Legislative Update #9
While the budget has not yet been sent to the Governor for his review (sign and/or line-item vetoes), both budget bills finally advanced to Final Reading Thursday morning. The mainline bill, LB1071 failed twice to advance from the second, Select File, debate. During extended debate, the introducing Senator needs 33 votes to stop the bickering and take a vote on the bill. The first try at this last week garnered only 19 votes, and the second time on Wednesday it was closer to the mark with 27 votes. This morning after ZERO debate, they adopted a new amendment with 32 votes and advanced the bill to Final Reading with 34 votes. They will need 33 on Final Reading to include the ‘emergency clause’ which allows the bill to become law next week instead of 3 months after they adjourn sine die, which is the norm. At the crux of this debate were 2 very small, in the big picture, appropriations of less than $4M each. One was $3.5M for funding to send some kids to a private school of their choice, and another was $3.2M to extend a subsidy for lower-income families to help pay for child care so the parents can keep working. In the end, they were both removed from the budget and the rest of the $6 BILLION budget will get funded.
So, the days are very limited as we finish up Day 51 this week. Many of us are still assuming we will forego that 60th day and adjourn for the year on April 10, which is just 2 weeks out. There are still a LOT of priority bills to debate…more than we have time for, so it will be pretty interesting to see what the agenda looks like for Monday and Tuesday. The last day of General File debate will be next Thursday, according to Speaker Arch. You can assume that next week will be a pretty long few days for all of us as he tries to cram as much into those hours as he possibly can. I’m going to take the weekend and get ready by watching some basketball and chasing live music for a couple of days. Nebraska Basketball is in the Sweet 16!
Go Big Red!