As session wanes, legislators negotiate in private

There are 90 members of the Legislature, but the fourth week of its 2020 session ended with fewer than 20 negotiating, often behind closed doors, the outcome of key budget session issues.

As members of the House and Senate appropriations committees and other leading lawmakers negotiated, the majority of lawmakers were sidelined. Leaders sought compromises on the more than $7 billion two-year budget, state-funded construction and the potential purchase of 1 million acres of land and 4 million acres of minerals rights from Occidental Petroleum.

Discussions between the top echelons of the two cha...