The thirty-fourth day of the Georgia General Assembly's 2009 session, while short in duration, was long on emotion, said emotion lingering from a"dust up" on the floor of the House of Representatives on the previous day.  The hard feelings resulted from the defeat of a resolution which sought to honor the President of the United States but which contained wording that bothered some members of the chamber.  As this is written, the hard feelings still seem to be present (any effect on yet-to-be-passed-or-considered legislation to be determined over the next six days), and major issues remain in the still-to-be-resolved stage.

While the House did not tackle any legislation of particular interest to the education community on this day, the Senate took up one education bill as part of their five-bill calendar.  They passed HB 100, Rep. Earl Ehrhart's (R-Powder Springs) bill seeking to increase the contribution limits for individuals and corporations that contribute to non-profit organizations providing vouchers for students to attend private schools.  This is Georgia's version of"neo-vouchers," a bill that passed the General Assembly last year and was signed into law by Governor Perdue.  This bill was amended by the Senate and must return to the House for final passage before it can be sent to the Governor, and it remains to be seen just what his position on the amendments to the legislation will be.

Still very much on the minds of most is the budget for FY2010.  Even though the House passed its version of the document on Thursday, public comments from Senate leadership sent a clear signal that the two chambers may have major disagreements over key parts of that document.  Just what we need - more tension!  Stay tuned for the last two weeks!!