News
Legislative Update – Week of June 6
June 6, 2011This week’s update should be the end to the legislative session for the summer, but there is also a potential that both chambers will be back to Springfield before the scheduled veto session in October, 2011. The House and Senate did end up passing a budget but what they sent to the Goveor was significantly […]
Legislative Update – Week of May 9
May 9, 2011Both the House and Senate did a considerable amount of work on budgets during the previous week, but differences remain between the House version, Senate version, and Goveor’s request. The House also took votes on a number of controversial issues, including the concealed carry proposal and a bill allowing the use of marijuana for medical […]
ACEP Launches Just 2% Campaign
ACEP has launched a campaign to educate policymakers, the news media and the public about the value of emergency medicine and that emergency care constitutes less than 2% of all health care spending. To hear some talk about rising health care costs, you’d think it was more like 50%! Because of the cost-cutting environment in Washington […]
Legislative Update – Week of May 1
May 2, 2011The beginning of May marks just 30 days until the tentative end of the legislative session. During the next several weeks the negotiations on the budget will become more intense and likely, more rancorous. Reaction to the Goveor’s proposed budget was not particularly positive and, reaction to his recent plan to reallocate dollars from local […]
Legislative Update – Week of April 18
April 18, 2011The General Assembly, both House and Senate, are off on a spring break this week. Last week was the 3rd Reading deadline in both chambers to get bills out of the chamber of origin (unless individual deadlines were extended). The legislature will retu for work on April 26 in the House and May 3rd in […]
Legislative Update – Week of April 11
April 11, 2011As we enter the 2nd week of April, the spring session of the General Assembly is starting into the home stretch. Both chambers have adjoument tentatively scheduled for May 31. Under the current schedule, the House has a 1-week, and the Senate a 2-week, Spring Break planned for during the last 2 weeks of April. […]
Legislative Update – Week of April 4
April 4, 2011As we have reached the first week in April, the state budget is starting to take a more focal place in the agenda at the Capitol. Last week the House moved several budget related bills on bipartisan roll calls related to certain pensions, bond payments and employee health insurance. At this point, there appears to […]
Legislative Update – Week of March 28
March 28, 2011The House and Senate both retu to Springfield this week from a week of Spring Break. Both chambers will now focus primarily on moving bills out of their chamber and over to the opposite chamber for consideration therefore, the majority of time will be spent on the floor of their chambers on 2nd and 3rd […]
Legislative Update – Week of March 21
March 21, 2011The House and Senate both left Springfield at the end of last week and will be gone until March 28 for a Spring Break. With the substantive committee deadline having passed last week, there are many bills that have been retued to the Rules or Committee on Assignments for failure to be moved on to the […]
Legislative Update – Week of March 14
March 14, 2011The coming week will bring both the “Wearing O’ the Green” on St. Patrick’s Day and the House and Senate deadlines for moving proposals out of their substantive committees. Barring individual or wholesale bill deadline extensions, members in both chambers will need to have moved their bills out of committee and to the floor by […]