House adjourns, special session ends

The special session finally has ended. The House adjourned sine die today after failing to muster enough votes to advance Senate Bill 29, a bill that sought to criminalize intrusive searches by airport security personnel.

The Senate adjourned yesterday, but the House stayed an extra day to give supporters of the airport security bill a shot. The House voted 96-26 to keep the bill alive, but, with high absenteeism, that was way short of the 120 votes necessary to suspend a procedural rule.

There was nothing education-related on today’s agenda. Both the House and the Senate completed work on Senate Bill 1, a key, budget-related and school finance bill yesterday, and both passed Senate Bill 8, the bill allowing teacher pay cuts and furloughs, on Monday.