Substantial and last-minute bills passed in closing days of 2020 legislative session

The abbreviated 2020 legislative session drew to a close Monday, June 15, with a flurry of last-minute and substantial bills passed in the closing days.

Those final days included approval of a law enforcement accountability bill, a measure tightening the state’s regulations on immunizations, two tax bills, a bill to extend the state’s reinsurance program, and the most important of all, final approval of the 2020-21 budget and the School Finance Act.

 Legislators returned to the Capitol just over three weeks ago, after a 73-day recess implemented to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

In that three weeks, Democratic lawmakers pledged an agenda of “fast, friendly and free,” which was supposed to mean that bills in the three weeks would pass quickly without controversy and without cost.

That promise went by the wayside almost immediately.

When lawmakers returned May 26, there were 350 bills left over from the first two months of the session. Republicans fussed that their bills got killed and then they had to watch as Democrats pushed through an aggressive package that was anything but “fast, friendly and free.”

The School Finance Act, for the first time in more than 20 years, had almost no Republican support, gaining just one vote in the state Senate and none in the House.

The bill cut $621.4 million from K-12 education, adding that to the debt that’s been owed to K-12 for nearly a decade. With that addition, the debt, known as the budget stabilization factor, rises to $1.18 billion, the highest in history.

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