Posted by With the stimulus money coming in from Washington a little later than expected the General Fund and Education Budget outlines were crafted a little later than expected. Interestingly enough both seem poised to be passed by mid-next week. Usually the budget creates one of the biggest controveries of the session. Surprisingly both budget debates have been pretty quite so far. This follows a trend I have noticed over the years. In years past when there was a large amount of growth in the budget you had heated debates and drawn out negotiations on where the growth money should go. When you have budget years where there is very little growth or a reduction in the budget numbers you hear almost nothing in the debates. This is primarily because when you are broke you have nothing squabble over.
I expect the General Fund will be voted on today and then by Tuesday we will see the Education Budget reach the House floor. the only potential hang up for the General Fund will be the use of certain federal stimulus dollars. The Governor and the House Democrat Leadership have different interpretations of how this money can be used. The Governor feels like under the federal law only he can direct where this money can be spent while the House Democrats feel that the law allows for the legislature to make a determination with regard to certain dollars. Whether it causes the General Fund to be carried over for another day is yet to be determined.
After today we have two full weeks and then one final meeting day on the 18th before the session is over.
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From news accounts, looks like the rose colored glasses were used in crafting it. lets hope the IMF’s projections of a global decline are the result of brown stained lenses.
It’s pretty clear that the House Democrats are over-reaching. The Governor has the constitutional authority to receive Federal funding – not the legislature. This has been an issue before (workforce development, etc…). Don’t let them win this power-grab!
William,
Are you serious? Please reveal the Constitutional Code that vindicates this statement:
“The Governor has the constitutional authority to receive Federal funding – not the legislature.”
Section 36-13-8.
“The Governor is hereby authorized and empowered to accept…”
Not appropriate.
Hilarious
And the rest of that section reads:
So doesn’t that mean he gets to direct its spending?
My interpretation of this passage is that he is empowered to enforce the “terms and conditions” of such “grants or advances”.
Not that he is authorized to choose where they are appropriated.
Kudos to William for his timely and witty response though.
There is honestly a little too much ambiguity in this portion of the Code to really identify what the hell we’re supposed to do with Federal dollars.
Which has led us to said battle. My point being that this is no more of a power grab by the legislature than it is by the governor.
Except 36-13-8.
Huh?
Just reiterating.
One of my worst faults. Promise.
Cam – just wondering why you oppose the constitutional convention? I understand that you voted against placing the resolution on the Special Order calendar last week.
Anon, On the issue of Constitution Reform, I do agree on the need to reform the constitution but I am not sure that a convention will work at all. There is an assumption out there that by having a convention all the issues wrong with our state will be solved. The real problem is if you put all of the problems of our state under one yes or no vote you are almost guaranteed a “no” vote. But putting aside my feelings on convention, a referendum by the people is desirable but my problem with this HJR is this- the supporters of a constitutional convention have said they feel like the 1901 constitution was adopted under circumstances that were not appropriate in the legislative process. For the last few years the issue of a constitutional convention has come up as a bill in the House and last year passed the BIR vote (a procedural issue) but lost on final passage by the membership. This year instead of introducing a bill to have a constitutional convention the supporters of this issue have totally undercut their argument for a fair process by introducing the constitutional convention bill as a resolution instead of a bill. This means the resolution has to go to the floor of the House without any discussion or debate in committee and without any regard for the legislative process and must be voted on with almost no debate in the legislature. More and more we see legislators using resoultions instead of bills to accomplish their intentions because it does not have to go through all of the procedural hoops. I have had supporters tell me that this is the best way to bypass the system and get a quick vote. I just cannot go along with this logic. If it was bad in 1901 to bypass the legislative process in order to have this constitution put to a ballot then we should not try to correct a bad with a bad. If we pass this HJR then why not have a quick yes or no vote on almost every controversial issue facing our state instead of debating it. If the goal is to make passing more laws easier I think many more people in our state would be dissatisfied than happy.
Good thoughts Cam. Keep it up!