Late this afternoon Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden made a motion to suspend the rules in order to bring up the Senate Committee Substitute to HB 1, the 2012-2013 budget bill. Ogden stated that if the Senate voted to suspend, his first amendment would be to change the method of finance and remove the Rainy Day Fund (RDF) contingency while proposing to reduce Medicaid spending by $1.25 billion in general revenue and add a 1-2 percent across-the-board trim for everything except for public schools and debt service.
Democratic members argued they could not vote to suspend since the bill did not fully fund enrollment growth in public schools, made significant social services reductions, and did not fully utilize the RDF. Ogden commented that the RDF debate belonged with HB 4, the supplemental budget bill, which will also come before the Senate at a later date.
“Your district will be better off with the Senate bill than the House bill,” argued Ogden asking for enough votes on the bill for him to take to conference committee where the budget differences in the House and Senate bills will occur. “The more members that vote for this budget, the easier it’s going to be for me to fight for it,” he stated.
Sen. Rodney Ellis asked Ogden what would be next steps if the Senate did not vote to suspend tonight; Ogden responded, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know.” There are rumors that the Senate could “work around” the 2/3 rule tomorrow since under the Senate rules, Wednesdays are “House bill days” in which House bills already on the calendar may be brought up for consideration without suspending the regular order of business (without 2/3). The next House bill on the Senate’s official Regular Order of Business calendar is HB 1.
After nearly three hours of debate, the Senate finally took the vote to suspend to bring up the budget bill. With 19 ayes and 12 nays the motion to suspend failed.
Texas Tribune posted a Live Blog on the budget discussion this evening.