Another Small Step on the Journey
Short Meeting with Some Forward Motion. The old Zen saying goes something like, “Every journey begins with one step.” Well, we took a third step today and like the two previous meetings where language was adopted, it was a small step. The important thing is that they are working through provisions that had language differences or provisions that were present in only one of the two bills. They closed up the charter school article today and tackled a few provisions in the educational excellence article. Th e education excellence article is quite large in both bills so it will take some discussion to finish up the article.
The most prominent issue that was resolved today revolves around language that was first proposed by the Governor dealing with higher education institutions that participate in PSEO and require students to sign a faith statement in order to be allowed to take classes there. The House bill follows the Governor’s recommendation that prohibit the faith statement requirement, but an amendment on the Senate floor muddied the issue a bit by tying the policy to recent court decisions dealing with the establishment clause and the separation of church and state. Given the courts’ recent rulings on these matters, it is speculated that colleges and universities could require a faith statement, although that is not a certainty. At any rate, the House language that clearly puts the prohibition in place and that will have two effects, one immediate in that there will be a lot of discussion in the Senate when the conference committee report hits the floor for final approval asking why the Senate position was not maintained and the other probably off a few months when the policy will most likely be challenged in court.
The conference committee recessed for floor session but they did not return for further action. There’s what I call The Iron Law of Conference Committees that basically states “the more you see the committee in public, the less work that is getting done.” Leadership would like to have the conferees wrap up their work in the next day or two and once decisions are made on the major spending items, it shouldn’t take a lot of time for the other items to fall into place.
Here are links to the language adopted today:
Article 2–Education Excellence
Labor Relations Bill. The conference committee on the labor relations bill has yet to be named, but I anticipate that will happen tomorrow and the conference committee will formally meet shortly thereafter. It is important that school administrators and school board members contact their legislators and the members of the conference committee with their concerns and I will get those names out as soon as they become available.