Camden: Here’s how to get state lawmakers moving on budget

With the government shutdown looming on June 30, the 610-page operating budget, the raison d’etre of the previous 173 days of regular and special session, wasn’t even available until 8 a.m. that morning, and passed both chambers less than 12 hours later. Considering that a certificate from Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics is not required for legislative service, it was a safe bet the vast majority voting on the $43.7 billion budget had only the vaguest idea of what was in it.

As usual, legislators talked of the need for change. Some introduced a constitutional amendment requiring a bill wait three days in its final form before legislators could vote on it. That could help avoid the shutdown guessing game, but lawmakers might still cobble together a budget delivered at midnight June 27.

Plus, state law already requires them to have a budget by June 1. They missed that mark in 2013, 2015, and this year. No one was perp-walked out of the domed Legislative Building into waiting State Patrol cars.

A better idea

A better idea would be to rethink the calendar. Cut the session to 80 days that aren’t consecutive. Start in early January, go 20 weekdays to introduce bills and hold hearings, then call a two-week break so legislators can go home and explain to constituents all the brilliant ideas they’ve supported and dumb ones they’ve opposed. Require them to have town hall meetings on three of those days.

Come back in late February after the state releases its revenue forecast and spend another 20 weekdays for each chamber to introduce a budget, then hold real hearings, not these eight-hour marathon sessions in which everyone gets one minute to say thank you or ask for more money. Go home for a week and two more town hall days.

Come back for 35 weekdays to get everything done.

After each chamber passes its budget, negotiations start. They can meet in secret, because they can’t seem to do it any other way. But at the end of each week, they must post the offers to prove those “we’re getting closer” claims.

That essentially ends the regular session in early May. If they finish early, they get a $100-per-day bonus for each day under 80. If they need a special session for a budget or anything else, there’s no per diem and their pay goes down $100 for each day they need.

Daily updates from negotiations on the budget or whatever required a special session would have to be posted. That way, if they produce a budget on June 30 like a cat coughing up a hairball, people will have a pretty good idea of what’s in it and what changed.

If they don’t get a budget by June 30, the old budget automatically kicks in for 30 days — no one gets to claim credit for new programs and new tax breaks or to brag about eliminating wasteful spending or unfair tax loopholes. And their pay gets docked $200 a day. Each month the old budget gets renewed, and the amount of pay docking goes up.

The eventual budget might not be better. But there would be fewer surprises, more informed votes and no threat of a shutdown.