Ten Minutes in the House, Senate Moves On

Here is a quick preview of the upcoming week in Montgomery. This week will be a standard legislative schedule for the House. We will be in session on Tuesday and Thursday with committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday.

The House will take up a ten minute calendar this week. A ten minute calendar is designed to give every member of the House to pass a bill this session. The reason it is called a ten minute calendar is because a member is given a maximum of ten minutes to pass their bill or else it must be carried over. This requires the bill to be non-controversial and also no one comes and objects to the bill. Any member can speak for up to ten minutes on a bill so if one member has a problem with a bill it will be carried over. These calendars often include non-fiscal issues that are agreed to by all parties before ever coming up for a vote.

In addition to the ten minute calendar the House will continue to have short agendas with only five or six bills being debated each day. The membership seems to enjoy the shortened calendars and is in agreement that they do not wish to go back to the days where we just passed every bill that was brought up on any given day.

There are some rumblings that the House will take up the removal of sales taxes on groceries again soon but that appears unlikely considering the fact that the bills seems to have lost votes in the off season. Still expect at least one day soon to be devoted to discussing this issue. Rep. John Knight has made this his passion for quite some time and both parties agree to the need to eliminate the grocery tax but the sticking point is whether small businesses should be required to pay more in taxes to make up for the lost state revenue.

After what seemed like a session long fight over gambling, the Senate now appears poised to move to other issues after the “Sweet Home Alabama” plan failed to get the necessary 21 votes last week for passage. Senator Barron has hinted in news accounts that he plans to bring his road construction bill back up for a vote again soon. It is believed that commitments were secured during the gambling debate that should allow for Barron’s bill to now pass the Senate. If it does pass most observers believe it will have an easier time in the House than it did upstairs.

Finally like everyone else, I have been campaigning on the weekends when we are not in session. My daughter is now old enough where she can join me out on the trail as well which makes for a lot of fun. This past week she seems to have gotten the hang of campaigning better than me. If I just had her energy then I could be everywhere at once. Unfortunately I don’t have her energy so I tend rely on old faithful caffeine to help me keep up!