMCA. He has no other legislation currently active in the House.

District 39 Sen. Sally Doty has no bills awaiting Senate action, though she has had several pieces of legislation already pass the Senate, including some relatively technical bills dealing with ad valorem tax exemptions and the filings with the Secretary of State’s Office.

Several other bills introduced by local legislators have already seen action taken.

A PERS related bill introduced by Currie passed the House last week. That bill would exclude bonuses and similar payments from the total of an employee’s earned compensation used to calculate retirement benefits.

The bill would not be retroactive.

It sailed through the House by a vote of 118 to 1.

Moak had a bill pass the House allowing the creation of designated areas on public land for hunting by wounded veterans.