Home > Legislative Tracker > Friday, 5/5/06: Sine Die Session Coverage page

Friday, 5/5/06: Sine Die Session Coverage page

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Bill Number: sinedie
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Legislative Session: 2006

Sine Die: 12:11 AM

Update: 11:11 pm: Wish you were here!!! We don't want to jinx anything, but at this time we do believe that all the other bills not updated on our Tracker as "'ordered enrolled" have bit the dust, didn't make it out the gate, done, over, and out.

One more thing, as many of you have heard before, if you like eating sausage, you don't want to watch it being made. Today was all about that saying, featuring: The amendments that were posted to bills we were working on; the amendments that were withdrawn; adopted; which version passed, even the legislators sometimes didn't seem to know.

Congratulations to those of us in the Save the Voters Voice Coalition who stayed together and stopped the bad constitutional amendment bills. AMEN. We live to fight another day.

The House and Senate Floor sessions were on and off all day long. When the Senate did reconvene around 5pm, Senator Paula Dockery was very busy. She had the Babcock Ranch bill HB1347 and SB1226 to contend with, and her Solid Waste bill, SB1528.

Babcock Ranch: There were plenty of amendments filed to SB1226, but what she did was withdraw all of them, took up SB1226 as amended on 5/1/06 and amended it to HB1347 and replaced Representative Trudi Williams bill with the better bill, SB1226. The Senate then passed SB1226 and sent it to the House, and the House just voted at 8:37 pm. The Senate language shuts down the cypress and timber cuttings, and other problems we had with the House version. Kudo's to the Senate for sticking to their bill. The bill will be ordered enrolled and sent to the Governor.

With regard to the Solid Waste Bill, SB1528, the House loaded up this bill with other bills, there was brownfields (HB7131),vessels (HB7175/SB2128), floating vessels, Clandestine laboratories (SB2224/HB7065); Bottled water, Water projects, Brownfield cleanup provisions, and because of that, Senator Dockery did not concur with what the House did and she killed her own bill.

Energy: SB888: Senator Constantine agreed to what the House did to the Senate's bill and now this bill is basically a streamline permitting bill for coal and nukes; the Energy Commission members can now work for the industry as long as they disclose their occupation; the Public health and environment, and broad public interest test has been eliminated....page 92, 403.5175 (4) (c) & (d); Alternative energy (way too broad) was given $15 million in technology grants and $2.5 million for Solar energy rebates.

UPDATED 5/5/06: Friday: Mid-afternoon:

This has been a fast/slow day for the last day of session. One would begin to wonder if they really want bills to pass.  And in most cases, that is always a good thing. At the time of this posting, the Senate was to return from break at 1:30 and is now not coming back until 2:30 and the House was to return at 1:30 and not coming back till 3pm. The back room deals are going on and legislator's bills are at the hands of the House Speaker, Senate President, and Governor Bush.

The Rock Mining Cap has been deleted from the Miami-Dade County Lake Belt bill. The bill was voted on by the Senate and sent back to the House for final vote by the House which occurred today.

Babcock Ranch bill is still being amended, to make it better than what the House passed.  The amendments to SB1226 are looking good, and the House version HB1347 is going to be amended to map to SB1266 but Representative Trudi Williams at this point in time, does not like the some of the amendments. Basically the unresolved issues are the multiple uses allowed on the Ranch:  for how long and for how much.

St. Joe’s Coastal Hazard Mitigation is on the way to the Governor.

DRI bill was amended in the Senate and will bounce back to the House and was voted on by the House today, and will be ordered enrolled and then sent to the Governor.

Energy bill was amended by the House and will bounce back to the Senate.

5/4/06: Some of Thursday session highlights:

No Net Loss Hunting bill HB265 voted on by the Senate and ordered enrolled and soon to be sent to the Governor.

Guns in Parks to be voted on by the Senate and ordered enrolled.

 The Senate discord has provided a slowdown of bills being passed and sent to the Governor or sent to the House as Senate messages. The longer this occurs, the more bills get sent to the "shredder/out basket."

As many of you have read the papers, heard it on TV or radio, Senate President Tom Lee, on Tuesday evening, had the School Voucher Legislation/ Joint Resolution, which, on a vote of the Senate, had been voted down. This "motion to reconsider" was made by a member of the Senate who was not on the prevailing side, but on the losing side. Usually, under parliamentary procedures, only the winning/prevailing side can bring up an issue/bill for reconsideration. Senator Lee said that, under the Senate rules, they can do this because of "extraordinary" votes (on constitutional amendment joint resolution, in this case). 

So, the next morning, Wednesday morning, the Senate Democrats did a motion of their own, and using a provision in the Constitution, said that all bills and amendments will be read word for word, as opposed to just the "title" and "barcode number".  So another two hours was spent reading the text of bills aloud on the floor.   This discord and slow down has created some dynamics that are working in our favor, for now.

Thanks for continuing to send in newsclippings and feedback on specific  legislation!!  We’ll get to return your calls next week  but we put your information to work as soon as we hear from you.

For all bills that pass either the full Senate or House, read the "Engrossed bill"(s) when you look at the bill history as provided by the links we have set up for you.

We continue to watch for bad amendments to all potential bills; we are working on amendments ourselves.  

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