Gold Dome Live is moving!
Our new spot will allow us to get the news to you even faster and make commenting easier. Please bookmark the new site and sign up for our rss feed:
http://blogs.ajc.com/gold-dome-live/
AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 10 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USRichardson: House will adjourn by end of next week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) declared today that the House will adjourn by Friday of next week with or without a budget agreement with the Senate for this year and next, raising the specter of a costly special session.
“Time is starting to run very, very, very short,” Richardson warned the House this morning about its budget standoff with the Senate. “I believe next Friday is it. I see no reason to continue to perpetuate this session.
“It is time to get our work done and adopt the budgets and go back to your families and businesses. I intend for us to adjourn next Friday and I will continue that assertion.”
Richardson said he made the same assertions in a letter to Republican Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle yesterday.
Richardson’s announcement comes as the two chambers are locked in a bitter standoff on the mid-year budget. The chambers got into the power struggle after Cagle announced the Senate would strip House-backed projects from the plan.
Still, House Republican leaders are hopeful the Senate will pass the 2007 budget later today so they can work out their differences in a conference committee and pass it and the 2008 budget before Friday of next week.
The Legislature has only six more days left in the 40-day session to pass the spending plans and a huge pile of other key legislation that touches on everything from gun control to school choice.
“We are on a very close schedule to adopting the two budgets in these next few days,” Richardson warned.
In anticipation of a Senate vote on the 2007 budget today, Richardson appointed three representatives to a conference committee that would hash out the differences between the two chambers: House Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta), House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) and House Appropriations Chairman Ben Harbin (R-Evans).
Harbin said he was “nervous” about the chances of the General Assembly adopting the spending plans before Friday of next week, given the Senate’s tactics. He also addressed the possibility that the General Assembly would have to meet in a special session to work on the budgets, a move that could cost taxpayers more.
In addition to their $17,341 annual salaries, state lawmakers are entitled to $173 per diem payments for food and lodging each day they attend a legislative session and for any additional days they do official business, no matter how far they live from the state capitol.
“They want to talk about being fiscal conservatives, let’s avoid a special session,” Harbin said of the Senate. “Let’s put everything on the table. Let’s talk about it. Let’s debate. And that is what we have tried to do.”
Meanwhile, the House continued its snail’s pace today, passing only one piece of legislation — urging the Turkish government to protect religious and human rights for the Greek Orthodox Church. The House is planning to take up only one other bill tomorrow, an arcane piece of Senate legislation that would update the state’s banking laws based on changes in federal law.
Permalink | | Categories: politics
