As mentioned earlier, the Senate has adjourned for the short session. Officially, they will hold one more session on Tuesday at 1:00 but this will be a ?skeleton? session with only a few local members attending and no votes will be taken and no business, other than ceremonial duties will be conducted. In other words, the Senate is done. Any bills left in Senate committees will remain there until they reconvene for the short session in May 2010.
The House is coming back for a session on Monday night at 7:00 and for as long as it takes for them to finish up on Tuesday. These will be full sessions with all of the House membership in attendance and they will be debating and voting on bills that the Senate sent over today and other unfinished business. Any bills will either be approved or not ? the House can?t send anything back to the Senate because, well, the Senate is done. House committees can meet, although aside from a Finance Committee meeting on Monday at 4:30, nothing is scheduled.
That?s not to say the House can?t cause any trouble next week and won?t get involved in plenty of shenanigans and monkey business. There are rules but it seems they are only used to help the leadership game the system.
As we learned in the Senate today, anything can pop up but here are a few we are watching:
1. The LSD bill guaranteeing biotech investments with taxpayer money and indicative of the addictive qualities of incentives
2. The $8 million paper plant giveaway
3. Government takeover of the Alcoa hydroelectric dams and property
We?re near the end and anything that didn?t get Senate approval and make it back over to the House is dead until the General Assembly comes back in May. Anything left after the House finishes up on Tuesday will be leftover as well.
