With yet another short budget extender to give state lawmakers more time to come to an agreement on a budget, state leaders are placing the blame on the policy disputes. Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt told BTPM that is was Democrats unwillingness to support what he called “common sense” proposals such as preventing people from using masks to obscure their identity and changes to the discovery law as reasons for the now two week delay.
Peoples-Stokes fired back, saying there’s nothing that’s “common sense” about either of those proposals.
“I guess that question actually begs the question, what's common sense about telling people that they can't wear a mask? When, just two years ago, we were forced to wear masks," said Peoples-Stokes. "To create a law that says that people cannot go to a protest with a with a mask on you open up a Pandora's Box. There'll be a number of people caught up in that who were not intended to be caught up.”
Given the strong Democratic make up of the state legislature, Peoples-Stokes said she understands why Republicans are pushing for policy changes for this bill, but still believes that policy talks have no place in a fiscal bill.
“I personally don't think it should be done that way," she said. "One because then you have to rush what should be a deliberative process to come up with a policy piece. It's the reason why we have these three pieces of government to have these conversations, so that we come up and make the right decision. I don't like the fact that this is added into the budget, but it is what it is, and right now we'll have to deal with it.”
Leader Peoples-Stokes is hoping the legislature will have the budget completed next week, but does not know for sure.
