Digger: Ball’s Now In House’s Court

Digger: The legislature can adjourn subject to a date certain of say June 27, 2009, go home and come back when the Governor is up against the wall since all budget bills need to be passed before July 1 which is the new fiscal year. What they can’t do is adjourn “sine die”, meaning “without a date” (or for good) without having budget bills passed and signed by the governor. (You can read Digger’s superb analysis of the Otter/Idaho House showdown in the drop-down box.)

Question: Do we have any prophets out there? Pick the day that the Legislature will adjourn.

A lesson in Idaho government (and please correct me Gary Ingram or DOTC if I’m wrong)-

1) The legislature can adjourn subject to a date certain of say June 27, 2009, go home and come back when the Governor is up against the wall since all budget bills need to be passed before July 1 which is the new fiscal year.

What they can’t do is adjourn “sine die”, meaning “without a date” (or for good) without having budget bills passed and signed by the governor.

Think of this as1995 when Newt Gingirch and Bill Clinton had a standoff and basically shut down the federal government for two timeperiods (5 days in November and nearly three weeks from December to January) - the same thing could very well happen here if an agreement is not reached.

Without a budget the state ceases to operate and divisions without budgets cannot do anything. Period.

2) The legislature could override the Governor’s vetos on the bills from the last few days, but since many of them are Senate bills that action would have to originate in the Senate. Right now the Senate looks like the good guys since they added the amendments and passed the bill to do what Butch wanted.

Its the House thats looking like a bunch of radicals right now - and they very well should be. Denney, Moyle and Roberts are so ideological that they’re failing to reach across the party lines (or work within their own party) to make this work.

3) I have no doubt that when Butch says he’ll do whatever he can to keep the legislature in session until he gets what he wants that he will do just that. This process can go on and on and on.

4) The legislature could have be going home right now if the would do two things (a) pass the legislation the Governor wants and (b) spend marathon hours on the floor, suspending the rules, overriding vetos and getting a budget set. House roll call votes go very fast and the Senate can simply rollover the prior roll call to the next action with no objection.

This is a session for the history books - they’ve got 17 legislative days before they set yet another historical record. I really wish I could be in the thick of it to watch.