SUNRAIL APPEARS TO REACH THE END OF THE LINE

By KEITH LAING
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

www.newsserviceflorida.com

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 30, 2009……….After starting this year’s legislative session on the fast-track, the plan that would have allowed the proposed Orlando commuter rail known as SunRail to be built appeared to be derailed for good Thursday.

Train backers tried to put amendment that would allow the Department of Transportation to purchase 61 miles of existing tracks from CSX Corp to build the train on an omnibus transportation bill (HB 1021), but withdrew it after opponents almost ran out the clock on Thursday’s Senate session questioning it. Another late-filed amendment favored by SunRail backers and supporters of the existing Tri-Rail commuter train in South Florida was defeated on 23-17 vote.

The original bill (SB 1212) that would have allowed SunRail to get going survived an arduous committee route to the Senate’s calendar but hasn’t managed to come to a vote. With one day left for non-budget items, it looks unlikely that its fortunes will change.

Having withdrawn the amendment after nearly an hour of questions from senators about the cost of the project, the liability provisions, the planned route of the train and the plan to re-route freight trains that currently run on the CSX tracks, sponsor Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, admitted the train had likely reached the end of the line this year.

Constantine said he would continue to try to find a way to bring the plan up for a vote on Friday. But any late filed amendment would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate, and Thursday’s proceedings illustrated what an uphill battle that would be.

“There’s still a day,” Constantine told reporters after the vote, “Who’s to say it’s absolutely dead? You never know, maybe some people heard something they didn’t know. Most of the information they’ve received has been anecdotal.”

But just as quickly as he tried to show optimism that the train could get rolling again on the last day of regular session, Constantine admitted the odds were very long. He described what would be necessary to bring the plan up again Friday as a “miracle.”

“Do I have a chance? You always have a chance,” Constantine said. “Is it good? No.”

Constantine’s bleak outlook was shared by Orlando Mayor Central Florida Rail Commission Chairman Buddy Dyer. The usually sunny mayor’s description of the bill’s prospects Thursday was cloudy at best.

“The Florida Senate has just killed Sunrail, Tri-Rail and high speed rail,” said a visibly disappointed Dyer, a former member of that Senate.

Those in favor of keeping the train from leaving the station lined up Thursday for what seemed to be an orchestrated dissection of the controversial plan. Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, questioned Constantine about the cost of the train, projected to be $1.2 billion. The plan called for $641 million to be paid to CSX for use of the track and an additional $600 million to build stations and purchase equipment.

“I like the idea of rail, I just don’t like the idea of a bad business deal for Florida,” Bennett said.

Sens. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Jim King, R-Jacksonville, questioned the accident liability agreement with CSX Corp. that has drawn the ire of several senators, most notably Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. Although the funding for the track purchase has already been included in the Department of Transportation’s five-year workplan, the train hinges on legislative approval because the agreement had been deemed necessary to the purchase deal.

Backers tried to change the liability agreement – a “no fault” indemnification agreement that would have the state and CSX each responsible for its own equipment, workers and passengers no matter who causes an accident and third party damage being split – enough to woo critics, but senators said Thursday that state would still be too far on the hook.

Storms raised the specter of a CSX freight train running on the tracks when the SunRail trains were not – as the plan would have allowed – getting into an accident with a school bus.

“Say the CSX operator decides he going to get stoned on a couple of whatever drugs that they take and smoking pot too and drunk,” Storms said. “And because of that, he sees the school bus but he can’t respond because he’s impaired. So he hits the bus and little bodies are everywhere — little children die. Who is responsible for that under those circumstances?”

Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, questioned the plan to reroute freight trains that currently run on the CSX tracks through other communities.

“The traffic in overly crowded areas already will be severely impacted, holding up traffic for what could be hours,” Lynn said. “In addition to that, we have hospitals that there will be no access (to), we have fire stations where in case of emergency there would be no access to across the tracks.”

Critics even lampooned the proposed route of the SunRail train, which had been planned to run between DeLand and Poinciana.

“I wouldn’t even care about the business plan if the rail was going where I would hope it would go,” said Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice. “Is this going to go to Disney Land? Is it going to go to Universal Studios? Is it going to go Sea World? Because that’s where our tourists go.”

After the barrage of questions, Constantine said it was important the plan be brought up on the floor of the Senate, even if it appeared headed for defeat..

“We in Central Florida wanted a hearing on this,” Constantine said before withdrawing his amendment. After the motion, the transportation bill was rolled to third reading with little debate.

–END–
04/30/2009

LAWSON SAYS MOST STATE WORKERS’ PAY SAFE

By KEITH LAING
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

www.newsserviceflorida.com

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 29, 2009……….The Tallahassee lawmaker who made opposing a proposed pay cut for state workers a priority for the last days of session said Wednesday that his time on the job appears to have made a big difference.

Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said that the final pay cut amount will be decided between House Speaker Larry Cretul and Senate President Jeff Atwater instead of budget conferees meeting this week. Lawson said the chamber leaders appear poised to agree to spare workers making less than $65,000 per year, which he said would be a big improvement over the House’s original plan to cut at least 4 percent to the salaries of state workers making $26,400 or more.

State workers will also be spared an increase in their health insurance premiums, he added.

Lawson said it would be better if the bar were higher – the Senate cut salaries higher than $100,000 – but he quickly added that it could just as easily have been much worse.

“The goal is at least to move it up a little more,” Lawson said. “What I would like to see is if we went with the Senate position. If we get it to $100,000, it’s not best thing in the world, but it’s something you can live with.”

Lawson said he had asked the Senate leadership to push for at least an $80,000 barrier for pay cuts, but leaders compromised with the House further than he would have liked. But even at the new lower level, Lawson said the majority of state workers do not make enough to be pinched by the proposal, which makes protecting them from the cuts even more important.

“A large percentage of our state workers fall into category between $26,000 and $65,000,” Lawson said. “We’re talking about those folks who are eligible for food stamps who are drawing salaries. We have (some cases where) two heads of households are working for the state and they still make under that amount. At least I got them in the middle so the people who make less are not going to hit by it. Sixty-five thousand dollars is a good salary.”

Doug Martin, a spokesman for the AFSCME union’s Florida Council 79, which represents many state workers, agreed.

“We don’t represent anybody who works for the state who makes more than $65,000,” Martin said. “It’s still not perfect, but…it takes us out of the pay cut scenario if it is at that level.”

Martin praised the resistance to the original House proposal, saying the compromise that appears to be shaping up would reduce the total reduction to salaries by $300 million.

But even if the compromise holds up, another lawmaker with a district full of state workers said it was a raw deal for the state’s front line.

“Even if the Senate won their position, it’s not good enough,” said Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee. “State workers haven’t gotten a raise in three years and they are asked to do the work of this state. We need to respect what they do.”

Vasilinda said that even in a year when the state deficit would be as high as $6 billion without the aid of federal stimulus money, the plan to close the gap by reducing state pay “stinks” and is “unconscionable.”

“State workers…lives are hanging in the balance,” she said. “They’re not doing so well now. There are state workers that are on food stamps, people who are fully employed. We have the leanest workforce in the nation and they get paid the least.”

Vasilinda also echoed a familiar refrain from Democrats about this year’s budget, saying it was too focused on cuts.

“When we go home…no matter how close they are to the Senate side or how close they are to the House side, my position is we didn’t do we enough,” she said. “There were tax loopholes that weren’t closed, there were tax exemptions that were not looked at…there were revenue sources that were not looked at to help fund the state. I think there are people who would be willing to give up a little bit so that their neighbors would not be unemployed or underemployed.”

Vasilinda added that the consequence of the proposed pay cut for state workers would not just be felt by the employees and their families. The pain would also be shared by the communities they call home, like the capital city, she said.

“A town like Tallahassee, you cut state workers and that’s one less spaghetti dinner they’re going to buy at a mom-and-pop restaurant, that’s one less haircut they’re going to get,” Vasilinda said. “It has a reverberation in the economy. The more you tighten the belt, you get starved.”

–END–
04/29/2009

WEEKLY ROUNDUP – TALKING ABOUT TALKING

(Recap and analysis of the week in state government)

By KEITH LAING, THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

www.newsserviceflorida.com

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 24, 2009………The original timeline laid out last week by Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul for budget negotiations between their respective chambers came and went this week, but all the leaders did publicly was talk about talking.

The budgets passed by the chambers were almost $550 million apart and each chamber took vastly different routes toward closing a deficit that would be as high as $6 billion without federal stimulus money. But the conference committees that were always on the chamber’s calendars “if noticed” never were.

The budget waiting game cast a pall over the Capitol this week as lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists kept an eye on the calendar and counted the dwindling number of days remaining of session. And while the rest of the Capitol crowd fretted, Atwater and Cretul kept saying how great each other were.

Cretul went first, making a little news by saying the House would accept some of the new revenue in the Senate budget if the Senate would be open to some of the steeper budget cuts in his chamber’s budget. But before he did that, the accidental speaker let the record reflect that Atwater was an “excellent partner to work with.”

Atwater quickly returned the leader love, taking to the rostrum to say that Florida’s future was in good hands with Cretul, even if it did not have the same ring as the ubiquitous insurance commercials on television. Atwater then made a smidgen of news too, saying that he would not be a “fair partner” if he did not remain open to making deeper cuts to education, general government and criminal justice programs as a way to loosen the logjam threatening to send lawmakers into overtime.

But it was abundantly clear this week that nobody told the minority party that the budget negotiations were lovely. So day after day, Democrats instead told anyone who would listen how much they hated the delayed budget conference.

House Democrats said that Republicans denied their requests to be part of the meetings . Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, said she had learned more about negotiations from reporters and lobbyists. Rep. Ron Saunders, D-Key West, a former House budget chairman, pointed to a grand jury report handed down earlier last week in the case against Rep. Ray Sansom, R-Destin, for channeling money to a local college without the knowledge of the rest of the Legislature.

“The grand jury said there should be more openness,” Saunders said. “The only thing that’s been open, the only thing that’s been apparent, is that they’re having secret meetings.”

Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, chimed in too, saying Alexander and Cretul’s public pronouncements about the budget did not add up.

“They’re talking about how much they like each other,” Lawson said, showing his dislike for all the like floating around the Capitol.

The noise from the Dems was loud enough for the Senate’s top budget builder to meet with Senate Democrats late in the week to update them on how budget talks are going. Sen. JD Alexander, R-Winter Haven, went to the minority with one basic message: negotiations are not going well, and nobody is secretly cutting deals behind closed doors.

Alexander, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, then took it a step further, saying that leadership changes in the House have “complicated” negotiations as a dozen or so leaders fill the void left by the departure of former House Speaker Ray Sansom and his leadership team.

House Republicans leaders did not touch the Sansom issue, but they too disputed the secrecy scuttlebutt, saying the only thing Atwater and Cretul are trying to work out is the big picture issue of how much revenue to actually start with. Without that framework, the details can’t be worked out by conference committees, said House Majority Leader Adam Hasner.

And that’s no different than in previous years, argued Hasner.

“We elect the speaker to be our negotiator with the Senate president, the speaker represents all of us in this process,” Hasner said. “Anyone, including Ron Saunders, who is complaining about it is hypocritical. That’s how he (Saunders) did it.”

Many of the longtime lobbyists were frustrated by not being able to follow the budget negotiations, but agreed with Hasner – saying that the process was simply behind because the leaders hadn’t agreed on a bottom line.

“That discussion is taking place a month later than usual,” said lobbyist Gus Corbella, who knows something about the process as a former chief of staff to former Senate President Jim King. But because they haven’t started the formal conference process, Corbella and several others said it looked increasingly unlikely the Legislature could finish a budget by May 1.

Former state Sen. Jim Horne – who was a budget chief – and is now a lobbyist said it looked almost “impossible.”

“We’re one week out from D-Day and we haven’t even planned the invasion,” said Corbella.

FIGHTING ABOUT FUNDING, NOT PROCESS

Lawmakers may have been fighting over their budget process this week, but everybody else was busy fighting about what’s in it, or more accurately, what may not be in it. Ten of the 11 state university presidents showed up in Tallahassee fighting mad, telling the Legislature that budget cuts to the university system would mean cutting departments, jobs and students from Florida’s public universities.

Similarly, employees of Florida’s only cigarette maker, Miami-based Dosal, took an overnight drive to the Capitol this week, shutting down the plant for a day so employees could make their point to lawmakers. The workers hit the Capitol as lawmakers were reportedly making their company a part of the budget-balancing debate. The company wasn’t part of the state’s settlement with tobacco companies, and lawmakers are now considering whether there’s a way they can pull in cash from the company.

Joining the smoking section were state workers from all over the Panhandle, Jacksonville and down to Orlando. They came to the Capitol too, speaking to lawmakers about the proposal to cut their pay. Workers and leaders from one of the big government worker unions, AFSCME, rallied on the 4th floor while the chambers were in session.

It remains to be seen however, if the complaints will fall on deaf ears.

FIGHTING ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE

The fights this week were not just about the budget. A Republican-backed elections bill had Democratic lawmakers, some elections supervisors and voting advocates up in arms and ready to take the issue to court should the bill pass.

Democrats and voter advocates called the bill that among other things, wouldn’t let anyone within 100 feet of a line of voters, even for information requested by the voter, “draconian”. It would also ban anyone from using a retirement center identification card or a neighborhood association card in case they do not have a driver’s license.

The groups protested the bill at a press conference this week, saying it would disenfranchise voters, particularly seniors and the disabled who may have to now purchase a state identification card. Officials with the American Civil Liberties Union guaranteed that it would challenge the measure in court if it becomes law.

Later in the week, Rep. Joe Gibbons, chairman of the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, said that the fast-tracked bill should be reconsidered because it was “conceived in near secrecy and rushed through the legislative committee process.” The ruckus was rough enough that by week’s end, House Republican leaders said they planned to remove many of the most controversial elements of the bill (HB 7149), which amassed more than 100 amendments filed for consideration.

House Democrats also temporarily held up the advancement of the unionization “card check” bill sponsored by House Majority Leader Adam Hasner for more than an hour this week, battering Hasner with questions about the bill (HJR 1013). The measure was not even up for debate, just questions before the 120-member body, and Democrats used the occasion to register their adamant opposition to the measure they say could allow some businesses could use secret ballots to intimidate employees.

Despite the lengthy Q&A with Hasner, the bill was rolled to the House’s third reading calendar, though by week’s end, it appeared likely the bill would be left to the beginning of the session’s last week.

Another bill that appears likely to go down to the wire is the measure that would allow the Department of Transportation to buy 61 miles of existing railroad track to run commuter trains in Orlando. The SunRail is a perennial fight in the Legislature, and this year has been no exception with quite a few punches being through this week.

After much delay and even more debate, the Senate Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee approved the bill (SB 1212), sponsored by Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, on a 4-3 vote. The approval came after a false start before the panel last week, when the bill was tabled after a deluge of amendments, including several attached to preceding amendments, caused the committee’s time to run out.

The measure was then being pulled from the Senate Ways and Means committee so that it can be taken up on the Senate floor, which Constantine said was OK by him. But chief opponent Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, said as often as she could that she had the votes to derail the train when it reaches the end of the legislative line.

KIDS QUOROM CALL

With all the fingerpointing about the budget and bills this week, some might say that the Capitol had been overrun by children this week. It turns out that it was, though the kids were not the ones that were elected. The week saw Florida Take Your Child to Work Day, with several lawmakers, staffers and lobbyists doing exactly that. In addition of shadowing their mommies and daddies, some of the kids got to meet and take pictures with Gov. Charlie Crist.

STORY OF THE WEEK:  When it came to negotiations between the House and Senate about the nearly $550 million gap in their respective budgets this week, there was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. After a week of “House said, Senate said,” lawmakers ended the week basically where they started: with two vastly different budgets plans. But now, they have seven less days to find a bottom line that adds up.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:  “It’s a good conversation going on between the two leaders, but that doesn’t solve the (budget) problem. They can walk hand-in-hand in the rotunda, but we still have to have some revenue put on the table so we can get out of here,” Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson on the goodwill expressed publicly by the Senate President and Speaker of the House this week as the chambers continued to punt budget conferencing.

–END–
04/24/09

WEEKLY ROUNDUP – AN ETERNAL SPRING

(Recap and analysis of the week in state government)

By KEITH LAING, THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

www.newsserviceflorida.com

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, April 3, 2009……..The halfway point of session came and went this week, but many of the big issues facing the Legislature are still there middling.

The Legislature tackled a host of controversial issues winding their way through the corridors of the Capitol during the week dominated by process. The budget, tobacco taxes, workers compensation, gaming, renewable energy and everything in between was on the table this week, though not much was cleared off the cluttered Capitol countertop.

One such instance came when backers of a proposed tax increase on cigarettes, who said this would be the year the plan would get serious consideration, showed they were not just blowing smoke when the chairman of the Senate Finance and Tax Committee announced his backing. Sen. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, said during a Capitol news conference that the Finance and Tax Committee’s package this year would include SB 1840, which would raise cigarette taxes by $1 a pack and and add a $1 per ounce surcharge to other tobacco-based products, including cigars, chewing tobacco and snuff.

Days later, the plan passed Altman’s F&T committee, though the bill, sponsored by Sen. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, does not yet have a companion in the House.

Joining the cigarette tax in the lonely legislation club was the proposed renewable energy standard for power companies in Florida. The plan is moving after being approved by the Senate Communications, Energy, Utilities Committee, though its overall progress is still impeded by the fact that there’s no bill in the House yet.

The progress the energy standard has made did not come easy. Environmentalists fought for months to have a rule that did not consider technologies like nuclear power as “clean.” But the renewable energy lobby also battled for months to have an ambitious standard adopted this year, and with the sometimes controversial technology now included in the plan, the environmental lobby appears poised to accept it rather than walk away from the legislative session this year empty handed.

The clean energy interpretation has long been derided by environmentalists. But while the idea that nuclear technology is renewable drew howls of protest from the green lobby during the months of debate before the PSC last fall, one by one this week as the plan was taken up by the committee, proponents of the standard rose to say that despite minor quibbles with the bill, it was a fair compromise that would have the desired effect of spurring development of renewable energy in Florida.

But that effect won’t be felt unless a similar plan emerges in the House.

The same is true vice-versa, as evidenced by the effort to restore a cap on lawyer fees in workers compensation cases that was removed by a Supreme Court decision last year, which is a top issue for the business community. The House voted early in the week to restore caps on lawyers fees, but the restoration of the fee limit is a bit less certain in the Senate.

An overloaded Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t even get to a vote on the bill this week, but its weary chairman warned the interested parties that he’s tired of their inability to reach a compromise slowing the bill down and he will see to it that a vote is held soon. The bill is been backed strongly by the business lobby, which is worried about comp insurance premiums going up. But advocates for injured workers have filled committee rooms seeking to testify against the bill, and getting to a vote has been slow in coming.

The same can be also said for the proposed Orlando commuter rail project that is currently hung up in the Senate. Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said this week that the SunRail bill (SB 1212), which would clear the way for the Department of Transportation to buy 61 miles of existing track from CSX Corp. to run the trains, is not dead yet.

But its also clear the momentum the train had early in the session has ground to a screeching halt. The bill cleared two Senate committees, but has stalled at the Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Committee. The TED committee has met several times since the last SunRail hearing, but has yet to add the bill to its agenda.

Atwater said that did not necessarily mean the plan would not eventually begin rolling again, but like everything else moving in Tallahassee these days, it will have a hard time getting going without first getting on the agenda.

Also stuck in process purgatory this week was the measure that would allow the governor to renegotiate a gaming deal with the Seminole Tribe. The state and tribe are still a far way off from a deal, but by week’s end, the idea cleared committees in each chamber.

However, the version of the plan approved by the House this week is still vastly different than the one that emerged in the Senate, which focuses on expanding gaming, while the House wants to rein it in.

Committee Chair Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, has said previously that he thought it may be a long shot to get a deal done by the end of session. However, he was more optimistic Friday, noting he has seen the two chambers come together on issues in the past when they have been far apart at the beginning.

The proposal that would raise insurance premiums for residents in the state-run backup insurance pool also stalled this week, at least temporarily, as a Senate panel delayed action amidst disagreement over the role of the insurer of last resort.

The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee was expected to roll out a property insurance fix this week that calls for increases in premiums and reductions in state-backed coverage as lawmakers try to shore up Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and reduce the state’s catastrophic hurricane exposure. But disagreements over what role Citizens should play and whether proposals to lure policyholders into the private market would be too expensive prompted Sen. Garrett Richter, the chairman of the committee, to postpone action on his own bill (SB 1950), an appropriate summary of the week that was.

POLITICS IN THE MIX

The week may have been largely dominated by policy processes, but no week in Tallahassee goes by without some politics sprinkled in too. This week was no different, as U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Fort Myers, became the latest big name politician to sit out the open-seat race for the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Mack wrote a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist to let the popular populist know that he would not enter the contest to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez, fueling speculation even further that the self-proclaimed people’s governor would soon seek to become the people’s senator.

Mack, a three-term congressman, had often been mentioned as viable contender for the Republican nomination after former Gov. Jeb Bush declined to run in January. But with the ever-popular Crist confirmed to be considering the race and speculation continuing to grow that he will ultimately enter it, Mack bowed out and said he would support Crist if he chose to run.

And if that happens, there would be an empty mansion on Adams Street that would likely draw its fair share of attention. It is still more than a year before either election, but that hasn’t stopped the Capitol chattering class from sizing up the governor’s Senate chances and his potential gubernatorial replacements.

A poll commissioned by SayfieReview.com/PowerPlay this week showed Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum essentially even in a potential race for governor in 2010 if Gov. Charlie Crist weren’t running. The poll, which was conducted by Mason Dixon Polling & Research, also showed more than two-thirds of respondents would at least consider voting for Crist for the Senate if he chooses to give up the governor’s mansion for a run at Washington.

But a Miami Democrat that could possibly stand in the governor’s path to the U.S. Senate was also making political news this week. U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek’s fast start to his race continued when his campaign announced the Miami Democrat had raised $1.49 million since getting into the race in January.

Meek, who is one of two Democrats officially running to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez, felt good enough about his haul that he released his numbers a day after the close of the first quarter of fundraising, though he does not have to file a report on his donations until April 15. Prior to releasing the campaign contributions, Meek racked up several union endorsements and held high profile fundraisers with former President Bill Clinton.

Meek also announced this week that he planned to officially qualify with the Division of Elections for the race to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez by collecting the required signatures from one percent of the 11.2 million registered voters in Florida.

Meek’s campaign said the four-term congressman would travel the length of Florida April 4-13 in search of signatures, with visits planned for Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Panama City, Pensacola, Key West, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. It’s not quite Walkin’ Lawton, but Meek could have chosen instead to pay six percent of the annual salary of the position he’s seeking.

The only other declared Democrat in the Senate race so far, state Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami, has not yet released his fundraising totals or done much campaigning because like so many of the big issues now facing the state, he’s tied up at the Capitol.

STORY OF THE WEEK: The rapidly moving parts that make up the 2009 legislative session were on full display this week, as the chambers took up a host of controversial issues making their way through the corridors of the Capitol, but deciding almost nothing about any of them.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Hope springs eternal. In this process you just hope and pray,” Senate Finance and Tax Committee chairman Thad Altman, discussing the prospects of the House backing a $1 per pack or ounce tobacco tax approved this week by his panel.

–END–
04/03/09