The governor proposes and the legislature disposes…and then the
governor gets to veto what she doesn't like. There in a nutshell is
the budget process, but apparently the senate GOP leader fell asleep
during that chapter in his high school civics course.
Oakland County Senate leader Mike Bishop did a grand job of ushering
his $1.2 billion state budget cuts through both houses, but now he is
sitting on six of those bills because he is afraid the governor is
going to veto some of the cuts. Poor baby. That's how the system
works!
By refusing to send the state police, revenue sharing, higher
education and three other bills to the governor for her review, Bishop
is refusing to let the process take its course. The only way to please
him is for the governor to look him in his baby blues and promise not
to nick his cuts. Trust her, she ain't (sic) gonna to do it.
Some in town believe Bishop is on a path to blame her for another
shutdown of government. If he sits on those budgets until the end of
the month and then sends them to her, she won't have time to review all
the budgets and thus, the theory goes, she has two choices; sign the
bills and Bishop wins or veto all the bills and Bishop wins again. The
republicans would blame her for closing down those programs.
The senate democratic leader Mike Prussi checked in on
this strategy
saying it was a cockamamie idea. Asked for a translation he noted, its
an age old way of saying, "Bull----."
The governor would never indulge in such barnyard lingo, but that's
what she is thinking, too. She wants Bishop to get off the dime, send
her the bills, let her veto them and then he can try to override them
which is also part of the legislative process.
Deep down inside he knows he does not have the votes to do that,
hence he sits and she's losing patience and the citizens face yet
another shutdown scenario at the end of the month.