House Omnibus Policy Bill Released

The House Education omnibus policy bill has been released.  What happens in these instances is that the House Education Policy Committee will take a bill in its possession (in this case, the Governor’s omnibus policy bill HF 3401) and amend its language onto that bill.  Much of what the Governor proposed in his omnibus policy bill is included in the amendment that will become the language of HF 3401, but there are a number of other provisions that originated with House authors.  Looking at the bill, I felt like I was watching a late-night infomercial, as in, “Wait, there’s more!  And that’s not all, there’s even more!”  It is an ambitious set of pr0posals, but as in the case of the funding bill that is likely emerging from the House Educaiton Finance Committee, it will likely be met by a much more narrowly-focused set of funding and policy proposals that the Senate will assemble.

So feast your eyes on 133 pages of education policy initiatives courtesy of the House Education Policy Committee:  HF 3401 DE 1 Amendment.  “DE” next to the amendment stands for “delete everything.”  When a delete-everything amendment is passed, the language of the amendment becomes the language of the bill in total.  From that point on, amendments to the delete-everything amendment can be offered.  I don’t think they cover this in Civics class.  At least they didn’t during the 1967-1968 school year at Cannon Falls High School. The committee will be taking testimony on the delete-everything amendment tomorrow and will discuss possible amendments on Friday.