If you have one member of leadership on your side, you have half a prayer. Just now, our Minority Leader, Rep. Jaquet made sudden a motion to concur with Senate Amendments to H599 and create a $75,000 exemption to the business personal property tax. We fly by a little white spiral bound book of rules. What we can do is limited by that. This was one option in rule 37. The Speaker we believe was going to move the bill to the Rev & Tax Committee where we believed we would have a tie vote on any motion to concur or not concur with the Senate version of the bill. So we thought maybe the floor was the better place to have this fight. Last week, by 5 votes, the House sent the full $120 million exemption to the Senate. We feel we have enough people who would prefer this small business version of the bill to get a floor vote to pass it. Some want to kill the bill, others want to amend it for a third time, which would be very very risky, even in a conference committee of both the House and Senate. We shall see how this unfolds.
The Speaker claims Rep Jaquet’s motion is out of order and is calling her motion a "challenge to the Speaker" with brings emotional and partisan weight to this debate. The vote we take now will not be so much then on policy and on small businesses or taxes, but on party allegiance. I think you can predict the out come. Things are flying: rule books, emotions, lobbyists, leaders, whispers.