This blog post falls under the catagory, "you can’t make this stuff up."
Apparently a major sticking point in the not-yet-complete budget deal has to do specifically with the education funding component. The "deal" calls for some significant cuts to education spending this year, and a promise to "pay those funds back" to education in a few years.
Whether or not you think that either sides of the education equation (cuts, repay) are a good idea or a bad idea, apparently the way things were set up was that at minimum, these changes would take place in two bills — with the cuts requiring a 2/3 vote (due to "urgency") and the payback side needed to pass on a majority vote. There was some discussion, I am told, that if proponents of the payback side of things could muster up a 2/3 vote in each house, then it could also be passed with urgency (why this is important is unclear to this non-policy guy).
Things start to get a little more sticky at this point. On the natural, it seems to me that you would move this education issue in two separate bills – presumably to allow more Dems to avoid voting for the cuts, and to allow more Reps to avoid voting for the payback. But what actually happpenned is that the State Senate one bill, by a 2/3 vote, that included both the cuts and the payback language. Then (this is where the dysfuction really elevates), the Senate adjourned (I am told Senate President Steinberg has a family vacation that is supposed to start tomorrow…).
The problem is that while on the Senate side they were able to secure enough GOP votes to get to a 2/3 threshold, there are not enough GOP votes in the Assembly for a 2/3. In theory, though, that should be okay. Because the "deal" was that payback advocates could try to get to 2/3rd, there was only a commitment made for majority vote on payback.
So you have to ask yourself a couple of questions. Firstly, why on Earth would the Senate adjourn (as opposed to recess) before everything is done? And secondly, why wouldn’t the Senate have broken the ed piece into two parts, and then advocates for a 2/3 vote for payback could give it their best shot. The problem is that the education cuts, a vital part of the deal (getting 2/3 on payback is NOT vital), are now tied together in one bill — the cuts require a 2/3 vote.
I guess to use jargon, it would appear that the Senate has "jammed" the Assembly on this issue.
So if you are in the Assembly Republican Caucus, what do you do now? Seems like there is a false choice being presented by some — either enough Republicans go up to give the ed cuts/payback bill it’s needed 2/3 vote, or they do not and the whole deal falls apart.
Seems to me there is another choice, which is that the Assembly could pass out two separate Ed bills — a 2/3 vote for the cuts, and majority vote on the payback.
Then the Assembly RECESSES (because only 4 year olds adjourn before the job is done), and then put the pressure back on Steinberg to call the Senate back into session.
I am not sure how this will all go down, but it seems like advocates for this deal have really committed a tactical blunder. Because every hour and day that goes by without a deal gives those who hate the deal (SEIU, CCPOA, local governments, etc.) more time to kill it.
I will close this analysis by stating, as I have for some time, that transparency and having bill language in print for 72 hours is what needs to have happened here – which it did not. Had that been done (or if Republicans had even held to their commitment of requiring that legislation be in print for at least 24 hours) — we wouldn’t be here. We could have seen this potential problem ahead of time…
(Disclaimer — I am a spectator 500 miles away from the Capitol. i reserve the right to come back and update this analysis if more information becomes available to me.)