House moves $35B budget with few cuts and a tax hike to a final vote in marathon session

From MarylandReporter.com

In a nearly 11-hour session, the House of Delegates fended off proposals to level fund the fiscal 2013 budget, block shifting teacher pension costs, and eliminate an income tax hike.

Scores of amendments were attempted on the controversial bills, but none passed. All of the bills will go for final votes Friday or Saturday exactly as they came from their committees.

Initially, the House was supposed to have two sessions on Thursday: one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. But debate and amendment attempts on the main budget bill and Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act stretched through the afternoon and into the evening with no break.

At about 5:30 p.m., Speaker Michael Busch — sounding hoarse from calling for amendments for nearly eight hours — announced food was being ordered for the delegates.

“We’ll go all night if we have to,” he said.

Right before Busch adjourned the body at close to 9 p.m., he thanked them all for a hard day’s work.

“The only bad thing is we have to come back to work tomorrow,” he said, as the end of the 90-day session loomed two weeks from Monday.


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