After weeks of being held hostage and lied to by the Fleebag Fourteen Senate Democrats, and ultimately told that the only way the Dems would be coming back was if they were allowed to unconditionally win, the Brothers Fitzgerald had enough and figured out a way to do the budget repair bill without the 20-Senator requirement for a bill that is fiscal in nature. After passing the substitute amendment through a conference committee (which, for those of you out of state, means that it cannot be altered in any way), the Senate Republicans passed it through their chamber, which is still lacking the 14 Democrats, on a party-line 18-1 vote, with Dale Schultz (WEAC-No Talk Radio Here) being the lone dissenter. The bill will now reportedly go to the Assembly tomorrow, with the Assembly starting up at 11 am.
JR Ross at WisPolitics did a quick comparison between the version that previously came out of the Joint Finance Committee, which was stalled by the Fleebag Fourteen, and the version that came out of the conference committee:
These items were removed from the JFC version:
-changes to the earned income tax credit
-a $79 million reduction in the lapses required from the DOA secretary
-$165 million in debt restructuring
-increasing funding for MA programs to close funding gap through end of fiscal year
-the sale of state power plants (emphasis added)
-increasing funding for Corrections to close gap through end of fiscal year
-reallocation of group health and pharmacy benefit reserves
-audit of dependent eligibility under benefit programs
For those wondering about the potential 1,500-state-worker layoffs slated for April if nothing were done, do not quote me, but judging by the differing gross closing balances ($65,115,300 in the JFC version, $158,853,200 in the conference version, both including a $65,000,000 required statutory balance), it looks like they won’t be necessary.
The Democrats appear to be pinning their last hopes on the short notice provided for the conference committee. However, the provision in state law that generally requires a 24-hour notice also allows for that notice to be as short as 2 hours if there is “good cause such notice is impossible or impractical”. That has never been adjudicated, but in Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s statement, he said that the Legislative Reference Bureau, which includes non-partisan lawyers hired for the speicific purpose of helping legislators draft bills, effectively signed off on the bill.
Revisions/extensions (10:40 pm 3/9/2011) – Via WisPolitics’ Budget Blog, here is what Senate Chief Clerk Rob Marchant had to say about the short notice provided for the conference committee meeting:
There was some discussion today about the notice provided for the legislature’s conference committee. In special session, under Senate Rule 93, no advance notice is required other than posting on the legislative bulletin board. Despite this rule, it was decided to provide a 2 hour notice by posting on the bulletin board. My staff, as a courtesy, emailed a copy of the notice to all legisaltive (sic) offices at 4:10, which gave the impression that the notice may have been slightly less than 2 hours. Either way, the notice appears to have satisfied the requirements of the rules and statutes.
I thought you might find this information to be useful.
Thanks.
Rob
Revisions/extensions (7:08 am 3/11/2011) – I probably should have caught this when WisPolitics did and before Kevin Binversie started sending people here, but the LFB changed their summary on Thursday morning to note that the potential sale of the state power plants and a change in the Earned Income Tax Credit, not discussed in the Wednesday summary, were part of the bill, and that a “Study of Potential Modifications of the Wisconsin Retirement System and State Employee Health Insurance Options”, which was discussed by the LFB, was not part of the bill. Importantly, LFB director Bob Lang noted that the bill language itself remained the same throughout the process, which means that what the conference committee, the Senate, and the Assembly voted on was, to the letter and punctuation, the same.
