And after the Senate Meeting, Senator Michael Peyrefitte engaged the media on several topics. He commented on today's Senate Meeting. It was one of the shortest meetings that the Senators have had in a long time, and Peyrefitte said he was actually disappointed. He had his debate material ready but explained that the possible reason may be so that the Senate could recommend changes to the House - which they then have to decide whether or not they will accept.
Michael Peyrefitte, Senator
"I'm kind of disappointed, I got hyped up for nothing. It's like you get ready for a game and then the man say we will postpone the game. We always ready, we take the motto of the Coast Guard, ready for anything."
Reporter:
"What are some of the key points you would have debated today?"
Michael Peyrefitte, Senator
"Well I don't want to give away my strategy so you can tell them. But even the government knows there will be some issues with those bills being passed in the senate so I think that's why they've decided to hold off on them so we can talk about them some more, recommendations can be made, and if substantive changes need to be made to the bill then that can be made and sent back to the House of Representatives for them to further debate it. But that's up to the leader of the government business in the senate and that's up to the prime minister if they want to accept them back from the Senate and debate them again. But once the senate officially says that we want to make these changes, and we send it back to the house, it cannot become law again until the House debates it again and send it back because of course the house can tell the senate we don't want to make the changes, we vote for the original bill, now you go and you think about that in the senate. But the senate does have the authority to say look, as the upper house, we don't agree with these bills, and if you want these bills passed you have to make some adjustments to them."
"I know sometimes when I was in the government side of the Senate we would recommend and accept certain corrections, but minor corrections, the plural of the word as opposed to the singular or a comma here or a semicolon here, but we don't know if that's what the government would do, I think that's what they would do, but we just have to wait and see. It's the prerogative of the leader of government business to bring the matters from the house and table them in the senate for debate so we have to see how we go from here."
Knowledgeable observers tell us that the pause on these bills reflects the fact that the Senate is not controlled by the Government. We are told that this is one instance where the Briceno Administration is moving carefully on how they push through their bills. If one of those bills are defeated on the floor of the Senate, the Government would then have to wait until another session to bring them back. That then causes a delay in the Government's legislative business.
