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No special session announcement… yet
Gov. Martin O’Malley hinted heavily at the Board of Public Works meeting Wednesday morning that General Assembly leaders could be close to an agreement that would bring lawmakers back to Annapolis and avert some $500 million in spending cuts, but changed his tune by the meeting’s end.
With reporters suddenly lining the walls of the Governor’s Reception Room on the second floor of the State House, O’Malley said there was lots of work to do before any special session announcement.
“We’re taking it one house, one budget committee at a time,” O’Malley said. “Don’t get too excited. We still have a long way to go.”
The governor, who will sign nearly 300 bills into law this afternoon starting at 2 p.m., did not take questions before leaving.
Earlier in the meeting, O’Malley called for a five minute break, apparently after receiving a message on his cell phone. He held up his phone to the crowd and said he had just gotten some good news.
“There’s some white smoke coming out of the College of Cardinals,” O’Malley said, referring to the stream of white smoke sent out of a chimney atop the Sistene Chapel at the Vatican when a decision is made on a new pope.
But apparently this smoke didn’t mean lawmakers had yet made a decision on how to pass a revenue package to fund the fiscal 2013 budget.
