Lawmakers Wrap Session, Governor Vetoes Budget
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Lawmakers have called it quits for the regular session one day early, passing the general fund budget early Thursday.
That’s a general fund budget that was quickly vetoed by the governor, so lawmakers will definitely be returning for a special session.
The senate waited until the late afternoon to pass a budget that looked almost exactly like the house version.
Lots of cuts and no new revenue.
But after that, they Sine Died, which means the end of the session.
That left it in the hands of the House, who couldn’t do anything at all to change the budget.
“We really had no choice. The best thing for us to do was override to show that we are trying to do our job. We are trying to get a budget in place. The worst thing to do is go home without a budget. That’s our constitutional duty. And I believe we did everything we could in the House,” said Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard.
Even with the governor vetoing the budget and the House overriding, lawmakers will still have to come back.
Governor Robert Bentley says he’s disappointed there wasn’t a fix in the regular session.
“We’ve got to solve this problem for the long term. We budget in a dysfunctional manner and until we begin to budget correctly we are never going to solve this long term, and that is my goal,” said Governor Bentley.
The governor says the special session is slated for sometime in August. Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard says House members will come in for a work day next Thursday to start working up a fix.
“I think that the picture will be a lot clearer at that point and we’ll end up with a better budget and I do think at the end of the day it took some pressure off and allowed us to do some other things. We’re still going to have the responsibility for coming up with the budget but we’re working on it, I promise,” said Hubbard.
