Legislative Update #8

Ugh…when the crossing arms go down right in front of you and the train is moving at about 10 miles per hour and you look down the tracks and see nothing but cars far into the distance…

That’s where we are today. We just finished Day 64 of a 90-Day session, and when we return on Tuesday, we’ll begin what we call ‘late-night-debate’. Meaning the Speaker will keep Senators in the debate chamber past dinner (or without) and adjourn between 7 and 11pm three nights a week until we finish in early June. The next 6 weeks are a long, slow-moving train with lots of cargo on board. There are still something like 50 Senator and Committee Priority Bills that have not been debated or have some significant time left to get them through. The Speaker told me last night at a dinner that ‘we are out of time’, meaning we’re very likely not going to be able to get to all the priority bills this session, or at least get through all of those that have significant opposition to them.

Most days the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen about 6½ hours of debate each day with start-up times morning and afternoon and a 90-minute break for lunch. Next week we’ll start seeing 10-plus hours of debate most days. This makes for tired and cranky EVERYBODY. So, the message from Speaker Arch today was this: Go home and spend some time not working and enjoying your families and hobbies…it’s go time now.

The Appropriations Committee has finished most of their work and the budget is set to hit the public on April 29th, with debate beginning on May 6th. We’ve got 2 weeks to get a lot of stuff out of the way before we hit that big ol’ snag, so the Speaker is hoping for a productive week next week. We’ll see!!

The train is moving but not very fast and I cannot see the end of the dang train.
 
Have a great Easter weekend!!

~Kent