BUDGET TALKS, AMENDMENT PROCESS AMONG MAJOR ISSUES FACING RETURNING LAWMAKERS

TALLAHASSEE--Budget talks, drug testing in high schools and proposals to make it more difficult to amend the Florida Constitution highlight the beginning of the home stretch as lawmakers return for three frenzied weeks.

Fresh from a week off, lawmakers must complete the work of their 60-day legislative session by April 30 if they want to go home on time.  Characteristically, they have left the bulk of heavy lifting for session's end and must now resolve differences on a handful of issues before going home to campaign.

Committees in both chambers will address both major issues and minor concerns as they rush to keep as many bills in play as deadline for most committee work comes to a close next week.

Lawmakers are forging ahead with proposals to make it tougher to amend Florida's Constitution, a response to a rash of amendments that have recently granted constitutional protection to high-speed trains and pregnant pigs.

In the House, lawmakers want to require a 60 percent vote when groups ask voters to change the Constitution.  Proposals by lawmakers themselves, however, would require a simple majority vote.  House members also want any proposed amendment to carry a price tag that would outline estimated costs and who would pay.

Senators have already passed measures reining in the process by requiring any proposed amendment deal only with existing constitutional provisions ( eliminating the pregnant pig and high-speed rail initiatives ) and must be approved by 60 percent of voters.  The threshold would be in place regardless of whether lawmakers or citizens' groups propose the change.

On the budget front, leaders in both chambers will appoint conferees this week to resolve differences on how to spend at least $56.5 billion.  First up for negotiators will be to agree on a bottle line.  The House budget proposal is $1 billion higher, spending more one-time money but preserving a handful of costly programs axed in the Senate plan.

The chambers have positioned themselves well for negotiations.  The House plan funds popular programs but does so by raiding trust funds or using one-time funds Senate negotiators contend should be left alone.

The Senate's more austere plan cuts funding for popular programs that will likely receive money when the smoke clears.  The stance gives the chamber a bargaining chip in its quest to hold down trust fund raids.

In other action, House members today will vote on whether to allow drug tests to be performed on high school students participating in extracurricular activities.  HB 113 is up for a final vote in the House, but the measure faces tougher sledding in the Senate, where it has yet to get a committee hearing despite being repeatedly placed on the Senate Education Committee Agenda.

The House is also expected to approve measures preventing school districts from banning pagers and cellular phones from campuses.  Reflecting the headlong rush into the wireless age, the bill would reverse a prohibition lawmakers made a few years ago to ban pagers from campus in an attempt to slow drug traffic.

Meanwhile, bills requiring school districts to provide more physical education activities for students remain in play.  At trio of bills aimed at reducing youth obesity by requiring more phy-ed requirements is up for a vote in the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday.  Similar measures in the House have yet to be placed on committee agendas.