BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The North Dakota Legislature is in a race to finish its work and leave at least a handful of days on the books before the constitutional 80-day limit.
Lawmakers had hoped to be finished in less than 75 days to give themselves a cushion that could be used in the future to address unforeseen problems, without the governor having to call a special session.
That goal appears fantastical: Monday is Day 72.
House Majority Leader Chet Pollert and his Senate counterpart, Rich Wardner, told lawmakers in their respective chambers Firday that they should expect to work on Saturday, or Day 77 of the session.
Pollert said the House also may work into the night during the week.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us before we can close this thing down,” he said.
The waning days of the session are heavy with conference committees of three House members and three senators tasked with reconciling differing versions of a bill that has been approved in both chambers.
Only a few bills remain, but they are among the state’s most important, including new two-year budgets for human services, higher education and the Office of Management and Budget, which serves as the Republican-controlled Legislature’s last-minute catch-all bill.
On the policy side, lawmakers still have not resolved differences in competing Republican and Democratic bills that develop rules to comply with a voter-approved constitutional amendment aimed at ethics reform.
House Republicans and most lobbyists are supporting the GOP bill from that chamber. The initiative’s sponsors like the Democrat-sponsored Senate measure because they say it better reflects the constitutional amendment’s intent.
The Legislature started its session in January with more than 900 bills. Gov. Doug Burgum had signed about 400 of them as of Friday afternoon.
The Legislature ended its longest session ever in 2013, when it logged 80 days. Lawmakers met for more than 20 hours straight on the last day of that session.
The 1975 Legislature finished its work in 53 days, the shortest session in modern history.
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