- Ted, welcome back.

Always good to see you.

It's hard to believe, here we are.

It is the middle of May.

- That's right.

- And lawmakers at the State House are winding down as they prepare to finish at the end of June for the General Assembly annual session.

They're looking to pass hundreds of bills, and one of the ones that's received a lot of attention is a proposal by Governor Dan McKee, a resolution to offer pay raises to his cabinet members, which was unanimously rejected by members of the House.

What did you make of that?

- Well, I found the whole thing a bit of a surprise because first, the way people should understand the way it works is the governor proposes these raises and then the assembly has about a month to reject them or sort of passively allow them to go into effect.

We've seen saber-rattling before, Michelle, where you know, legislative leaders say, "Oh, we shouldn't be spending this extra money," but they don't actually do anything about it.

So for the House to actually take a vote to reject these and kick it over to the Senate and actually put that potentially all in play, I thought that was very interesting.

Now we should say, as we're taping this, we're waiting, we're expecting, frankly, within hours, the Senate leaders to decide are they gonna join in that and actually block the raises, or are they gonna let them go through?

So by the time this airs, I think we'll know how that came out.

But it's very interesting.

- And the political context is important, which is that House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, who of course presides over the House, is widely being seen as someone who is considering a possible run for governor next year.

- Right, and of course, Michelle, if Shekarchi was here, he'd say, "No, no, it's not about that.

"It's about the budget deficit "It's about my members don't want this."

And I do think, of course there's some truth to that, but as you say, you can't get away from the context that Shekarchi is at least toying with a run for governor himself next year where he would need to either run against Dan McKee, though he says he wouldn't do that or put distance between himself and McKee if McKee is no longer running at that point.

So I think it's a way to put a little distance there.

I don't think Shekarchi minds that, even if there are other motivations too.

- Yeah, another, you know, memorable moment over this past week were the hearings in the Senate over the proposed Assault Weapons Ban Act.

We have seen in recent years those debates, of course, get heated, but you've been saying this year it looks different, how so?

- Well, as we've talked about on this segment before, Michelle, this is the year advocates of the Assault Weapons Ban Act, it felt like they really could pass it.

Before his death, The late Senate President, Dominick Ruggiero, who'd been against it in the past, had signaled maybe he'd allow a vote on it.

The new Senate President, Val Lawson, is a supporter of the bill.

Now, that doesn't mean it's definitely going through, but I think that's why it's seen as such a live issue because the Senate's positioning on this has changed a bit, but we really, again, still don't know where it's gonna land.

Will there be a compromise?

Will it not actually happen?

So I think that one's gonna get a lot of attention in these final weeks.

- And what other bills are you tracking, Ted?

- Well, the budget bill, obviously, first and foremost, Michelle, the revenue numbers came back a little better, but spending is also up.

And so unclear to me if that's gonna be a wash or not.

So how they put the spending bill together in the end.

And also healthcare, we've talked a lot about the primary care crisis on here lately.

There is a big push going on for some serious investment in primary care, but there's also some pushback from those who say this is not a time we can afford to do something big and we need more information.

So I think that's gonna be a hot topic through the end.

- Bottom line, it affects everybody, healthcare.

- Absolutely.

- Good to see you.

Thank you Ted.

- Good to be here.