2023-2024

The Senate Finance Committee met for the first time in 2024 and took up several bills of interest to counties. When not in committee meetings, members of the Senate spent time on the floor debating H.

The House and Senate met on Wednesday and finally approved the budget bill (H. 4300). Both chambers also took up several conference reports. The Senate and House also indicated that unless there are budget vetoes by the Governor they consider to be significant, they will not reconvene until January 2024.

The budget and other bills of interest are discussed below:

The House met on Wednesday and took up vetoes by the Governor, as well as a few other bills on the calendar. The Senate did not meet this week. The budget conference committee met on Wednesday and Thursday and finally reached an agreement on the budget bill (H. 4300) Thursday afternoon. Both chambers will now meet in statewide session in the coming weeks to adopt the conference committee report.

The budget and other bills of interest are discussed below:

As indicated in last week’s Friday Report, Governor Henry McMaster called both chambers to return to work this week. Because there is no sine die resolution, the General Assembly can take up any bills that are pending. The Senate met briefly on May 16 without taking up any bills and did not meet the rest of the week. The House debated several bills, but spent most of its time debating the six-week abortion ban bill (S.