May Legislative Update

The House will be back for regular business after taking off 3 weeks. Four republicans are absent this week. The Senate will also be down a few republicans so they’re only doing COW calendars or bipartisan bills; we suspect that will happen in the House as well. 

Senate Majority Leader Kavanagh had suggested that a budget agreement may come as soon as this week.  However, as of late last Friday, Senate President Petersen said there was still that 1 percent they had not yet agreed upon.  The House is hopeful they will adjourn for the year by mid June—  the Senate thinks it’ll be more like the end of June.  One of the biggest points of disagreement between the legislature and the Governor is data centers.  Governor Hobbs wants to scale back or eliminate existing tax breaks for data centers.  The legislature wants to leave these tax incentives in place.

Once the budget agreement is finalized and introduced, we should expect a whirlwind of activity to rush the completed budget up to the governor for her signature.  At the same time, bills that are close to the finish line will also be heard on the floor and sent up to the ninth floor.  If the past is precedent, I would expect session to end within a few days of the completion of the budget. During session, the governor has 5 days to sign or veto a bill.  When session ends, the deadline is 10 days.