Is that a light or a train coming?

The legislative session is now entering its 24th day and with only six more legislative days to go the light is at the end of the tunnel. Of course that could be the light of a very big train coming down the tracks as well. The House is expected to take up the Education Budget on Thursday and I suspect it will pass the House after some, although not much debate that afternoon. You always have less debate on a budget when money is short and there is very little to fight over. After the Education Budget is passed the House will have then sent both budgets to the Senate for consideration. In the closing days of the session the House is expected to finally take up some of the illegal immigration package, the constitutional convention bill, as well as a severance tax bill for off shore oil wells in Alabama. That should just about do it for the rest of the House agenda although there will be several other bills of interest that could pop up in the last 6 days.

The question everyone wants to know is will the Senate get past their current log jam and pass the budgets as well as several other bills pending before them or will the impasse continue? I don’t know enough about the current dynamics of the debate that is currently holding things up in the Senate to get into that discussion. There are several sides to the current issue being debated up there and several of the members from both parties are desperately trying to figure out a way to get past it. One thing is for certain though if the budgets do not pass the senate by May 19th by law we have to come back into a special session. This would be a train wreck to the tone of around $400,000 just to hold the session. This is not even mentioning the various other legislation that would die if the session were to end in its current holding pattern. A flurry activity is always a strong possibility in the last few days of the session and I have heard several senators from both parties say they are hoping for just that. Lets all hope so because if not that light at the end of the tunnel could turn into a legislative train wreck real quick.