In these last hours of a legislative session, stuff flies, errors are made and leaders juggle the timing of bills flying from one house to another. What order are we in? Do we have to read that across the desk again before we can pass it? You will hear us skip from "order of business" to order of business, trying to move things forward at break-neck speed.
Fourteenth order is for amending or changing bills. 13th order is 3rd reading or final consideration where we vote on them and . 12th order is 2nd reading or a place where we can suspend rules and pass bills if we want but usually where they season on the calendar for public absorption for another day before we vote. 11th order is first reading where bills arrive from the amending order, the house or a committee which has passed them.
Right now the caucus leaders Senator Davis and Kate Kelly along with the Lt. Governor are trying to time how legislation that will have to pass the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee soon will get back to the floor of the Senate here for a vote and over to the House for a final vote and passage. We are close. It feels like it. After five years in this place that final juggling is what gives away the end.