Monday April 20th

I didn’t get around to writing again on Friday as I spent most of the afternoon waiting for the House Ways and Means Committee to take up S. 86. After a couple of recesses of floor action, the committee did spend about an hour on the bill, concentrating mostly on the fees. Paul Hanlon did a “fly over” of the substance of the bill while bob Greemore talked about the fees. They’ve set aside this Wednesday to mark up and vote the bill out. It should be ready for floor action by Friday. But this is going to be a pivotal week for this session.
The Senate Appropriations and the Finance Committees are meeting today. Appropriations should have the budget done by this afternoon. If you looked at the legislature’s website as early as this morning, you would have seen that the calendar for tomorrow is not yet there. Instead, Friday’s calendar remains. Legislative council is waiting for the budget to post as an addendum to the calendar. Meanwhile, Finance hopes to put out its tax package in support of the spending plan. During its meeting on Friday there did not appear to be must support for extending the sales tax to services. Let’s hope this holds. If it doesn’t I will be sending out an action alert asking you to contact senators as soon as possible. Sit tight for the time being.
I will be in DC for the next few days and not back in the statehouse until Friday morning. Unless I learn more about what is going on I won’t post until the end of the week. I’ll be attending ABA Day along with VBA President Doug Molde, President-Elect Eileen Blackwood, ABA State Delegate Fritz Langrock, and VBA Delegate Richard Cassidy. We’ve scheduled appointments with both senators and our congressman to discuss issues of interest to the ABA and the VBA.