Happenings At The Capitol

Tomorrow is June 1. The 2009 Regular Session of the Mississippi Legislature is still in session. They have recessed until Wednesday which is the new date for adjournment. The normal adjournment should have been in early April, but they are still hanging around trying to construct a state budget.

While I can appreciate the numerous external factors which affect the budgeting process, I think they could have come to an agreement and ended the session by mid-April. Instead, lawmakers have become mired in partisan politics. Each side is accusing the other of not cooperating in the budgeting process. I think those accusations are true for both sides.

So what is going to happen on Wednesday? They will come back to Jackson. The House will attempt to get a suspension resolution passed to suspend the rules and set another date for adjournment to allow more time for appropriation bills to be considered.

A suspension resolution requires a two-thirds vote of members present and voting. The House attempted to do that last Friday and failed. If the House is successful in passing a resolution, the Senate must take it up and pass it by a two-thirds affirmative vote. The likelihood of that happening is extremely slim.

If the resolution fails to pass, the Legislature will be forced to adjourn the 2009 Regular Legislative Session without passing a budget. It will be the first time in the State’s history that the Legislature failed to pass a budget.

Then Governor Barbour will have to call them back into special session. At that juncture, the Governor will have complete control of which subjects they can consider and he can set specific limits of how narrow the focus will be. My guess is he will feed them the appropriation bills one or two at a time to force them to pass a bill before he gives them another to consider.

Legislators and the Governor will be under immense pressure to act quickly. If a budget is not in place by June 30, the State will effectively be shut down. That will create a lot of problems. State employees will be furloughed or laid off. State departments will have to start shutting down. Federal matching funds and grants will eventually have to be returned to the Federal government. Highways will not be built or repaired.

People on Medicaid in nursing homes will be put out, health care for over 250,000 Mississippians will come to a screeching halt and school systems will go bankrupt. The judicial system will cease functioning, the highway patrol will have to park their cars, restaurants will not be inspected, state hospitals including University Medical Center and those for the mentally ill will shut down, and state run colleges and universities will cease to function. It’s not a pretty picture.

Just think…you and I are going to have the opportunity to witness history being made. Oh joy!