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July 6, 2006
The Senate passed the HELP Committee’s WIA reauthorization bill on Thursday, June 29th before the Senate recessed for the Fourth of July holiday. SB 9 had been on hold, i.e., procedurally not able to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote, due to Sen. Richard Durbin’s (D-IL) request since last November because of the faith-based hiring provision in the House WIA bill. While the provision was not, and currently is not in this just-passed Senate bill, it remains in the House reauthorization version, and has represented a deal-stopper for Democrats on both the House and Senate side. The next step is for the House and Senate to appoint their conferees for the conference committee, however, the Democrats will not agree to appoint theirs unless there is a pre-conference agreement to resolve the disagreement about the faith-based hiring provisions in the House WIA reauthorization bill. It is possible that WIA will suffer the same fate as last year’s efforts, i.e, two passed bills but no conference committee action. No further information has been available this week about the prospects for the pre-conference agreement. Congress is recessed this week and will return July 10th. If you have any comments or questions, contact NAWB CEO Stephanie
Powers at: powerss@nawb.org
National Association of Workforce Boards
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