The House passed the revenue stabilization act and the general improvement fund bill this afternoon. The end is near. Again, here's how the legislature will divide up a small surplus for favorite projects this year.

As predicted earlier, the House approved the Insurance Department appropriation 83-7, including the federal money for eventual implementation of health insurance exchanges anticipated in the federal health care law. A separate bill authorizing immediate work on the project by the Insurance Department was killed for this session by being referred for interim study. Republicans are claiming a big victory. Some victory. If health care moves foward, Obama adminstration bureaucrats will be in charge of health care in Arkansas, not Arkansas officials. There will be another opportunity in January, if not before, to finish this job.

Rep. Kathy Webb, who shepherded the money bills through Joint Budget, emphasized the positive about final-week theatrics: "I think we got a good budget and we got the Insurance Department budget intact. I think folks saw that passing the Insurance Department bill was the right thing to do."

Republicans hailed the delay of "Obamacare" and said it would ensure a "slow and deliberate process."

The Senate also passed the revenue stabilization and general improvement fund bills. Lawmakers WILL be going home.

Shazam. The House defeated a corporate welfare constitutional amendment by a 19-65 vote. Opponents included an unlikely pairing of Republicans with Democratic Rep. Jim Nickels, a tribune for the working man.

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Jake Files and approved by the Senate, would have allowed development districts to be set up to capture local sales taxes to help pay for hotel, retail and entertainment projects. These schemes have proved of little worth around the country — a string of ailing shopping centers built around heavily subsidized Bass Pro Shops is a good example. Nickels noted the proposal allowed imposition of sales taxes without a vote of the people to help build businesses that will mostly employ minimum wage workers. That isn't economic development, he observed.

I think this means the legislature will send only one constitutional amendments to the 2012 ballot — dedicating a half-cent sales tax to highway construction.

UPDATE: But .... it will take a suspension of House rules, but there's talk that there will be an effort to expunge today's vote tomorrow and pass the amendment. That would require a powerful amount of vote swapping, but this could be one of things where the House is obligated to pass a Senate amendment because the Senate passed the House constitutional amendment. That would be too bad. This is a very bad amendment.

The House voted 53-46 this afternoon to adopt the Democratic Party congressional redistricting plan that moves Fayetteville from the 3rd to the 4th District. The vote followed a debate taken up mostly by opponents bemoaning the move of Fayetteville. But some 250,000 people will move to new districts because of population changes, a fact that seemed to escape most.

Opponents called for a sounding of the ballot to insure all members who voted for the bill were in their seats. One vote was struck, making the final count 52-46. Fayetteville Rep. Greg Leding voted for the proposal despite a furious pressure campaign (mostly from special interests he beat in an election battle last year.)

Earlier in the day, a Senate committee defeated a Democratic plan identical to the one approved later in the House and a Republican plan by Sen. Johnny Key. Key's plan moved several counties, notably Garland to the 2nd and Sebastian to the 3rd, but this somehow doesn't qualify as a gerrymander in Republican eyes like moving Fayetteville does. The committee wasn't expected to approve anything because it is split 4-4 on partisan lines.

Here's Republican Key's Republican-friendly plan.

The stage is now set for the big question: Senate passage. A majority vote can pull a redistricting bill from Senate committee. But this is an extraordinary step. And 24 votes would be required for immediate consideration. Otherwise, a two-day delay, beyond scheduled recess Friday, would be required. That means the 14 Senate Republicans can block immediate consideration, barring a compromise of some sort. The Senate could reconvene between now and adjournment April 27 to complete action on a redistricting bill. Talk continues of some kind of arrangement to persuade Republicans to allow a vote today or tomorrow.

Note: This item significantly rewrites my earlier post on the topic.

Perils of Pauline: A handful of Republican zealots has the insurance industry and a significant chunk of the state budget tied to the railroad tracks. They'll let the train run over it unless they get their way on removing an appropriation (not spending) of federal money to implement federal health care reform as other states (led by Republicans) are doing.

Rep. Donna Hutchinson objects to being cast as a nut for her opposition. If we'd just let her have her way, everything would be fine, she insists. Sorry, Ms. Hutchinson. When the vote is 70-29, it confounds the traditional sense of democratic government and fairness to let the 29 call the shots, even if the Constitution allows it.

The House will vote again today, for a fourth time. Will the minority rule again? Will they shut down insurance in Arkansas and beggar pension funds? Will they get away with blaming it on the overwhelming majority? The melodrama continues.

UPDATE: Minority leader John Burris, who thought he had votes to pass Insurance appropriation yesterday, now indicates that the Republican minority opposition is firm and the Insurance Department appropriation cannot pass with inclusion of the health insurance exchange provision. Will Democrats blink? This is a dangerous road to travel. There isn't an agency of government that doesn't do things that you could rally minority opposition around to sabotage an appropriation bill. (Education doesn't fall under the 75 vote rule, thank goodness.)

This is a Tea Party national trend, by the way. And it's utterly nonsensical. The effect of this Tea Party initiative — to stop states from handling health care issues — does the very thing these wingnuts supposedly hate, Washington running everything.

UPDATE II: A compromise in the wind would provide for passage of the Insurance Department appropriation, but kill for this session the bill authorizing the department to move ahead with insurance exchange implementation.

UPDATE III: Davy Carter is twittering that a compromise has been reached. I expect it be along lines Roby Brock detailed. The health exchange planning bill will be killed for this session. The appropriation for the planning will remain in the Insurance Department bill. Republicans succeed in delaying the start of the exchanges themselves. Democrats, who have the majority (in numbers at least) to pass the bill eventually, say in a special session or next January, get to keep the money in place to do the exchanges eventually.

Further reflection: This is really kind of crazy. I now see what I'd been overlooking. Rep. Fred Allen's bill to authorize exchange implementation to begin — the one that will now go to interim study — had cleared House committee, but nothing more. It wasn't going to pass this session anyway, not having to go through a 4-4 split Senate committee should it actually pass the House. The fact that it hadn't come up suggests Allen wasn't sure he had the necessary Democratic votes. So everybody knew this. So why were a handful of Republicans willing to shut down the insurance industry in Arkansas when their goal had already been achieved? Bragging rights?

Here are the 19 Republicans who, in the last roll call, said they'd rather end insurance regulation in Arkansas, shut down a state agency and private insurance companies and strip $100 million from state and retirement funds rather than approve a bill that authorizes (but doesn't spend) $1 milllion in federal spending on planning for health insurance exchanges. The money won't be spent if a court strikes down federal health care reform. Doesn't matter to these nuts, nuttier than Republican governors of Indiana and Utah, to name a couple, who are fine with proceeding with health exchanges as the federal law encourages.

The 19 minority tyrants: Baird, Bell, English, Garner, Hammer, Harris, Hobbs, Hopper, Hubbard, Hutchinson, Lea, Malone, Mauch, Mayberry, D. Meeks, S. Meeks, Sanders, Stubblefield, Woods.

These 10 deserve no less condemnation for not voting, unless they had a valid health excuse: Altes, Barnett, Benedict, Biviano, Collins-Smith (DINO-Pocahontas), Cozart, Deffenbaugh, Eubanks, Jean, Johnston.

There's a special place in the fires for Collins-Smith, who is no Democrat but ran as one because it's the only way to get elected in her region. She might as well go down to Sixth and Chester and sign up with the rest of the Republicans.

The line is open. Closing odds and ends:

* TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY: The House meets into the evening. Another vote tonight on the Insurance Department? Don't know.

* HUCK PROMOTES 'GUNPOINT' LEARNING: Though someone tried to scrub it, a watchdog group has captured Mike Huckabee saying on video that Americans should be indoctrinated "at gunpoint" to learn Christian supremacist history from bogus historian and religionist David Barton. No guns needed in Hot Springs. David Barton is already God over the First Church of Hot Springs, otherwise known as the mayor's church home at First Church of the Nazrene.

* DORM INCIDENT: A couple of female UA athletes were arrested after a fight in a dormitory.

* ELEVATORS: Rep. Barry Hyde recalled his bill to exempt state elevators in the Capitol area from the state elevator safety law. He didn't explain. Perhaps it's to narrow the bill down to only the cause of the legislation — an aging freight elevator in the Capitol Hill Apartments where many legislators live that can no longer qualify for waivers from state safety rules. This is Secretary of State Mark Martin's bill to simply his oversight of the Capitol Hill building.

* CHARTER SCHOOLS: Reps. Tracy Steele and John Walker fought the good fight, unsuccessfully, against the charter school expansion bill. They aren't against charter schools. They are against the concerted effort to tear down good Pulaski County schools. Rep. Ann Clemmer of white flight Bryant is carrying the Waltons baggage on this bill. There was a time when she admitted how poor Bryant schools were. Now, it's all about the failing Pulaski County schools. Nothing like money and prevailing winds to change your outlook. It passed 55-28. The state continues to repudiate its solemn vow not to contribute to segregation in Pulaski County schools. Walmart flunky Clemmer also carried the bill to make it easier to create charter schools. This is the bill Sen. Jiimmy Jeffress, the Senate Education Committee chair, decided he wanted no part of. Champagne's on Luke Gordy. Ann can tell you where it's being poured.

* WOMEN LEGISLATORS: A program is set at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Capitol to honor all the women who've served in the Arkansas legislature. 30 of the 135 seats are held by women this year. Some of the history of female service is on the jump.

* INTERNET SALES TAX: The House completed action today on the bill to attempt to apply the state sales tax to some Internet purchases. Opponents debate how effective it will be, but it's a step toward fairness for in-Arkansas retailers. Walmart needs government help, doesn't it?

* WASHINGTON STYLE: Gov. Beebe decries the "Washington-style" government that has arrived in Little Rock. He means a handful of zealots willing to trash important government services with a minority roadblock on account of ideological fervor. Yes.

On its third try, the Insurance Department appropriation failed the House again this afternoon, once again drawing 70 votes, needing 75. There were 19 nays, with 11 absent or not voting. House Minority Leader Rep. John Burris rose reluctantly to endorse the bill after he failed for the second time to separate from the bill an objectionable expenditure of federal money to implement federal health care reform. That money had prompted two previous defeats by a Republican minority.

Said Burris: "I wish the bill were different but it's not. We tried to accomplish that, but we didn't. I don't blame anyone for voting no. But where we are in the session, it's important to move on and appropriate the money for the agency even though I have a problem with some of the aspects of the bill."

Rep. Nate Bell of Mena insisted he'd been sent to Little Rock to oppose health care spending no matter the circumstances and urged a vote of no. Rep. Kim Hammer of Benton said his NO vote was a defining moment. Rep. Charlie Collins of Fayetteville said he despised Obamacare, but said "holding up government" was not the proper course.

Lobbying will continue. Will fewer than 30 Republicans shut down a state department, close the private insurance industry and give up $90 million in government and pension funding to accomplish something that even Republican governors across the country have thought foolish? Sounds like some of them are so inclined. See why people are souring on the Tea Party?