Apparently, some of the PTBs at the lege have taken pity on me – instead of the super-packed committee agendas that were the norm for the last few weeks, they've cancelled all but two committee meetings next week, and both of those are on Monday.
From the announcement from Senate President Bob Burns –
Consistent with his commitment to focus on the state budget crisis, Senate President Bob Burns has suspended all Standing Committee hearings for the week of March 1. The postponement allows members to give full attention to the issue Arizonans want addressed: completing budgets for FY 2010 and FY 2011.
Ummm…if he is so "committed" to focus on the state budget crisis, why are we 8 months into the current fiscal year operating under a budget that has *never* been balanced?
…I digress. Must focus… 🙂
On Monday, the House Rules Committee will meet at 1 p.m. in HHR4; Senate Rules will meet in Caucus Room 1 upon adjournment of the floor. Both Rules committees are generally little more than rubber stamps for their respective chambers' leadership, frequently approving all bills on the agenda in one motion. Occasionally, there are nuggets of interest on a Rules Committee agenda, as is the case with Monday's Senate Rules agenda.
On it is one separate item that screams "vehicle bill" – request for approval of late submission of a technical correction bill, relating to "legislature; disqualification".
There are also five bills that have been assigned to only the Rules Committee – SB1041, SB1042, SB1043, SB1044, and SB1045. Right now, all five are technical correction bills related to bonding and budget issues.
"Technical correction" bills generally contain fixes to the law related to vocabulary or spelling or such, and almost never go forward in their original form. Almost all are submitted in order to be used at a later date as a "vehicle" for a "strike everything" amendment.
Those five bills (SBs 1041 thru 1045) look like that they are strikers waiting to happen.
Look for those five to be integral parts of any budget-related activies next week.
Anyway, the Senate has posted a "third read" (aka – "final approval") calendar for Monday here: the House has posted two COW calendars for Monday here and here.
More later this weekend…