Education and tort reform continue to take up lawmakers’attention as members of the House and Senate seek compromise on theissues, local lawmakers said.

Tuesday is the deadline for House floor action on appropriationsbills that originated in the Senate and vice versa.

“We’ll just have to finish up on the budget,” said Dist. 53 Rep.Bobby Moak.

The two chambers have passed different bills to fund stateeducation. With the differences, the issue is headed to conferencelater in the session.

“We’ll have to start going to work on that and see what we cando there,” Moak said.

The House-passed bill fully funds education while the Senatebill follows some legislative budget recommendations and ideas fromGov. Haley Barbour.

Dist. 92 Rep. Dr. Jim Barnett said he supported Barbour’sefforts to cut funds in areas such as transportation andadministration. He said he was proud of Dist. 39 Sen. CindyHyde-Smith for voting with the House in support of its educationfunding plan.

“But we’ve got to compromise with the Senate,” Barnett said.

Moak said the Senate is split on the education funding issue,with many following Barbour. The representative said he was havingdifficulty understanding the other chamber’s position.

The House has crafted a bill to fully fund education, Moak said.He pointed out that a recent budget revenue revision was within $16million of House projections, and state economic advisors expectrevenue to exceed House totals.

“The numbers are there. We’re in good shape,” Moak said.

While the Senate may be divided on education, House memberscannot find agreement on tort reform measures.

Barnett was hopeful that the issue could be discussed. Barbourhas indicated he would call special sessions to deal with thetopic.

Moak said special sessions would be fine, but he pointed to theSenate as the deal-breaker in the negotiations.

“I think the House position is we’ll discuss the issue headsup,” Moak said.

Moak said the two chambers had an agreement 10 days ago, but thetort reform bill was changed in the Senate.

If senators spent half as much time on education issues as theydo tort reform, the education situation would be resolved, Moaksaid. He said it is time for the Senate to “step up to the plate”on education.

“It’s time to prioritize some areas here,” Moak said. “It’s timeto take care of the general issues of the state, and then we cantake care of the other issues they want to talk about.”

In other legislative issues, Barnett touted the passage of aVoter ID measure. He indicated, though, that the measure could be alittle stronger.

“There’s a lot of exceptions,” said Barnett, mentioning variousforms of identification that would be acceptable under the law.”It’s very lenient, no doubt about it.”