Veto override makes history; bill to create duo budget offices

After a week of budget hearings, state lawmakers got back to work today with the senate making history by overriding one of Governor Perdue's vetoes from last year.

It's been more than three decades years since the State House and Senate overrode a veto by a governor. And, the state Senate picked just one of the dozen veto overrides it received from the State House on the first day of this year’s session. And it's the only bill that deals with an issue dear to the senate.

The measure calls for eliminating the joint Legislative Budget Office, and creates separate Senate and House budget offices. Senator Don Balfour chairs the Senate Rules Committee. "We've been split up for six years. We've been acting as a House budget office and a Senate budget office. And I think it works out well. No one can look at it and say it hasn't worked out well. It needs to be codified in law."

Governor Perdue downplayed the override saying it's o.k. since he vetoed the bill on a technicality and not on policy. It's not clear when the Senate will take up any of the other 11 veto overrides, something House leaders have urged the Senate to do.