Back to the House

Well, the Senate passed the same budget today that was passed on June 30* and vetoed on July 1, minus the referral to the ballot of a temporary increase in the sales tax.

Because there are some minor differences between the House version and the Senate version of the package, it returns to the House for them to approve the changes.

Since the only (I think) significant changes are the removal of the referral of the sales tax increase and the amendments that were added to obtain Jack Harper's support in the Senate (anti-Rio Nuevo and anti-state employee, etc.), I expect that it will likely pass the House.

Still, it would be a good idea for all Democrats and Independents to contact their state reps (list here).

- If your reps are Dems, urge them to stay strong against the Rep budget and not to give the Reps even an iota of "bipartisan" cover for this fiscally irresponsible time-bomb of a budget.

- If your reps are Reps, they're probably a lost cause, but call or email them anyway. They're going to vote for this, but don't give them the luxury of saying "none of my constituents told me that they were against this."


And after you are done with that, contact the Governor (contact page here) and urge her to exercise her veto again. She did issue a statement critical of today's developments in the Senate, but nowhere in her statement did she promise to veto the package again.

Keep their phones ringing and their email inboxes full...