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Tuesday Update: Medicaid Missing
posted at 2007-06-26 13:50 | Last modified 2007-11-14 10:38
Sen Majority Leader Tony Rand's troubled Medicaid-tax swap bill was AWOL on today's Senate Finance committee agenda. Co-chair Sen David Hoyle had promised yesterday to finish debate and "vote it up or down" today.
When I asked about it, Hoyle said he'd forgotten that today's Finance meeting was scheduled to be a subcommittee meeting, so they'll wait to take up S1484 Wednesday instead.
Maybe so, but that probably isn't the whole story. After all, Hoyle convened a special Finance meeting Monday night just to take up the Medicaid bill. If Senate leaders thought the Medicaid swap would pass, there's little doubt they'd have arranged to hear it today, subcommittees notwithstanding.
What the delay most likely means is that the Senate leadership has made a rare but serious misstep. Top Dems were clearly divided in yesterday's meeting - Hoyle and Rand on one side, Clodfelter and Nesbitt on the other. Even if it's some sort of strategic gambit, it's still pretty unusual to see open strife among Basnight's lieutenants...well, not in public, anyway.
More later - stay tuned.
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