Appropriations Suspense File - End of Road - Maybe

Next week on Thursday, August 11, the appropriations committees in both the California Senate and the Assembly will meet in the morning and hear their respective “suspense files”.

There are hundreds of bills in the suspense files in the Senate and in the Assembly and this is where bills that have a fiscal impact are parked until final decisions are made on what is to be released to the floor.

Those bills that make it out of the appropriations committees and are sent to the floor will have an additional two weeks until the end of August to be taken up and voted on by the full body of the legislature. 

The bills that do pass go to the Governor where he will have till the end of September to make decisions on signature or veto. The bills that do not make it off the floor are permanently dead in this end of a two-year session with the stakeholders coming back next year to re-introduce and start all over again.

In Sacramento, good bills and bad bills never actually die. They always keep coming back and coming back until their sponsors finally get what they want or simply give up trying. 

The fight goes on. 

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