Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Procedural Deficit topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate panel to suspend rules, moves a broad deficit package and agency budgets to the floor
Summary
The committee chair announced plans to suspend rules and advance a set of subcommittee-approved agency budgets and a first deficit bill; members agreed to take many items to the floor this afternoon after brief presentations and routine voice votes.
The Senate appropriations chair opened the session by saying he intended "to suspend the rules this afternoon to take these up on the floor." He asked subcommittee chairs to notify members when a bill was on final passage, calling special attention to bills that could represent "the last opportunity to vote on a particular measure."
Across the day, subcommittee chairs presented and moved a long series of agency budgets and reappropriations. The chair closed the docket with a first-deficit bill that packages unresolved Medicaid funding, capital projects and several negotiated items the Senate agreed to fund before final passage. Among items placed in the deficit bill were a Bolton Building restoration ($6,000,000), funding tied to Jackson water litigation legal costs, income‑verification software for DHS ($1,500,000) and scholarship program funding ($5,100,000). The chair said further deficit work is likely before session end.
The committee reported the measures out by voice vote and planned to take them up on the floor this afternoon. "We'll go back at 02:30 on the floor, and we'll try to roll these out this afternoon," the chair said as members rose and reported the committee out.
